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Cinema-verite in America

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Cinema-verite in America

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Content CINEMA-VERITE IN AMERICA by Stephen Mamber A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (Communications -Cinema) June 1973 UMI Number: DP22233 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, th ese will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. UMI DP22233 Published by ProQuest LLC (2014). Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Dissertation Publishing Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code ProQ uest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 4 8 1 0 6 -1 3 4 6 UNIVERSITY O F S O U T H E R N CALIFORNIA THE GRADUATE SCHOO L UNIVERSITY PARK LOS ANG ELES. CALI FORNIA 9 0 0 0 7 This dissertation, written by . S . " ? . ® J ? h ® £ Y _ i d _ . e r under the direction of h~.?.... Dissertation Com mittee, and approved by all its members, has been presented to and accepted by The Graduate School, in partial fulfillment of requirements of the degree of D O C T O R OF P H I L O S O P H Y 1 / Dean D a ( e . . . . . . . l W . L ,fTJ !P 3 _____ t o . £>. C w v '7 3 a 63 y e DISSERTATION COMMITTEE ■ ■ " a Table of Contents Chapter Page I Cinema-Verite: Methods and Questions 1 II Drew Associates 37 III Direct Cinema and the Crisis Structure 147 IV The Maysles Brothers 186 V D. A. Pennebaker . VI Richard Leacock 245 VII Frederick Wiseman 276 VIII Conclusion 317 Filmography 322 Bibliography 332 - ii - C H A P T E R I Cinema-Yerite: Methods and Questions At its very simplest, cinema-verite might be defined as a film ing method employing hand-held cameras and live, synchronous sound. This description is incomplete, however, in that it emphasizes tech nology at the expense of film-making philosophy. Above recording means, cinema-verite indicates a position the film-maker takes in regard to the world he films. The term has been debased through loose critical usage, and the necessary distinction between cinema-verite films and cinema- verite techniques is often lost. The techniques are surely applicable in many filming situations, but our exclusive concern here is for cinema- verite documentaries, as will become clear through further definition. Even granting shades of grey within the cinema-verite spectrum (where, for instance, most Warhol films would be placed), it is still possible to speak of cinema-verite as an approach divorced from fictional elements. The influence of fictional devices upon cinema-verite documentaries is an important question, but the two can be spoken of as separate entities. Cinema-verite in many forms has been practiced throughout the world, most notably in America, France, and Canada. The term first gained popular currency in the early Sixties as a description of Jean Rouch's Chronique d'un E te. To embrace the disparate output of Rouch, Marker, Ruspoli, Perrault, Brault, Koenig, Kroitor, Jersey, Leacock, and all the others under one banner is to obscure the wide variance in outlook and method that separates American cinema-verite from the French or Canadian variety and further fails to take into account differences within the work of one country or even one film maker. Just as Rouch and Marker have distinct approaches, the Marker of Lett re de Siberie is not the Marker of Le Joli Mai. Because cinema-verite in all its forms is so varied, we shall concentrate on one relatively distinct branch. The work of Americans Robert Drew, Richard Leacock, D. A. Pennebaker, the Maysles Brothers, and Frederick Wiseman presents a sufficiently consistent film-making philosophy to allow for independent discussion. Happily, for critical purposes, enough diversity is also present to explore a range of responses to key cinema-verite questions. But in all ensuring discussion, it should be clear that "cinema-verite” is being employed under deliberately arbitrary circumstances, more in the context of what the American outlook expresses and, as I envision a certain ideal for this kind of filming, than as a universally applicable term. The problem is further confused by terminology. "Cinema- verite” is a pretentious label that few film-makers and critics have much use for. In America, and to some extent in France, the term "direct cinema” is preferred, although that, too, with some reservation. I prefer the French designation if only for its now traditional associa tion with the non-fiction film. Any/use of "direct cinema" is intended synonymously. Most importantly, cinema-verite is not to be tran s lated literally, for claims to higher truth by proponents of these films 0 will not concern us. The essential element in cinema-verite is the act of filming real people in uncontrolled situations. "Uncontrolled" means that the film-maker does not function as a "director, " nor, for that matter, as a screenwriter. In a cinema-verite film, no one is told what to say or how to act. A prepared script, however skimpy, is out of bounds, and so are verbal suggestions, gestures, or any form of direct communica tion from the film-maker to his subject. The film-maker should in no way indicate that any action is preferred by him over any other. The film-maker acts as an observer, attempting not to alter the situations he witnesses any more than he does simply by being there (along with, usually, another person recording sound). Cinema-verite has a faith in the spontaneous; the unwillingness to assert control goes so far as to refuse to recreate events, to have people repeat actions for the sake of being filmed. Interviews are also not employed, since their use, in effect, is a form of directed behavior. The meaning of the term "real people " develops from the com mitment to uncontrolled shooting. "Real" indicates not only avoiding the use of professional actors (unless, of course, we see them as actors), but also not placing non-actors into roles selected by the film maker, even to "play" themselves. Cinema-verite asks nothing of people beyond their permission to be filmed. The need for portable equipment is a result of the desire to shoot in uncontrolled situations. Instead of people coming to the cam era, the camera comes to them. The film-maker must be free to follow action without dominating it through sheer mechanical presence. Use of tripods, heavy lights, cables, and the rest of the paraphernalia of studio shooting is eliminated. The film-maker is a reporter with a camera instead of a notebook. Editing of footage shot in this fashion attempts to recreate events as the film-maker witnessed them. An outcome of the cinema- verite approach is that it integrates the film-making process: selecting a subject, filming it, and editing the raw footage become continuous steps in a single effort and not discreetly assignable tasks. The con nection between the uncontrolled event and the finished film is enforced by the film-maker functioning as his own editor. The footage shot can then be judged while editing as much by what is missing as by what is present. The idea is that the film will not contradict the events them selves through an ordering of shots, juxtaposition of sequences, or use of other manipulative devices at variance with the film -m aker’s own response as an actual witness. When editing is viewed as an indepen dent function, left to people who did not participate in the filming, a whole new set of priorities and biases, based solely on the footage, can conflict with the commitment not to distort the event itself. Editing, of course, is a selective process and inevitably im plies at least some shaping of the material. "Recreate" allows for a variety of responses in editing. A cinema-.verite film does bear the . selective influence of its creator. However, the respect in shooting for non-interference carries over as the determining force in the form, of the final film. Even though it is a reality filtered through one sen sibility, the film-maker tries not to shape his material on the basis of limiting preconceptions. In line with this, some of the standard devices of fiction film and traditional documentaries fall by the wayside, especially music and narration. The former is never added (one of the few generalities about these films that nearly always applies), and the latter, if nec essary at all, should do no more than provide facts essential to follow ing events on the screen. Whatever the film-maker's initial interest in the subject, the final film does not try to make the material seem as if it was included for theCpurpose of proving one specific point. The lack of "attitude" music and guiding narration are part of a general outlook which does not try to push the viewer in one direction and one direction only. Room is left for possibilities of complex response of as much depth as the situation itself. Cinema-verite, as we are speaking of it, then, is an attempt to strip away the accumulated conventions of traditional cinema in the hope of rediscovering a reality that eludes other forms of film-making and reporting. Cinema-verite is a strict discipline only because it is in many ways so simple, so "direct. " The film-maker eliminates as much as possible the barriers between the subject and the audience. These barriers are technical (large crews, studio sets, tripod-mounted equipment, special lights, costumes, and make-up), procedural (script ing, acting, directing), and structural (standard editing devices, tr a ditional forms of melodrama, suspense, etc.). Cinema-verite is a practical working method based upon a faith in unmanipulated reality. Any kind of cinema is a process of selection, but there is (or should be) all the difference in the world between the cinema-verite aesthetic and A - the methods of fictional and traditional documentary film. It is a ques tion of freedom, of refusing to tamper with life as it presents itself. Unfortunately, some writers have claimed that cinema-verite practically makes other film methods obsolete. ^ We should view such claims in a dialectical spirit, for while this kind of filming questions many assumptions of fiction films (as well as providing that way of film-making with new devices to exploit), it will certainly never dis place fiction film any more than photography has destroyed painting. Still, cinema-verite is more than a mutant offspring of documentary techniques. It deserves a place of its own as an alternative kind of cinema --not documentary (as usually practiced) and not fiction either (though often telling a story). Because it is relatively new (primarily , due to the recent development of the necessary equipment) is no reason to assume it is the wave of the future that will drown all past efforts. Nevertheless, it must be reckoned with as an extension of the present i limits of cinema, an independent form raising its own critical questions. Cinema-verite did not sprout full-grown in the early Sixties. A broad historical approach could locate traces of similar concerns from the beginnings of cinema. Such an approach would give the misleading impression that cinema-verite is the culmination of a sixty-year search for a new cinematic form. However, the supposed influences generally depart from cinema-verite in crucial areas, and the links are often rather tenuous. Instead of undertaking this sort of comparative survey in this chapter, we shall explore the work of selected film-makers and theoreticians who anticipate key cinema-verite concerns. This will be done primarily to discuss ideas still relevant to cinema-verite p rac tices today, and not to provide a full examination of cinema-verite p re history, Dziga Yertov The writings of Dziga Yertov are replete with statements that reflect a deep awareness of issues related to cinema-verite. Vertov coined the term "Kino-Pravda, " which was applied to a series of 2 twenty-three films, each organized around a specific theme or idea. Georges Sadoul claims that his translation of "Kino-Pravda" into "Cinema-Verite" in his 1948 Histoire du Cinema is the first use of the term . The origin of the label, however, is not so important as what it has come to mean. The Kino-Pravda of Vertov is not the cinema- verite of the Sixties, We can see the anticipation of many key cinema- verite ideas, but no more than that is claimed here. In the strongest possible terms, Vertov denounced all forms of theatrical, fictional cinema, calling for an end to the dependence of cinema upon literature, drama, and music, in other words, the char- 4 acteristics of nearly all films made to that point (and, we might add, most since then). He wrote of his cinema as being a branch of sci- 5 6 ence, and of each film as an experiment. He set for himself and his fellow film-makers the task: "To combine science with cinematic de- 7 piction in the struggle to reveal truth . . . to decipher reality. " With characteristic boldness, Vertov spoke of the goal of "observing and g recording life as it is (italics in original). " Vertov was insistent upon exploring the real world and the / actual objects in it. He wrote: "If a fake apple and a real apple are filmed so that one cannot be distinguished from the other on the screen this is not ability, but incompetence -- inability to photograph. The real apple has to be filmed in such a way that no counterfeit can be o possible ..." He was also opposed to the use of actors, except when they are seen as real people in order to study the relationship between th e ir ow n f e e lin g s and the r o le s th ey m u st p la y . ^ A n id e a quite c o m m o n in c i n e m a - v e r it e w a s e x p r e s s e d b y a R u s s ia n w r it e r in 1929 in d e s c r ib in g V e r to v 's m eth od : "The d ir e c t o r o r d in a r ily in v e n ts th e p lot fo r the s c e n a r i o - - D z ig a V e r to v d e te c ts it. He d o e s not, w ith th e aid of a u th o r s , a c t o r s , and s c e n e r y - c a r p e n t e r s , b u ild an illu s io n of life ; he th r u sts the le n s of h is c a m e r a str a ig h t into th e c r o w d e d c e n t e r s of lif e (ita lic s in o r ig in a l). These-'sentiments are well and good, but now seem somewhat platitudinous. Vertov's contribution above all was his realization of the crucial role of editing. He wrote that each "Kino-Eye" film (a 1 2 n a m e h e a p p lie d to a b ro a d p art of h is w o r k ) "is in th e a c t of b ein g e d ite d f r o m the m o m e n t the su b je c t is c h o s e n u n til th e fin is h e d f ilm comes out, that is to say, it is being edited during the whole film- 13 making process. " In a fitting metaphor, Vertov saw the bits of film , as bricks. With these bricks, he said, one could build a chimney, the wall of a fort, or many other things. And just as good bricks are need ed to build a house, in order to make good films one needs good bits of 14 filmed material. He also recognized that there was no one truth, 15 that editing could serve to support any truths (or lies) that one wished. Vertov even went so far as to note the three key "periods" in the film-making process and the different activities during each: the sel ection of the subject and the period after it is chosen when a shooting plan is developed, the period of shooting itself (which he realized was a 10 , selective period), and the "central editing" period when the film is assembled. ^ Although he saw each of these periods in a very differ ent light from the cinema-verite goals discussed earlier, the recogni tion of these steps as closely related parts of a continuous process is very important. Vertov was not opposed to scripts or some kind of scenario, reluctantly feeling that they were necessary in order that there be "a continuity and correspondence of scenes to result in an irresistible 17 movement forward. " He does, though, speak of making the script as brief and condensed as possible. Interestingly, he said that the cam eramen themselves should try to set up preliminary schemes, but since not every cameraman may be sufficiently knowledgeable about their subject, that they should be assisted by "specialists," i. e. scenario 18 w riters, who would work "arm in arm with the cameramen. " With admirable tentativeness, he admitted that his thoughts on this matter were not very clear, and he invited further dialogue. In an empirical spirit which is very much a part of cinema-verite, he asked only that his idea of the small scenario be tried, as "practice is the criterion of' tru th ." ^ Almost as important as Vertov's idea of editing is his recogni- , tion of the importance of sound, and even more crucially, the need for 20 synchronous sound. Along with his "Kino-Eye" theory he developed 2 1 the "Radio-Ear, " and he saw the two as inseparable. This is another ,'-" 1 outstanding observation on his :part,Ja for cinema-verite as we speak of it has come about only after the need for synch sound was again real ized and the technical battle was won. His recognition of the technical goals goes even further, for he spoke of the need for a camera that could go anywhere under all conditions. He wanted the "Kino-Eye" to 2 2 be as mobile as the human eye. As with sound, we will see how film makers forty years later came to discover the same need. Vertov also suggests yet another important cinema-verite con cept, that it tries to capture life as it happens and is not a re-enact ment of past events. He brings this up in the context of a discussion of the "Kino-Eye" as a means to study the lives of individual people, an idea at the very heart of the films we will be talking about: "I do not write on paper, but on film . .. Many w riters took their heroes from real life. For instance, Anna Karenina was based on the life of one of Pushkin's daughters. I thought about recording on film the history of Marya Demchenko from the life of Marya Demchen ko. The difference was that I could not write on film events that had already occurred. I can only write simultaneously as the events are occurring. I cannot write about the meeting of the Komsomol after it has taken place. And I cannot, like some correspondents, write an article on events, on spectacles, on carnivals several days after they have taken place. I do not demand that the cameraman be at the scene of a fire two hours before it breaks out. But X cannot permit that he go 12 to film a fire a week after the fire has gone out . . . "Now I am working on films about the Woman . . , They will be /-\ about a schoolgirl, about a girl at home, about a mother and a child . . . (and so on through ten or more examples). "I will also write about specific people, living and working . . . I will film the development of man from diapers to old age . . . The endless process of taking creative notes on film. The endless process 23 of observation with camera in hand. " The final entries on the bulging credit side of Vertov's ledger relate closely to a key cinema-verite issue --the question of camera awareness. In speaking of the filming of Vertov's The Man With a Movie Cam era, Sadoul says: "They chose people who were sufficient ly absorbed in some spectacle or violent emotion so that they would 24 forget the presence of a camera. " Sadoul also speaks of their film ing at a party filled with drinking and jazz, where those being filmed became more used to the presence of the cameras as the evening wore on (as a result of both their increased ease in front of the equipment and the effects of the dancing and alcohol) until they were behaving in the same manner as if they were not being filmed. Sadoul compares this to Richard Leacock's ideas on needing the confidence of the sub- 2 5 ject for this kind of filming. In this section, I have selected only those aspects of Vertovian thought which correspond to present cinema-verite ideas. An equally detailed account of the substantial differences between Vertov and cin ema-verite will not be rendered, but it should be emphasized that as lengthy an outline of these aspects is possible. From his interest in hidden camera, telephoto and infra-red lenses, use of slow and fast motion, extensive pre-planning of filming according to a particular theme, and especially his emphasis on strong editing control, Vertov in many ways corresponds more closely to other forms of documentary than to cinema-verite. Still, he was phenomenally prescient in this area, even if the direct path of influence goes off in a different direc tion. Robert Flaherty Robert Flaherty, like Vertov, is not strictly a percursor of cinema-verite, but again he prefigures important central elements. Also, the links between Flaherty and American cinema-verite are A more clearly established, primarily through Richard -Leacock's asso ciation with Flaherty during the making of Louisiana Story. The term that has come to be associated with Flaherty's meth od is "non-preconception, 1 1 through its use by Mrs. Flaherty in lec- tures and writings about her husband. To quote her: "Non-precon ception, a method of discovery as a process of film-making, was Robert Flaherty's contribution to the motion picture. From that meth- 27 od everything there is in his films flows. " The difference between 14 ■ what the word itself suggests and what Mrs. Flaherty means by it is somewhat misleading. Non-preconception, I would think should imply an idea no more complicated than the absence of prefojyned opinions, biases, or attitudes concerning the subject to be filmed. As such, it is a method very much in keeping with cinema-verite. But Mrs. F la herty uses the term in another way, to differentiate between the p u r pose her husband had in making documentaries and the goals of the English documentary school and also Hollywood films. Films like John Grierson's, she says, "have been preconceived for political purposes, for propaganda, " while, to her, Hollywood "preconceived" its films 28 "for the box office." Robert Flaherty's films, however, "do not argue . . . what they celebrate, freely and spontaneously, simply and 29 purely, is the thing itself for its own sake." Non-preconception, then, is used as a term to describe goals rather than methods. The problem of terminology aside, Mrs. Flaherty does have a point. Flaherty's films are different from Grierson's and Hollywood's. And, as I hope will become clear, cinema-verite has strong affinities with Flaherty's way of making films. The major Flaherty contribution, in term s of cinema-verite, begins with his interest in studying real people in their actual surround ings. He made films that explored cultures through the activities of a small number of people. In effect, Flaherty found stories about indivi duals that served as means to structure his films in a way that would 15' show what he felt to be important about the people (in a cultural sense) he was observing. (Said Flaherty on this point: "A story must come out of the life of a people, not from the actions of individuals. ”30) I And, quite significantly, the films only took shape in the arduous pro cess of shooting and editing, out of observation of life as it presents itself and not as the result of a prepared script. (" . . . you cannot superimpose studio-fabricated plots on an actual setting without find ing that the reality of the background will show up the artificiality of the story. The Flaherty method of film-making was as intuitive as it was complex. A fascinating analogy between Flaherty's work and certain Eskimo attitudes reveals a concept very much akin to cinema-verite. Basically (although the passage this is quoted from should be read in full), the idea is that the form of an object is an expression of its pur pose. The carver of ivory, for example, seeks to bring out that which is already hidden within the unworked piece. Through a "ritual of dis-; covery, " turning it in his hand this way and that, carving aimlessly if the result is not immediately apparent, he finds, say, a seal within the ivory. "Then he brings it out; seal, hidden, emerges. It was always there: he didn't create it; he released it; he helped it step forth. " Or, a found piece of an antler is examined, as always, only in term s of its intended use: "Form and function, revealed together, are inseparable. Add a few dots or tiny rings or just incisions, rhythmically arranged to 1 6 ’ 32 " ! bring out the form, and it's finished. " According to Arthur Calder- Marshall, "This attitude is implicit in all Flaherty's work, though he never stated it more fully than 'First I was an explorer; then I was an 33 a r tis t.1 " In term s of his method, this meant shooting a tremendous a- mount of footage, often with no idea of how it was to be used in the finished film. (Louisiana Story, for example, was an 8,000 foot film made from 200,000 feet of material shot, ^ a 25 to 1 ratio. ) Calder- Marshall notes elsewhere in his book that the end of a Flaherty film 3 5 usually came only when the money ran out. In reference to Nanook of the North, he says, "Perhaps if he had been given an annuity by Revillon F reres (sponsors of the film), he might have gone on shooting in Hudson Bay until he died, because the camera eye had become to 3 6 him more perceptible than his own. " If non-preconception is to be taken as a working method, this is its basis in Flaherty's work, the notion that filming should flow from the film -m aker's boundless in ter est in his subject and that shooting not be overly selective. This kind of shooting, of course, places a great burden on editing. We will lead into a consideration of that phase by picking up a thread dangling from the last paragraph, the idea that the camera eye is more perceptive than the human eye,J This is a bold concept, since the latter would seem to be the superior instrument. But Rich ard Griffith places even stronger emphasis on this point than Calder- 17 Marshall, connecting this view of the camera eye and Flaherty's shooting methods as follows: "He was the first film director to understand that the eye of the camera does not behave like the human eye, which selects from a field -4 •• of vision only what interests its owner. The cam era’s eye unselective- ly records everything before it . . . Robert Flaherty trust(ed) the cam era before himself. He wanted what the cam era's eye could show that his own eye could not see. Because of this, he shot everything, and only afterward, in the projection room, did he really 'make' his films, looking at all he photographed again and again until the underlying pat tern emerged for him. His was first of all an art of observation and 37 afterward of selection. " It becomes a simple but important matter then (though neither Calder-Marshall nor Griffith do it) to connect the property of the cam era eye as a superior recording instrument and the influence of Eskimo attitudes on Flaherty. The connection comes about because of what, I believe, the actual advantage of the camera is (which is not the advan tage Calder-Marshall and Griffith see), the opportunity for repeating the event as many times as necessary to assist in the "ritual of dis covery. " It is because repeated projection can yield new facets of reality that editing could be a creative process for Flaherty. It is a step comparable to the Eskimo carver holding his work up to the light and twisting it about. Without the possibilities for seeing the material 18 in a different light with each viewing, Flaherty would have had no urge . to edit. (Although it does(seeem as if editing was of less interest to him than filming. ) The idea of the relation between shooting and editing is basic in cinema-verite. For one, there should be an openness during filming to follow whatever activities interest the film-maker, rather than simply shooting the things which one expects will fit into an imagined structure. Flaherty wrote (close to the end of his life) that his first thought in connection with the use of a movie camera on one of his ex- 38 peditions was as a means ."to compile visual notes. " This tentative ness to the raw footage is not characteristic of other kinds of filming, but is certainly so of cinema-verite. Flaherty’s way of editing, as described by Griffith, is precisely analogous to cinema-verite. The selection process seeks to determine "the underlying pattern" (Griffith's term above) in the material. (This is not to be found in Yertov, who saw editing as the step which wedded the original theme to the footage shot in service of that theme.) That "pattern, " if it evolves out of the material, might not conform to t r a ditional notions of film structure. In most films, of course, whether documentary or fiction, the editing stage is not the time when such basic structural decisions are made. Flaherty’s The Land comes closest of all his films to following a cinema-verite approach. Flaherty travelled around the United States b eg in n in g in 1939, sh o o tin g m a t e r ia l r e la tin g to s o il e r o s io n , the p lig h t of migrant farm ers, and new mechanized farming techniques. The Land, to quote Calder-Marshall, "was not a film in the sense that it had an argument or a constructed pattern. It was a record of a per- 39 sonal journey » . . " Flaherty shot without a script, and the film does- not have a continuing "cast of characters" to provide dramatic\contin- uity (unlike his previous work). While Calder-Marshall sees in the 40 film "an epic theme he (Flaherty) could not resolve, " this lack of resolution is indicative of an unwillingness to package problems in a neat package. Flaherty was torn between sympathy for the migrant workers' plight and fascination for advances in agricultural technol ogy. To become a unified work, The Land would require an allegiance to one side or the other. But Flaherty took no stand, and the film r e flects the complexity of the situation. We will conclude our Flaherty discussion with observations made by two people who worked on Louisiana Story, his last film (1946- 48). The first is by Helen van Dongen, the editor, and is in her diary kept during her time on the film: "Films like Louisiana Story should be shot in such a way as if the camera were accidentally present to record the action while it happened without the subject being aware that the camera is present. This precludes automatically coverage from 41 every angle or with more than two lenses. " Editing in these films has to be learned anew. It is no longer a matter of cutting on action to 20 smooth continuity (or whatever other standard editing device). Editing’ becomes a place where one might have to decide between structural efficacy and commitment to the events. Richard Leacock was Flaherty's cameraman on this film. Most of Louisiana Story was shot silent with two Arriflex cam eras, a rela- 42 tively light piece of equipment. At the end, a sound crew with a Mitchell camera (much heavier than the Arriflex) came in for the 43 sequences where synchronized dialogue was needed. Over ten years later, Leacock was to recall these difficulties: ” . . . I saw that when we were using small cam eras, we had tremendous flexibility, we could do anything we wanted, and get a wonderful sense of cinema. The moment we had to shoot dialogue, lip- synch -- everything had to be locked down, the whole nature of the film changed. The whole thing seemed to stop. We had heavy disk record- I ers, and the camera that, instead of weighing six pounds, weighed 200 pounds, a sort of monster. As a result of this, the whole nature of what we were doing changed. We could no longer watch things as they developed, we had to impose ourselves to such an extent upon every- 44 thing that happened before us, that everything sort of died. " Leacock has said in several other interviews that this was the time when it became clear to him that the next step in developing these techniques of filming was a technical one, the need for having portable 4 5 equipment that could also record synch sound. (As we have already noted, Yertov anticipated this necessity some time earlier. ) We can think of Flaherty as the man who best expressed the faith in open observation that is at the heart of cinema-verite. Like Yertov, his methods extend beyond cinema verite's (and sometimes contradicts them, especially in the matter of re-staging events), but the consistent homage paid to Flaherty by the major practitioners of this kind of cinema throughout the world is not without firm foundation. Flaherty could say, "First I was an explorer; then I was an a rtist," but rarely has film art dealt so reverentially with the real world. Cesare Zavattini Italian neo-realism is often cited as an influence upon cinema- verite, but the relationship is marginal at best. However, discussion of the question would shed more light on neo-realism than upon cinema- verite. Instead, we shall consider briefly a "position paper" by Cesare Zavattini, neo- realism 's foremost proponent, which in spirit is very ■ i 46 close to our present concerns. Zavattini calls for "a direct approach to everyday reality . .. 47 without the intervention of fantasy or artifice. " The force of Zavat- tini's argument is distinguished throughout by an emphasis on the pos sibility for making films without the contrived drama of most fiction films, instead basing them on the simplest of incidents. Theoretically at least, Zavattini argues for a faith in real time with more zeal than has been demonstrated by any cinema-verite advocate: "No other med ium of expression has the cinema's original and innate capacity for showing things, that we believe worth showing, as they happen by day --in what we call their 'dailyness,1 their longest and truest dura"-. >.-■ 48 tion. " Elsewhere, Zavattini has also claimed that the supreme act of faith for a neo-realist would be to present, in the middle of a film, 49 ninety consecutive minutes in the life of a man. (A more ^drastic assertion of the same notion, suggested by Fernand Leger, is des- cribed by Kracauer: "Leger dreamed of a monster film which would have to record painstakingly the life of a man and a woman during twenty-four consecutive hours: their work, their silence, their in timacy, Nothing should be omitted; nor should they ever be aware of the presence of the c a m e ra ," ^ ) Zavattini is equally adamant on the matter of technical equip ment and the general way that films are made. This paragraph, indeed, makes a good deal more serise in relation to cinema-verite than it does to neo-realism: "The term neo -realism - - in a very Latin sense --im plies, too, elimination of technical-professional apparatus, screenwriter included. Handbooks, formulas, gram m ars, have no more application. There will be no more technical term s. Everybody has his personal shooting script. Neo-realism breaks all the rules, rejects all those canons which, in fact, only exist to codify limitations. Reality breaks all the rules, as can be discovered if you walk out with a camera to meet it. His feelings about screenwriting are especially surprising^^T”? considering that has been his major capacity in film-making. He goes even further, saying that "The screenwriter as such should disappear, 52 and we should arrive at the sole author of a film. " As Vertov wrote and Flaherty practiced, Zavattini also emphasizes the importance of the individual film-maker: "Everything becomes flexible when only 53 one person is making a film, everything possible ..." And on one last point he further concurs: "The actor .. . has no more right to ex- 54 ist than the story. " Zavattini has to be cited as part of the aesthetic foundation of cinema-verite, regardless of the failure of neo-realism to fulfill this stated commitment to undirected reality. There has to be room here for a man who can say: "However great a faith I might have in imagin ation, in solitude, I have a greater one in reality, in people. I am in terested in the drama of things we happen to encounter, not those we 55 plan. " Here, he beautifully articulates a cinema-verite outlook. Georges Rouquier Georges Rouquier's 1946 Farrebique is cited in A. William Bluem’s Documentary in American Television as an example of cinema- verite, and Bluem then uses it as a means to castigate this kind of film- 24 , making for seeking, he says, to hide the fact that events have been 56 reconstructed for the film. While Bluem is mistaken, Farrebique is a step between Flaherty and cinema-verite, although closer to the former. Rouquier lived on a French farm for one year to record the life of one family during that time. (This is a goal analogous to Flaherty's on Nanook of the North, which he said began with he and his wife de ciding "Why not take . . . a typical Eskimo family and make a biograjihy 57 (Bf their lives through a year? " ) Like Flaherty, Rouquier does not content himself with undirected reality, preferring instead to recon struct events for the camera, but the point is, the film does not p re tend to be otherwise. Like the moment in Flaherty's film when Nanook smiles briefly at the camera, Rouquier's film has many moments of similar unhidden complicity. When Bluem says we can see "that these CO people are aware that they are performing, " he errs in assuming that the rest of the audience doesn't see it, too, and that the film maker is making a special effort to hide this. Farrebique is a step towards cinema-verite for the faith it shows in its people. Its success on this score is reflected in a com ment like James Agee's, when he says the film makes one "realize with fuller contempt than ever before how consistently in our time so- called simple people, fictional and non-fictional, are consciously in sulted and betrayed by artists and audiences . . . this is the finest and 2 5" 59 strongest record of actual people that I have seen, " Agee also saw, and liked, Rouquier's interest in the simple details of their life, what he calls "the small casual scraps of existence. The film's interest in routine chores, the milking of cows, the slicing of bread, is indeed indicative of a concern for non-plot elements that is still exemplary. We are also indebted to Agee for castigating an early manifes tation of what would become a common cinema-verite criticism; he quotes Bosley Crowther’s rem ark that Farrebique_Jis "lacking in strong 6 1 dramatic punch . . , not even a plain folk triangle. " Agee correctly saw that the absence of "punch" was very much to Rouquier's credit. Jean Renoir and the Camera Jean Renoir, in an interview with Andre Bazin that first appear ed in France Qbservateur and later, translated, in Sight and Sound, indicates a shifting view of the role of the camera, partly inspired by television, that suggests an assessm ent of the proper use of the cam- ■ L p era that is typical of cinema-verite attitudes. Leacock has said that & 3 he is certain this article influenced him, but whether this is so or not, Renoir does make a crucial distinction that is at the hear^jsljsin- ema-verite, essentially that the camera should be looked upon as a recording device and no more, subordinate to what is being filmed: "... in the cinema at present, the camera has become a sort of god. You have a camera, fixed on its tripod or crane, which is just like a heathen altar; about it are the high priests - -the director, cam eraman, assistants --who bring victims before the camera, like burnt offerings, and cast them into the flames. And the camera is there, immobile -- or almost so - -and when it does move it follows patterns ordained by the high priests, not by the victims. "Now, I am trying to extend my old ideas, and to establish that the camera finally has only one right - -that of recording what happens. That's all. I don't want the movements of the actors to be determined by the camera, but the movements of the camera to be determined by the actor. This means working rather like a newsreel cameraman . .. It is the cameraman's duty to make it possible for us to see the spec tacle, rather than the duty of the spectacle to take place for the benefit of the camera. Renoir means this to apply to all forms of cinema, but when considered in conjunction with comments he makes later in the same interview about the power of reality as sometimes seen on television, his observations become very much to the point. In speaking of a tele vised political hearing, presumably the Army-McCarthy hearing, he says, "I found this tremendously exciting .. . and somehow an indecent spectacle to watch (ellipsis in original). Yet this indecency came near- 6 5 er the knowledge of man than many films. " The idea of the camera in service of the subject is more suited to unstaged reality, for in fic tion the subject matter exists for the very reason that it be filmed. In 27 cinem a-verite} the subject is of interest whether the film-maker was * there to record it or not. In other kinds of films, the way the material is shot and edited is usually a prime determining factor in whether the finished work is of interest. Cinema-verite, close to Renoir's idea of. the camera, uses it as a recording tool, so that the events themselves, "the knowledge of man, " becomes the standard we use to judge the film. Siegfried Kracauer Throughout this study so far, we have noted a continuing d is satisfaction with the artifices of traditional storytelling techniques as they have been employed in cinema. The objection has generally been to the preparation of stories prior to filming instead of allowing them to grow out of the events themselves. To recount this thread, (Kere are several examples previously noted: 1. "The director ordinarily invents the plot for the scenario-- Dziga Vertov detects it (italics in original). ” 2. "A story must come out of the life of a people, not from the actions of individuals. " (Flaherty) 3. "I am interested in the drama of things we happen to encoun ter, not those we plan. " (Zavattini) This question is the subject of extended consideration in Sieg fried Kracauer1 s Theory of Film: The Redemption of Physical Reality. Dr. K racauer1 s book is based upon his belief that "films come 28 , C w into their own when they record and reyeal physical reality . . . this reality includes many phenomena which could hardly be perceived were it not for the motion picture cam era's ability to catch them on the wing. His feeling that film "gravitates toward unstaged reality" goes as far as asserting "staging is aesthetically legitimate to the ex- £ > * 7 tent that it evokes the illustion of actuality, " but he limits his argu ment almost exclusively to the domain of pre-scripted fiction films. Nevertheless, many of his arguments are applicable to cinema-verite and reflect a faith in the real world that is shared by these films. The appearance of Dr. Kracauer's book in I960, just prior to the wide- scale blossoming of this movement, marks it as an important step in the aesthetic battle on behalf of reality in cinema that in many ways justifies the goals of cinema-verite. Kracauer has been properly r e buked for his intolerance towards many kinds of films, but without assuming that he speaks for the whole of cinema, there is still a good deal of merit in his argument. Kracauer does touch briefly upon the non-fiction film, and it is prim arily in connection with the notion now under discussion, the r e lationship between realistic and formative tendencies. He quite cor rectly locates the heart of the conflict: "On the one hand, the documen tary maker eliminates the intrigue so as to be able to open his lens on the world; on the other, he feels urged to re-introduce dramatic action 6 8 in the very same interest. " As Kracauer observes, the faith in 29 1 reality without plot has never been very strong: "In fact, the body of existing documentaries testifies to a persistent tendency towards 69 dramatization. " Into this seemingly insoluble dilemma, Kracauer proposes a solution. Assuming that stories will creep in one way or another, he suggests that some are more suitable than others. It is here that we are back to the recounted quotes at the begin ning of this section, for Kracauer, too, is a proponent of "discovered" drama. His term is the "found story, " which, he says, "covers all 70 stories found in the m aterial of actual physical reality. " His d es cription of this finding process sounds like Flaherty's Eskimo influ ence again: "When you have watched for long enough the surface of a river or a lake you will detect certain patterns in the water which may. have been produced by a breeze or some eddy. Found stories are in the nature of such patterns. " And, further, on a point of such im por tance that a good deal more substantiation would have been desirable, Kracauer considers found stories to be entirely unlike their fictional counterparts: "Since the found story is part and parcel of the raw m a terial in which it lies dormant, it cannot possibly develop into a self- contained whole --which means that it is almost the opposite of the theatrical story. " Also, the found story "tends to render incidents typical of the world around us. " Kracauer is very much taken with Flaherty's storytelling meth ods, and especially Rotha’s observation that "he prefers the inclusion 30 . i \ of a slight narrative, not fictional incident or interpolated 'cameos, ' 71 but the daily routine of his native people. " He sees this idea of "slight narrative" as an amplification of the previously cited Flaherty quote: "A story must come out of the life of a people, not from the actions of individuals. " From this he develops several implications which are more Kracauer than Flaherty, but are nevertheless of im portance here. According to Kracauer, Flaherty takes it for granted that a story is desirable in documentary, a point with which Kracauer agrees. Flaherty's preference for the depiction of typical incidents is inter preted as his means of developing stories "not from the actionf of in dividuals. " This is seen as a result of Flaherty’s being "afraid lest fully developed, rounded-out stories, which often have very pronounced patterns of meanings, pr,event the camera from having its say. " In r e gard to how the story should "come out, " Kracauer emphasizes that it should be elicited from "the raw m aterial of life rather than subjecting 72 the raw m aterial to pre-established demands. " Kracauer's arguments concerning the found story and the slight narrative provide some possible justification for the consistent depen dence on story that we find in most cinema-verite work. A key test, however, and admittedly a partially subjective one, is the extent that a story does indeed come out of the m aterial and is not forcibly extrac ted. But, in any case, Kracauer's delineation of the problem is a valuable’ -one. W The attempt in this chapter has been to shed some light on the intent behind cinema-verite film-making through the simple means of discussing some ideas which anticipate it. The question of direct in fluences, however, has scarcely been broached. To understand how cinema-verite has developed would require an analysis including, among other topics, influences of written journalism, photography, photojournalism, and television, as well as a clearer picture of the traditional forms of documentary (including types popular on tele vision). Hopefully, though, this chapter will have allayed the sugges tion, too prevalent in studies of this nature, that the methods in ques-' tion popped up spontaneously and were without precedent. 32 Notes 1. See, for example: Louis Marcorelles, "Le cinema direct nord americain, " Image et Son, No. 183 (April 1965), p. 47. 2. N. P. Abramov, Dziga Vertov (Lyon: P rem ier Plan, 1965), p. 15. 3. Georges Sadoul, "Dziga Vertov, M Art sept, No. 2 (April/ June 1963), p. 18. 4. Dziga Vertov, "Textes et Manifestes," Cahiers du Cinema, No. 220-221 (May-June 1970), p. 7. 5. Dziga Vertov, "Kinoks'-Revolution, " Cahiers du Cinema, 24 (June 1963), p. 32. 6. Dziga Vertov, "The Writings of Dziga Vertov, " Film Cul tu re , No. 25 (Summer 1962), p. 55. 7. Ibid. 8 . Vertov, "Textes et Manifestes," p. 11. 9. Vertov, "Writings, " p. 58. 10. Ibid. 11. Sergei Tretyakov quoted in Jay Leyda, Kino (London: George Allen and Unwin, I960), p. 177. 12. For discussion of category distinctions, see: Georges Sa doul, "Actualite de Dziga Vertov, " Cahiers du Cinema, 24 (June 1963), 33 pp. 23-31. 13. Ye rtov, "Textes et Manifestes," p. 15. 14. Ibid., p. 11. 15. Sadoul, "Actualite de Dziga Yertov, " p. 30. 16. Vertov, "Textes et Manifestes," p. 15. 17. Vertov, "Writings," p. 57. 18. Ibid. 19. Ibid. 2 0 . Ibid. , p. 60. 2 1 . Sadoul, 1Actualite de Dziga Vertov, " p. 26. 2 2 . Ibid. 23. Ve rtov, "Writings," p. 58. 24. Sadoul, ’Actualite de Dziga Vertov, " p. 27. 2 5. Ibid. , p. 28. 26. Citations in this paragraph are taken from The a Film -m aker because it is in English, but a better organized account strictly on Flaherty's technique is to be found in "La Methode de Robert Flaherty, " a translation of a lecture given by Mrs. Flaherty in 1964, in Image et Son, No. 183 (April 1965), pp. 25-32. 27. Frances Flaherty, O T he Odyssey of a Film -m aker (Urbana: Beta Phi Mu, I960), p. 11. 28. Ibid. 29. Ibid. 34 30. Quoted in Siegfried Kracauer, Theory of Film: The R e demption of Physical Reality (New York: Oxford University P ress, 1965), p. 247. 31. Quoted in Ibid. , p. 260. 32.{^Prof.~Edm u C a rp e nt e r., v'1 N ot e s on Eskimo Art Film, " in Arthur C alder-M arshall, The Innocent Eye: The Life of Robert J. Flaherty (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1963), pp. 69-72. 33. Calder-Marshall, The Innocent Eye, p. 72, YS 34. Notes of Helen van Dongen in Karel Reisz and Gavin Millar, The Technique of Film Editing (2nd ed. ; New York: Hastings House, 1968), p. 136. 3 5. Calder-Marshall, The Innocent Eye, p. 222. 36. Ibid. , p. 87. 37. Richard Griffith, The World of Robert Flaherty (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1953), pp. 164-65. 38. Robert Flaherty, "Robert Flaherty Talking, " in The Cin- , ema 1950 (London: Pelican, 1950), p. 11. 39. Calder-Marshall, The Innocent Eye, p. 197. 40. Ibid. , p. 193. 41. Quoted in Reisz and Millar, Technique of Film Editing, p. 218. 42. See photos of Flaherty and Leacock in Calder-Marshall, The Innocent Eye, between pp. 216-17. 44. Gideon Bachmann, ’’The Frontiers of Realist Cinema: The Work of Ricky Leacock, 1 1 Film Culture, No. 22-23 (Summer 1961), p. 14. 45. Ulrich Gregor, "Leacock Oder Das Kino Der Physiker, " Film (Munich), 4 (January 1966), p. 15; Louis Marcorelles and Andre S. Labarthe, "Entretien avec Robert Drew et Richard Leacock, " Cahiers du Cinema, 24 (February 1963), p. 18. 46. "Some Ideas on the Cinema, " Sight and Sound, 23 (July- September 1953), pp. 64-70. 47. Ibid. , p. 64. 48. Ibid . ' / p . 7 6 5 .> = 49. Cited in Eric Rhode, "Why Neo-realism Failed, " Sight and Sound, 30 (Winter 1960/61), p. 27. 50. Kracauer, Theory of Film, pp. 63-64. 51. Zavattini, "Some Ideas on the Cinema, " p. 6 8. 52. Ibid. 53. Ibid. 54. Ibid. , pp. 68-69. 55. Ibid. , p. 69. 56. (New York: Hastings House, 1965), pp. 125-26. 57. Flaherty, "Robert Flaherty Talking, " p. 12. 58. Bluem, Documentary in American Television, p. 126. ’ 36"' 59. James Agee, Agee on Film (New York: Beacon P re ss, 1966), p. 297. 60. Ibid. 61. Ibid., p. 298. 62. Andre Bazin, "Cinema and Television: Interview with Jean Renoir and Roberto Rossellini, " Sight and Sound, 23 (Winter 1958-59), ■ pp. 26-30. 63. Marcorelles and Labarthe, "Entretien avec Drew and Leacock, " p. 27. 64. Bazin, "Cinema and Television, " pp. 26-27. Nearly iden tical quote used at beginning of chapter on cinema-verite in Reisz and Millar, Technique of Film Editing, p. 297. 65. Bazin, "Cinema and Television," p. 27. 6 6. Kracauer, Theory of Film, p. ix. 67. Ibid. , p. 60. 6 8 . Ibid. , p. 212. 69. Ibid., p. 213. 70. Ibid., pp. 245-46. 71. Paul Rotha, Documentary Film (London: Faber and Faber, 1952), p. 106. Cited in Kracauer, Theory of F ilm , p. 247. 72. Kracauer, Theory of Film, pp. 247-48. CHAPTER II Drew Associates Robert Drew and Richard Leacock are together prim arily r e s ponsible for putting cinema-verite methods into practice on a grand scale. For three years from P rim ary to Crisis: Behind a Presiden- tial Commitment, they were the guiding force for what is still the most substantial body of work employing these techniques. Their films dem onstrated the possibilities in spontaneous, uncontrolled shooting, and first came to grips with major aesthetic questions growing out of that commitment. In effect, Drew Associates defined American cinema- verite, establishing so strong an approach that its influence continues . to dominate. Drew came from photojournalism- - once an assistant picture editor and reporter for Life. He became interested in applying the techniques of candid photography in the Life style to motion pictures. In 1953 NBC asked him to develop a half-hour television news show produced in this manner. ^ He made a pilot film called Key P icture, 2 and the result was, to use his word, "catastrophic. " Drew now feels that the problem with Key Picture was a combination of the use of an unwieldy eight-man crew and his own confusion as to how a candid film had to be structured, the difference between cutting on picture logic as - 3 7 - 38 3 opposed to word logic. At any rate, Key Picture has gone the way of all unsold pilots and no print presently seems to be in existence. In 1954 Drew took a year leave from Life to study these prob lems and went to Harvard on a Nieman fellowship. It was during this time that he saw Leacock’s Toby on television, and went to New York to meet the film's creator. "Leacock's ideas and mine coincided a l most perfectly, " Drew later said, and from there, with Time, Inc. 4 backing, their association began. The man responsible for Toby was deeply rooted in documen- < tary cinema. Richard Leacock spent his childhood on his father’s banana plantation in the Canary Islands, making his first film, a six teen millimeter silent film about the growing and packing of bananas, at the age of thirteen. In England, he attended school with Robert Flaherty's daughter Monica, and met Flaherty after someone showed young Leacock's banana film to him. Leacock helped toj found a film group at his school and made teaching films about geography. At seventeen he served as film man on an expedition to the Galapagos Islands led by his school biology teacher. Leacock came to the United States in 1938 to attend Harvard, where he studied physics for 3-1/2 years before leaving school to engage in more film work. P rio r to being drafted into the Army in World War II, he assisted in the editing of Native Land, made by Paul Strand and Leo Hurwitz, worked in v a r ied capacities on Charles Corvin's Frontier Films, and did a film about 39 ' folk music. As a Signal Corps cameraman in Burma and China during the war, he shot battle footage for weekly Army newsreels. After the war he visited his old acquaintance Flaherty, who ask- ed him if he was free for awhile. Leacock replied in the affirmative and Flaherty said, "OK, let's drive to Louisiana." So, on the basis of. a film about bananas made by a child many years before, Flaherty sel-? ected his cameraman for Louisiana Story. He worked awhile as a cameraman on a series called Geography, films produced by Louis de Rochemont for Universal Pictures, which included work on a film about a nomadic tribe of Berbers in the Sahara Desert. His description of this project sounds particularly Flaherty-like: "Our purpose in making a film of the life of such people is never to condemn them; it is rather to depict how, by leading an incredibly hard and frugal life, the Berber Nomads of the western Sahara are able to live in a land that we, with our rich natural resources, would dismiss as a total loss. Leacock also shared another Flaherty trait at this point -- one he would soon abandon-- his willingness to recreate events for filming purposes. Early Leacock Films - Toby and others Toby (or, more accurately, Toby and the Tall Corn) was made for the TY series Omnibus. Television at that time provided a fre e dom he had not known previously in commercial film work, since this Sunday afternoon cultural exercise did not need to press a sponsor's 40 ' viewpoint (even a subdued one as in Louisiana Story) or serve a specific educational purpose. Toby is interesting now for its struggle to over come the limitations of its equipment and for the verite spirit which nearly managed to subdue this formidable problem. Toby affects a story device that has since been used in other direct cinema films: a magazine w riter out getting his story. The narrator, who says he is a w riter from H arp er's, is first shown on a rainy night in his stopped car, peering at a road map. He is supposed to do a story about a traveling tent show, but he's lost in the Midwest ern wilde rnes s . This slightly quizzical beginning is the first indication of a standard concession the Drew-Leacock team made for television, the "teaser" opening. Leacock often mentions the need for this type of beginning, an affectation he feels is not necessary in films made spec- 7 ifically for theaters. Toby is about "America's only living folk theater" and the man who runs it. The film was shot with heavy thirty-five millimeter cam- g eras and a tape recorder that weighed over 200 pounds. Leacock com pensated for the lack of equipment mobility by taking advantage of the opportunity to shoot a little bit each day of the presentation, which could eventually be put together to give a full idea of the tent show per- Q formance. In between excerpts from the show are sequences of m em bers of the troupe travelling, setting up the tent, putting up photos, and selling tickets. 41 I Toby is a fairly talky film, with an element absent from Lea- ' cock's later work: on-camera interviewing. The narration, also, is unlike that in most direct cinema films, since the w riter-narrator offers an "outsider's" view of the proceedings, including interpreta tions of the show's humor, the motives of the people in it, and the tastes of the small town audiences they play to. The narrator, in effect, describes an alien culture. The camerawork and editing are generally uninspired. Due to the heavy equipment, the succession of unmoving tripod shots gives Toby a restrained, conventional look. Because of the piecemeal shoot ing procedures, the performance scenes are abundantly interspersed with unconvincing cut-away audience reaction shots. The only sequence of particular visual interest is a non-synch episode of the tent being erected in a stiff wind, a brief but energetic man-against-nature scene. Despite equipment shortcomings, Toby is an engaging piece of work clearly several cuts above the usual treatment given to obscure, almost exotic subject m atter of this nature. Leacock, working in com plete freedom for the first time, was surely out to show his stuff. The title character is a fascinating, colorful fellow very much at ease in front of the camera, a human interest story come to life. Not coin cidentally, he is the first of a succession of perform ers who have been subjects for direct cinema films. In Toby we learn about a man and his way of life, again a Flaherty-like objective that has remained the 42 prim ary goal of Leacock's work and most of direct cinema. After Toby, Leacock made two more films for Omnibus, How the F-100 Got Its Tail (1956) and Bernstein in Israel (1956). The for mer was completely scripted, and again shot with a heavy 3 5mm Mit- ■ chell. The film suggests another direction direct cinema was to take, trying to impart a "you are there" feeling to the audience. A good deal of footage shot from jets is used to suggest what if eels like actually to fly a plane. (Test pilots and car drivers were another group of p e r sonalities that would be drawn upon several times for later films. ) The beginning is again a Leacockiknade-especially-for-TV device, a routine interview at an airfield that is interrupted by an enormous jet whoosh ing by at about twenty feet off the ground. It is a well-made but undis tinguished documentary, limited by the necessity of having to adhere to a prepared script. The film about conductor Leonard Bernstein was shot with 16 mm equipment, but it was a clumsy type of sound camera which requir ed a connecting cable to the recording device in order to maintain synch ronization. Leacock has often recalled his frustration on this film with the equipment problems, and has said that this was the film where he realized the crucial necessity of mobile, quiet cameras which could 12 operate independently of the recorders and yet remain in synch. A second Bernstein film was made later in Moscow, but it was shot entirely with 3 5mm equipment again. If it is noteworthy at all, it 43 was the first time that Leacock, Albert Maysles, and D. A. Pennebaker worked together. The film is quite conventional, most of it taken up with the playing of the first movement of a Shostakovich symphony. The few shots in the film that were made outside the concert hall, like a meeting of Bernstein and Boris Pasternak, do not have live sound. Drew and Leacock(Tpgether - the early years The professional teaming of Drew and Leacock began about 1957. The two were agreed upon the need for better equipment in order to shoot more flexibly in a wider variety of circumstances. Both Drew's Key Picture and Leacock's films had been badly hampered by these limitations. Drew's interest in "creating a new form of journal-' 13 ism which would take documentary into the street" and Leacock's approach as exemplified by Toby were not widely separated at this time. Drew obtained the sponsorship of the Time-Life Broadcast Division, and they set ou.t to develop the equipment they needed and to put it into use making films. The collaboration did not result in any instantly acclaimed suc cesses, and it was three years before the landmark Prim ary. Most of these early films appeared on network TV shows in conjunction with the appearance of a Life photo-article on the same subject. There was a film about a Navy balloon ascent into the stratosphere for the purpose of getting a clear telescope view of Mars to see if there was any water 44 on the planet. It was shown on the Today program, and another film about weightless astronauts reached the public on the Ed Sullivan show. The most interesting film of this period never made it to television, about a football game between the Air Force Academy and the Univer sity of Colorado (not to be confused with the 1961 Mooney vs. Fowle, 14 also called Football). Typical of this group is Bullfight at Malaga, part of which ap peared on the Tonight show. It is a transitional work, still hindered by poor live sound but suggesting elements which were to become fam iliar in the later films, especially the heroic nature of the central char acters. The story of the bullfight is presented in personal term s, as the duel between two bullfighters. Bullfight at Malaga shows, however, that mere conflict is not enough to sustain these films, that there had to be a close look at how protagonists live and work in order to lessen ‘ the sense of dramatic contrivance. The language barrier keeps Dom- inguin and Ordonez, the bullfighters, too distant for us to maintain much interest in the outcome of their conflict. The language problem, though, is probably not so important as the synch sound difficulties, since a later film, Yanki, No !, has some very effective scenes which transcend language barriers. The Drew-Leacock films rarely display this lack of emotional contact with the subject, and the difference that synch sound later made in effecting this kind of character identification gives the bullfight film an antiquated feeling, a problem further 45 compounded by the artificial framing device again of a Life photo team out on assignment. Authorship - a preliminary qualification Some explanation is necessary in regard to the term "Drew- Leacock films, " the label used to describe their work in this period. Drew Associates employed and often trained a great many cameramen, reporters, and editors. Important names during this period include D. A. Pennebaker, Albert Mays^es^Jiames Lipscomb, Gregory Shuker, Hope Ryden, along with many others. As James Lipscomb has pointed out, referring to the key Living Camera series of ten films, Pennebak er was cameraman on more films than Leacock, Shuker produced more, 1 5 and others edited larger portions. It is incorrect to call any single work a Drew-Leacock film or to refer to the films as a group in this fashion, but the convenience of this appellation is difficult to discard. Louis Marcorelles, who has written extensively on American direct cinema films, even went so far as to differentiate between a "Drew line" and a "Leacock line. " He characterized the Leacock group (which he says includes Pennebaker and Albert Maysles) as "more cognizant of personal expression than the journalistic efficacy" of the 16 Drew group (where he places Lipscomb and Shuker). It would be very convenient to leave the m atter there, but this is at least a sim plification. 46 . P rim ary responsibility for all films up to and including Crisis must go to Robert Drew. This may be for better or worse, but it is undeniable. Drew did far more than form the organization which bears his name and secure the funds for its operation. His interest in the films went beyond the supervisorial; he took an active part (although never in the crucial role of cameraman). While Drew's central role should not be forgotten, these films are team efforts. They were usual ly shot with multiple crews and in many cases edited by different people from those who did the shooting. It has been reported that Drew As so- 17 ciates at one time had as many as seventy-five employees. Still, there should be no dispute concerning Leacock's half of the title. Although no single film of this period can be justly labelled Leacock's alone, his profound influence on all Drew Associates work as well as his own remarkable shooting deserves substantial recognition. The term "Drew-Leacock" seems most appropriate because it was the initial collaboration of the two which appears to have sparked the whole movement, despite the complexity of the authorship question. There is nothing to be gained through further speculation as to how to slice the pie. The films exist and they all contributed; the labels are simply for convenience. P rim ary Nearly everyone involved with the making of P rim ary feels that it marked the real breakthrough. Drew, Leacock, Pennebaker, and Albert Maysles all recognize it as the turning point, and generally by reason of the equipment. Leacock, for instance, has said of the film: "For the first time we were able to walk in and out of buildings, up and down stairs, film in taxi cabs, all over the place, and get synchronous 18 sound. 1 1 Drew makes a point of the equipment as well: "Prim ary was the first place where I was able to get the new cam era equipment, the new editing equipment, and the new ideas all working at the same 19 time. " There is much more to P rim ary than equipment improve ment, however, and actually the improvement is felt not so much here as in one soon after, The Children Were Wafching. P rim a ry , though, remains a fine example of their work, still as exciting to watch now as it must have been when first shown. P rim ary is an hour film (the same length as nearly all the films, the fifty-five or so minutes of a TV "hour" remaining after allowances for commercial breaks) on the Kennedy-Humphrey battle in the Wiscon sin Democratic Prim ary election in I960. The film is about evenly di vided between episodes with each of the candidates (cutting back and forth between them, rather than splitting the show into separate full segments on each). We see them giving speeches, hustling on the street for votes, speaking on television, and waiting in their rooms on election night for the results. Kennedy wins, but not decisively, and they now must push on to West Virginia to start the struggle all over. 48 " Drew originally had the idea for P rim a ry , and with Leacock sought out Senator Kennedy to persuade him to yield to this new tech nique of being followed everywhere in the course of the campaign. (It is interesting that Drew and Leacock felt the necessity for being able to shoot in private situations as well as public ones, for some of the most effective scenes in the film are views of the thoroughly fatigued candidates when they are out of the public eye. ) Kennedy relented and Humphrey later agreed, so the film was set. Drew arrived in Wiscon sin two days in advance and hastily made up a working plan, deciding which team would go where and how long filming would last. It was on- 20 ly at the last moment that the camera crews came in. As we shall see, this minimal preparation was typical, and quite unlike the planning behind most documentary films. Leacock, Pennebaker, A1 Maysles, and Terence Mccartney- Filgate did a good deal of shooting. Mccartney-Filgate is an important name in cinema-verite, a major figure in the National Film Board of Canada, especially for the Candid Eye series in the late Fifties. I ^ --------------------------- y y Mccartney-Filgate worked on this film and X-Pilot, but he took a dim view of the New York school of direct cinema, feeling that they were do ing things then (around I960) that the N. F. B. had done several years 21 previous. Drew, Leacock, and Maysles all acknowledge that he shot a good deal of P rim ary, although his name is often overlooked in re fe r ences to the film. 49 ■ For the breakthrough in cinema-verite, it is surprising what a small portion of Prim ary is shot with synchronized sound. Leacock has said that he was the only one to make extensive use of synch sound equipment, that Pennebaker and Maysles were shooting with silent 22 Arriflexes. At this time, it was still necessary for him to use a wire connecting the recorder to the camera (though the cameras were much lighter than at the time several years earlier when he faced this restriction while filming Bernstein in Israel). However, his ingenuity was abundant, and the technical bravura of his work is certainly a major reason for P rim a ry 's success. The two most intimate glimpses of the candidates were accom plished under particularly difficult circumstances. In both cases, Lea cock shot synch sound entirely on his own, with no sound man or other technical assistance. The first comes early in the film, a scene shot within Humphrey's car as he travels from one small town to another. He talks a bit about the countryside and then leans back to catch a few minutes sleep, as the windshield wipers tap out a monotonous rhythm on a rainy day. George Bluestone stated his case strongly, but in the proper spirit, when he wrote, "That one sequence gives us more in sight into the bone-crushing fatigue of a prim ary campaign than a thous- 23 and narrative assertions. " Leacock was sitting in the back during this journey, a m icro phone attached to the seat and shooting dob^with .a- small amateur 16mm 50 camera. Leacock believes Humphrey didn't even know who he was that day, probably thinking he was just a friend of someone in his entourage. He was equally inconspicuous in filming Kennedy in his hotel room on the evening of the election. Since the Senator was sitting in the same place the whole time (clearly exhausted by the campaigning experience), Leacock hid a microphone in an ashtray (remembering to change reels on the portable tape recorder at the required intervals) and had another 24 attached to his cam era to catch other voices in the room. Then, to quote Leacock, "I retired into the corner and got lost, sitting in a big comfortable arm chair with the camera on my lap. I'm quite sure he 2 5 hadn't the foggiest notion I was shooting. " There is much more to this scene than mere technical trickery. It demonstrates the special brilliance of a first-rate cameraman like Leacock (or as A1 Maysles was later to achieve), the ability to tra n s cend passive observation through a series of selections within single shots', but without losing the sense of actuality. Leacock pans quickly, from Jackie Kennedy whispering hello to a friend over to the Senator talking on the phone, Kennedy later dragging himself out of his seat to shake hands, and all the time we have a full sense of the room and the activities of the many people in it. The sound quality is poor; there is harly any light; there are many quick pans and zooms, but it is still an astounding revelation. Leacock is more than modest to say that he just sat there with "the cam era on my lap. " 51 There is one shot in Prim ary that no w riter fails to mention, a long tracking shot behind Kennedy. The shot begins outside a door to a building, where a small crowd is waiting. Jackie walks by and into the door, and then the Senator comes into the frame and heads for the door. The camera stays right behind him as he walks down a long corridor, shaking hands quickly as he moves through the mass of people. We go into a door, up a small set of stairs, and onto a stage, the shot ending with a view of the loudly applauding crowd. It is exuberant and exciting show-off, that wide-angle lens sticking to Kennedy through thick and thin. (There is, though, a cut about one minute into the four-minute scene that makes the sequence slightly less spectacular than it might have been. ) The shot's punch is also partially deadened by the use of a po r tion of it earlier in the film (an editing gaffe which occurred again in The Chair, when a similar long tracking shot down a hall to the electric chair is used twice). It is also part of a mixed view of what the film should be, either a recreation of the feeling of what it's like to be a prim ary candidate (the same way you'd recreate a jet pilot's experience by aiming a cam era out a cockpit window) or a study of two personalih ties locked in conflict. There is a confusion of purpose in P rim a ry , coupled to an energetic sense of trying to do everything and be every where at once. Albert Maysles,. who executed this famous shot, is also respon 52 sible for a particular device shortly after of a type that soon became outmoded in direct cinema, a cut-away close-up of a small action. The shot in question is a close-up of Jackie Kennedy's fidgeting hands as she says a few words to the audience. The problem with the shot is that this detail doesn't first become noticeable within a larger context; it needs to be zoomed in on instead of cut to. The distinction may sound trivial, but it is visually clear. Subjective details are fine, but we need to share in a sense of their discovery. Maysles understands this, and said recently^thatdif^he were to be shooting this now, he would try to integrate it into a lengthier shot to make the gesture more meaning- 26 ful. This is an editing as well as a shooting problem, for the way the shot appears in the film, it could actually have been photographed days apart from the rest of the scene and simply inserted for dramatic effect. It is cases like this shot and the need generally for the film maker to understand the power of the tools at his disposal that make direct cinema a more delicate exercise than it might seem. Besides the standout scenes, P rim ary is divided between fine, insightful moments and some crude, ineffective ones. This wouldn't be f ' 1 worth'noting, except that the good footage is all in synch and most of the rest was not shot with live sound. In the latter category are sev er al long handshaking scenes, a clumsy montage of feet in voting booths, and a lengthy speech by Humphrey shown prim arily in long-shot and in the faces of the audience so as to hide the obvious lack of synch sound. The form er group includes an excellent scene of Kennedy posing for a studio photo (which cuts to a shot(ofythe Humphrey photo on the front of his bus), Humphrey being interviewed on a local radio station, and good scenes with both candidates talking to people on the street. The contrasts between the two kinds of shooting suggest once more the ab solute superiority of synch sound, for non-synch m aterial becomes agonizingly artificial when placed in juxtaposition. Seeing that much of the technical difficulties which hampered their earlier work is still present here, one has to conclude that the real breakthrough was a creative one: they began to comprehend the special strengths of their methods of filming. They realized the value of little moments that do not necessarily advance a story, and at the same time, they saw the potential drama in a situation they did not create. If our final judgement of P rim ary is favorable, it must be for the energy behind it, the unpretentiousness of its fresh approach, and the suggestion of later possibilities for these techniques. Prim ary humanizes an impersonal process. It shows us a side of elections we rarely see, as opposed to giving us a "more truthful" view. As Lea cock admits, "Prim ary was a breakthrough, but in no way, m a n n e r ^ r form did Prim ary achieve what we set out to do, which was to show 27 what really goes on in an election. " Regardless of the initial inten tions, Prim ary fills in some gaps which aren't (and couldn't be) filled by more traditional documentary forms or in journalistic reporting. 54 . On that last point, there has been a good deal of argument as to the relative merits of P rim ary and T. H. White’s book The Making of the President I960. (Incidentally, White is clearly visible but never identified in the scene in Kennedy's room on election night, stalking a - bout with a small pad in his hand; /.)3 * The general opinion was that per- haps P rim ary was superior as a vehicle to show the noise and fatigue ; of campaigning (like the Humphrey scene that Bluestone t hought was better than anything that could be written), but that on the whole the White book fills in more details and tells things the camera couldn't reveal that people should know. A not overly extreme case was ad vanced by one French critic, who took P rim ary to task for not pointing out the intricacies of Wisconsin voter registration (which permitted Republicans to cross over in prim aries to vote for Democratic candi- 28 dates), as White's book had done. (This is alluded to in the film, though, when Kennedy refers to the Nixon people who may have voted for Humphrey to hurt JFK's chances. This aside might not have been translated in the French subtitles.) Jean-Luc Godard, in a stinging rebuke of Leacock in particular and direct cinema in general, also de nigrated P rim ary because it told us less about Kennedy than we could find in White. ^ The book versus movie argument is one side of the cinema - verite squeeze, the other being cinema-veritlk versus fiction films. The temptation to compare the films with both written journalism and filmed fiction reveals something of the mixed qualities of cinema- verite, but the arguments usually find c-v on the lesser side of either comparison. In the particular cahe> of P rim a ry , the only problem is one of intention. Whether or not Drew, Leacock, and the rest wanted "to show what really goes on in an election, " that they failed to do so by no means implies that the film is a failure. Just as P rim ary is not Making of the President, the convers>e is equally true. There is no reason one has to assume that the two are in competition, that their respective creators must achieve the same ends. P art of P rim a ry 's appeal is that it seems resolutely to avoid the more mundane electoral matters which fill up so much television and newspaper space during those periods. Rather than supplanting White, it supplements him considerably. It is interesting that detractors had to cite a book in their argu ment, that there is no film, documentary or fiction, they could name which approaches P rim a ry 's degree of revelation on the workings of American politics. Surely David Wolper's TV version of The Making of the President (scripted by White) is precisely the type of documen tary Drew and Leacock resolutely oppose: heavily narrated history lessons. Even here, though, it is possible to see P rim ary as an a lte r native, equally true and not necessarily contradictory. Unfortunately, The Best Man and Advise and Consent, the best fictional films on recent American politics, are surely further away from any feeling for reality than even Wolper's film. Both ficti'on films are hopelessly burdened at crucial moments with contrived melodrama. In both films, for instance, a homosexual accusation is sprung as a key dramatic point. By p r e tending to give us the inside story, which they expect people to believe; is sordid and perverse, they lose considerable claim to veracity. Des pite common source material, the final product of each of the three genres (direct cinema, journalism, and fiction films) is hardly com parable. P rim ary was shown on the four Time, Inc. television stations, the same limited circulation which their next film, On the P ole, was to receive. ABC became interested in their work after these first two programs demonstrated that this type of film had commercial possi bilities, and Drew signed a contract along with Time, Inc. to co produce four hour documentaries for the ABC Close-up series. John Daly, who was then in charge of ABC News, objected to the ABC-Drew arrangement, claiming that his authority as head of news and public 30 affairs shows was being violated. Daly subsequently resigned. This kind of in-fighting is indicative of the network politics that later kept most of the Drew-Leacock films from reaching a large audience, and no doubt from this very beginning causing a dilution of quality for fear of running into network-disfavor. The Close-up films Yanki, No! Yanki, No ! (I960), the initial Drew production for Close-up, deals with an immense subject for this kind of filming: anti-American feeling in Latin America. Yanki, No ! sought to convey complex issues on a personal level, through the presentation of brief episodes in the lives of certain key or representative Latin American personalities. While not wholly successful, Yanki, No! remains one of the most a m bitious Drew-Leacock films, a rare attempt for them to stretch the new techniques to cover m aterial which might not be ideally suited to these methods. Drew was at first reluctant to tackle this subject, feeling that to do an hour program about a whole continent was precisely the kind of idea they were against. (CBS and NBC had already done reports on Latin America, but they were just that, reports and not films. ) He was asked to study the m atter for a week. While reading about Latin A m erica during this period, he came to feel that the story of the continent was quite simple, a conflict between a small ruling oligarchy and the mass of poor people who were seeking other solutions, one of which was represented by Castro. There was a showdown about to take place at a meeting of the Organization of American States, and Drew felt that this would bring out the reactions all over the continent that they wanted to observe. So, on the basis of his feelings about the nature of the prob lems in Latin America and the upcoming events which he anticipated would be of a dramatic nature, he agreed to do the film. Failing these conditions, Drew feels he probably would not have consented to make the film.X— > The.prim ary difference with Yanki, No 1 is a basic structural shift, one that we might wish had been tried more often. The sharpest conflict comes at the beginning, in order to engage our interest, and the remainder of the film is an elucidation of the forces seething be neath the visual confrontation. The starting point is the OAS meeting, where the issue under discussion is a resolution condemning Cuba's cooperation with Russia and Sino-Soviet intervention in Latin America. When the resolution is passed, Cuba's delegation walks out in protest. Following an ostensible story line from the OAS meeting to its re p e r cussions in Venezuela and then to Cuba's response, Yanki, No! is a c tually more a film -m aker's view of life in Latin America than a nar- ;\ rated analysis of political viewpoints. Freeing itself of} the necessity to relate each sequence to the others (beyond the common goal of each to show a relevant facet of Latin American life), the film suggests possibilities for direct cinema outside of conventional dramatic expec tations. Seen today, a good deal of the narration, despite its worthy intention of encouraging U. S. concern for Latin America, sounds jejune. The power of the images stands. The two best scenes depict simple family life, one in Venezuela and the other in Cuba. Leacock shot the first, a sequence which begins 59 : with two long tracking shots through narrow slum passageways (quite . similar to certain shots in Chris M arker's Le Joli Mai, made three years later) trying to give a sense of the oppressive closeness of slum dwellings. The Gabriel family is very poor, the father an unemployed electrician's helper. The father, at one point, talks with a friend about his job problems; and the look in his eyes, the gestures of his hands, reach us more firmly than his translated words, Leacock's camera, certainly an alien instrument to these people, is once mor§ above passive observation, instead registering a sensitivity to its sub ject that is exemplary. The scene with the Cuban family, like all the Cuban footage, was shot by Albert Maysles. Jesus Morero, a fisherman, and his family, are moving into a government-built house, part of a fishing cooperative that has been set up since the revolution. Morero talks a- bout the effects of the revolution on their lives (all good), and his fam ily is seen in their new quarters. Again, the opportunity just to observe how other men live is sufficient to sustain our interest. Ethnographic content is dominant over possible political ramifications. Either of these two scenes could have been the basis for full-length films. Except for a few other brief segments on Cuban life, the rest of the film is more directly political: the Venezuelan representative to OAS being fired, an interview with a Russian seaman on a tanker that has brought oil to Cuba, university students talking about revolution, 60 and long portions of a Castro speech (freely paraphrased and interpre ted by the narrator). There is also a fair amount of obvious sound and image juxtapositions. At one point, a student talks about the need for revolution while the visuals show members of the wealthy oligarchy playing in a swimming pool. Elsewhere, the film cuts from a rainy view in front of a peasant's muddy hut to a sun-filled shot in front of the Presidential palace, and we even find the obligatory cliche, a pan from high-rise apartments by a modern highway to nearby slum dwellings. Leacock once said at a Flaherty seminar that he feels Yanki, No ! was the Drew film best suited to television because it was a "screaming, yelling picture. " One certainly has to say that its point, that Latin America is in the midst of tremendous change and we had better care about it, is hardly lost on anyone. A good deal of the narration in the Cuban sequences seeks to slant audience attitudes to an unpardonable degree. Over shots of people walking to a rally, the narrator says, "Now the revolution is going to stage a show, " implying that the rally to come could not be a true expression of support for Castro by the Cuban people. Likewise, little need be said about these twisting words: "Fidel Castro, who looks like a raving madman to North Americans, is seen by Latin Americans as a sort of messiah. Now you will see him at his messianic best. " This kind of narration is either superfluous or misleading, and in both cases highly undesirable. Further, there is a free interpretation of 61 . of events beyond the goal of the film to awaken us to the problems of Latin America. Yanki, N oi's ultimate argument is that unless we pro vide more assistance (mainly financial, but also spoken of generally as "concern") to Latin America, the whole continent will fall into violent, Communist-supported revolution that will do great harm. This type of theorizing may be contradicted by some of their own evidence (the Cu ban family in a new house is clearly much better off because of their revolution), and the power of the visuals is surely more persuasive than the narration. The attempts at political assessm ent are worth noting because Yanki, No ! was the first Drew-Leacock film to engender what was to become a familiar brand of criticism, that it opts for emotion over reason. Robert Lewis Shayon, long one of television's most respected critics, faulted Drew for not explaining "just how we could go about 'caring' for our Latin American neighbors : -(his italics). " He continued, "Yanki, No ! drew tight the emotional bow, but never discharged the a r row. " Shayon felt that the narration should have gone into more detail about the nature of the problem, to its "withinness" instead of its "with- outness. " Quoting him further: "It is nonsense that the camera 'r e places' the commentator in a documentary. The fervent narrative . . . was the essential anatomy of Yanki, No i" He calls the film redundant, saying that it had made its point by the thirty-minute mark. In short, Shayon argues for more words and fewer pictures: "Emotion . . . is but 62 ; one half of the pure gold coin of documentary creativity. Intellect is 32 the other half. " (It might be worth noting further that Shayon had a distinguished career writing radio documentaries and has written n a r ration for many television documentaries as w e ll.) To be opposed to such a conslusion sounds like championing anti-intellectualism, but that is precisely Shayon’s error. Leading viewers to specific conclusions and persuading them of the rightness of future courses of action is not necessarily a superior operation of in tellect. Shayon calls for a blend of emotion and intellect, a misleading request for compromise because it equates unnarrated direct cinema with "emotion" and narration with "intellect. " A concise reply to this charge,was made some years before by 1 Cesare Zavattini in reply to similar criticism levelled against neo realism (that the films do not offer solutions and that the end of a neo realist film is often inconclusive) when he wrote, "Every moment of the film is, in itself, a continuous answer to some question. It is not the concern of the artist to propound solutions. It is enough, and quite a lot, I should say, to make an audience feel the need, the urgency for 33 them. " Zavattini went on to note correctly that if the reality of the film is properly complex, solutions by their very nature are superficial. In fact, subjects of great interest (as in Yanki, No !) are often worth in vestigating precisely because they do not offer easy solutions. If any thing, Yanki,. No ! isn't quite as good as it might be because its tacit 6 3 suggestion of solution (by simply speaking of "caring") gives the aud ience an easy out. The film does not quite settle for presenting its view of the problem. But Shayon's criticism, old when he wrote it and still with us, wants issues wrapped in little bundles and neatly dispatch- ;ed. Yanki, No! at least refuses to strip issues of their essential com- — ---------------- I--------- - - , * -W plexity, which in itself is a more sophisticated intellectual process than "finding answ ers." • X -Pilot, second of the Close-up films, is a rather undistinguish ed offering. Its subject is the final test flight of the X-15 and the a c tivities of its pilot, Scott Crossfield. The film is moderately dull, not because its m aterial is necessarily uninteresting, but as a result of the constant conflict between a narration telling of the monumental import of:this flight and its apparent routine nature. Taking on the twin goals . of telling the story of the flight and attempting a personality study of its pilot, X-Pilot ends up doing neither very well. Crossfield's reticence is an unconquerable obstacle, and the film might have been more successful if the attempt at examining his personal qualities had been abandoned in favor of simply showing him in action. "I'm a pilot not an actor, " Crossfield says in one scene when he abruptly departs, but what he should have said was the he is som e thing of an impersonal automaton and not much of a talker. Direct 64 cinema, when it aims at character revelation, requires at least a min imum level of.volubility. Interestingly, the narration acknowledges Crossfield's reserve, explaining that he's "too busy" to talk any more and that we will learn about him by watching his activities. These a c tivities, however,, are' decidedly impersonal in nature, and the added personality assessm ents by Crossfield's secretary and other associates are m erely desperate attempts at making the machine^?human. The foot age of the flight is good, but interest in the pilot's danger is scarcely sufficient to support the supposedly tense nature of the flight. The relevant comparison to X-Pilot will be Eddie, most of which had already been filmed (and shown as On the Pole) before X- Pilot. If we are to be led up to a moment of dramatic crisis (as X- Pilot would have us), some feeling towards the people involved beyoncf’ casual indifference is essential. On this standard (which it sets for it self through suggesting that Crossfield is different than he appears), X-Pilot is a disappointment. The Childr e n -Were :Wat ching The Children Were Watching, third of the four Close-up films (made before X-Pilot but shown after it), was shot in New Orleans dur ing one week of a school integration crisis. Completed the same year as P rim ary, the improvement in technique and story construction is considerable. The Children Were Watching is the first of the Drew- Leacock films to emerge fully formed, where no apologies have to be made for equipment problems or unsuitability of subject m atter. A good summary of the film's events is available, ^ though it is hardly a substitute, of course, for seeing the film. (Another measure of the success of a direct cinema work appears to be the extent to which telling "what it's about" comes close to reporting the events themselves i. e. the degree that the film doesn't break down into an easily repeated story or quickly outlines argumens. ) Briefly, the film is an explora tion of white segregationist attitudes as they manifest themselves in situations surrounding an attempt to integrate a local public school, and their effects upon a Negro family (the Gabriels) whose daughter is sup.^ posed to be one of the first to attend a previously all-white school. The Children Were Watching is a suitable test case at this point for the omnipresent question of objectivity. Since the film divides its time between white segregationists and a Negro family, can it be said that both sides are treated fairly? One test for this would be to ask whether the people involved would object to the way they are shown. While the nature of the film -m aker's commitment is unconcealed in the film, the scales are not unduly tipped. White segregationists would pre sumably not find fault in the portrayal of their actions or convictions. Amidst the flurry of activity, The Children Were Watching allows them a lengthy opportunity to air their views. Arnold Dubrow, a white PTA leader, discusses in detail his feelings that blacks are essentially " 66" inferior and that integration is a Communist movement. Leander P e r- ex, a well-known white segregationist leader in Louisiana, adds his agreement in a later scene. The film certainly treats white segrega tionists more squarely and openly than those supposedly more rational documentaries which try to soften the deep feelings behind their beliefs in order to suggest that objections to integration can be easily overcome. These white are actually more interesting than the blacks in the film, since the rightness of the latter's cause makes their activities and comments more predictable. If there is a point in The Children Were Watching where over- emotionalism becomes objectionable, it is in the title conception, the rather obvious assertion that prejudice is passed on from parents to children. This is translated three o r’four times into visual term s by pans and/ or zooms to children looking on as their parents yell "nigger” or other heated epithets. It is too conspicuous a device, too much a play on our sympathies through deliberate visual manipulation. The nature of prejudice is too complex for this facile connection to carry sufficient weight. A. William Bluem in Documentary in American Television is prepared to use The Children Were Watching as a test case, too. Through it he brands direct cinema of this kind "a negation of that v ir tue which underlies the documentary idea, 1 1 of failing to "explain the 35 meaning of events in order to invoke the sobriety of reason. " " 67 . Leacock, Bluem says, "was predisposed to show only hate and fear at its most tumultuous level, leaving no room, no avenue, for thoughtful action. " He feels that emotional involvement here becomes an end in itself, rather than being used to lead people to intellectual involvement. He later goes on to conclude that direct cinema's "significant niche" is1 to be found in stories outside situations of social concern, that it "m ustj/ .in the final analysis, be removed from the contemporary disputes which men must resolve in the name of reason if they are to survive . . . but New Orleans, the places where great national decisions are made, and all the other pressure points of a civilization cannot be the foci of ap- 36 plication. " Though his argument is more fully expounded, his essential point is the same as Shayon's in relation to Yanki, No !, that judicious narration is required to analyze events and that a positive course of action must be outlined. This view misunderstands the intentions of direct cinema as badly as it misinterprets the possibilities for reason ed discourse by television. It is clearly no accident that Bluem, like Shayon, has won laurels for documentary writing, for their attitude thinly veils a belief in the supremacy of the narrated word ("reason") over the word spoken by a participant in a real event ("emotion"), of the explanation for why something happens over the power of an event to be its own evidence. Bluem and Shayon imply that the visual image (and even the synchronized word) should be.no more than a lesser adjunct to the voice of narrative'wisdom. Any reasoned proposal for ways to effect integration has to ans wer the challenge of The Children Were/Watching. Traditional docu mentaries are founded upon-the assumption that there are answers to all issues, that solutions can be found. The past ten years have not seen segregation problems . solved, and; the fault for that can not be laid on the door of verite. Further, "reason" can be put forth in printed form, and if the only purpose for its use in News Documentary is that it can reach more people, then there is no need for these efforts to be ' considered anything more than photographed essays, which, alas, is what most of them are. Bluem specifically calls for detachment, and the crux of his e r ror is that he sees detachment as prerequisite to reason. When Bluem says that in The Children Were Watching "no room is left for thoughtful action, " he either means that there is always room for thoughtful action and Leacock has closed it off, or possibly, that if the events themselves do not reveal room for thoughtful action then it is the film -m aker's task to tone down their innate emotionalism by distorting the event. The issues of Yanki, No! and The Children Were Watching, revolution in Latin America and integration in the United States, are two fine exam- ' pies of problems that are discussed by a citizenry so far removed from actual experience that their rational discourse lacks a firm foothold in reality. To pass judgement on any proposed solutions to the integration ' 6 9 ; problem in the South, one must first realize the formidable opposition that exists there towards all solutions. But in any case, The Children Were Watching contradicts no plans for integration and does not deny the possibility for later change. It simply shows what happened the first time it was tried in New O r leans. It is the task of each viewer to consider the events, not for a narrator to indicate how to react. The emotionalism of The Children Were Watching is, in fact, its fundamental strength. There is a scene on the street in front of the school when an irate woman, after talking about her willingness to "die for her cause" of keeping the schools white, turns in anger upon the camera and starts to smash it. The screen goes black for about ten seconds, as the yelling and noise con tinues. At this moment the cam era communicates a truly subjective experience, making the viewer feel like an actual participant. When the woman lashes out at the cam era (at us), we know more about the pressures against integration than any verbal presentation (narrated or in print) could report. Rather than assuming, as Bluem does, that L ea cock was predisposed to show hate and fear (since Leacock’s predispos itions are entirely a speculative matter), it is m ore natural to assume that he was faced with the task of recreating what he witnessed. F u r- there, as Bluem chooses to ignore but as we have already noted, the i / scenes of anger are not the whole film. Those who over-react to the emotional moments are voicing their distaste for the event as much as for its depiction in the film. If The Children Were Watching were all sound and fury, it would be easy to dismiss it as a cursory examination of an extremist event. But we are also shown what's behind the anger and what its effect (on the Negro family) can be, and the connections between these elements (the anger, its motives, its results) are convincingly made. That it is powerful dramatically is almost bei’ide the point. $ Adventures on the New Frontier Until February, 1961, Drew was still a salaried employee of Time, Inc. At that time he formed his own production company, Robert Drew Associates. For all intents and purposes, however, the production arrangements were the same prior to that point as after. Time, Inc. continued to finance Drew Associates as they had his earlier efforts, and still acted as selling agent for the films along with retaining 37 future rights. Though free from Time, Inc. by name, they remained bound on both sides (financing and distribution) by the parent company. The last of the Close-up programs was shown one month later. Adventures on the New Frontier is A Day in the Life of John F. Kennedy in the White House. It is a film that should be mercifully passed over. Beyond a structural interest and the need for some study of the failures along with the successes (to understand their correlation^},) Adventures 1 1 1 on the New Frontier does little to m erit attention. It is usually best to ignore the overinflated opening and closing narrations of these films, but the beginning of this one points up the unrealized possibilities that are at the heart of the problem: "Now you will begin to move with the President, seeing and hearing for yourself in a new kind of report, not. a filmed version of a summary or opinion you could find in print, but a personal adventure with the President as he confronts the great prob lems of the U. S. and the world . . . " The idea is admirable, but its execution leaves much to be desired. The first part of the film suggests that it has been assembled from old snippets too choice to be discarded. We see about ten minutes of footage from P rim ary (without being told it is part of the earlier (_■ film), a brief but choice scene with John Kenneth Galbraith and John Steinbeck on the way to the Inauguration, and a slight segment from the Inaugural Ball. From here Adventures on the New Frontier is organ- . ized by themes, and the device is too artificial and limiting. The trick used is to play a line from Kennedy's Inaugural Address (over a shot of the White House) to introduce the subject of the following segment. This is done five or six times. The separate parts are a nice introduction to some of the responsibilities the President has to bear, but it plays like a classroom lesson. After an interminable succession of theme segments (which in clude conferences about unemployment, the economy, the Peace Corps, Africa, the military), there is a final (glimmer/of hope when a segment is introduced by a shot of the White House at night and a narrative prom ise that "Now you will see and hear Kennedy at more intimate moments. " While we see him, though, we aren't permitted to hear him. Over-aggressive narration is again called into service to sub stitute for filmic deficiencies, as we are told what is happening instead of being left alone to hear (and see) for ourselves. One must assume either that extensive synch shooting was not permitted of-private con versations or that they were later excised. In either case, there is nothing so frustrating as being promised a peek in a keyhole and then having the light inside turned off. Its own claims to the contrary, Adventures on the New Frontier dotes on the JFK charima without get ting beyond it. Kenya, Africa Kenya, Africa (often called Kenya, but this is the title as it appears in the film and also the more proper label, as Kenya is to be taken as a typical African nation) was a venture in the Yanki, No !/] genre, a political analysis through a combination of individual person ality studies and more general segments about conditions in the coun try. The film is nominally divided into two parts, Land of the White Ghost and Land of the Black Ghost. Opening narration says that the first half will show Africa from the point of view of the white settlers, and the second will deal with "what it's like to be in an African country 73 about to become independent. " The conception and its realization are again two different things, and this is another case of certain parts be ing superior to the whole. The best segment of the film is the only one which sticks to the original intentions, that tries to show Africa through one m an’s point of view. That man is Jim Hughes, a British colonist who owns a large farm in Kenya. Hughes talks freely as he leads a tour of his farm , tell ing of the difficulties he had in settling in Africa and the struggle to establish a good life for his family. He proudly shows off the village he built for his native w orkers, and tells how civilized he has made them. He is asked if he knows what the word "uhuru" (freedom) means, and he replies that he does not. Talking about the state of his country, Hughes asks, "What's going to happen to law and order? ” Like the white segregationists in The Children Were Watching, but on a quieter, more refined level, Hughes damns himself with his own words (that is, if one is opposed to colonialism). The possibility r \ of his "acting" for the cam era is irrelevant, as Hughes is clearly put ting on a show for its benefit. It is his colonialist assumptions, the core of his very nature, that leave him exposed. As one w riter has observed, even though he has carefully prepared his presentation, it is no less revealing. As in a court of law, "everything you say may be 38 held against you. " Louis Marcorelles says of the Hughes segment: "Politically, 7 4 , the brief portrait of the Kenyan colonist, who will appear infamous to some and touching to others, according to what you think of whites and 39 blacks, defines most precisely the words 'filmed journalism. '" Thirard and M arcorelles are making the same point, that it is possible with direct cinema to let a person reveal his thoughts and way of living, and still leave room for the film to be evidence to support different con clusions. Ideally, and it is so here, there is even room for mixed feel ings. Hughes is a very friendly sort, well meaning, and hardly violent. He just doesn't question his role as a colonialist. A viewer with differ ent assumptions is free to leave with different conclusions.iv _JNeither-'rX ‘ ( qbfaSedinarration, argumentative interview questions, deliberate attempts to make the subject look foolish, or garish cam era angles intrjide on the film portrait. Leacock, again, was responsible for this difficult feat of treating an unpopular subject openly. He has spoken of his view of "the 40 fundamental equality of all the people we film" and this is a fine ex ample of the result of openness to a subject's views. Sadly, the Hughes segment comprises less than half of P art 1 of Kenya, A frica, and the rest of the whole film is quite a muddle. Hughes is introduced at the start, but, as the narrator makes the excuse "To understand Jim Hughes you have to understand that . . . , " the film goes off on a number of tangents. This portion is standard travelogue m a terial, with rather bad narration. For instance, over shots of an o r dinary city scene, the narrator tries to pep things up by reporting, 75 "This sunlit calm is deceptive. Underneath is fear. " There are even brief shots of wildlife so cliched they could be stock footage (narrator: "This is a hard land"). The only bright spot in this first half of Land of the White Ghost is a scene of some rich Californians on safari, din-, ing on lobster and asparagus in the middle of the wilderness and chat ting about baboons. Shortly after, the Hughes m aterial begins, in ter rupted several times by other interviews. Part Two, Land of the Black Ghost, is a disappointment, failing to get close enough to any black as the first part did to Jim Hughes. There is much talk of the "ghost" of Jomo Kenyatta, a native leader still in jail seven years after Mau Mau uprisings he helped instigate. A theatrical gimmick is used several times, Kenyatta's face superim posed (like a ghost, apparently) over different scene of the country. The narration constantly attempts to build a tension between the prom ise of emerging independence and the threat of tribal uprising. The natives, however, look hardly threatening, and, after all, the Mau Mau revolt was a ; .good time earlier. There are some scenes with election candidates (a feeble attempt to make this an African P rim ary ), and the Kenyatta ghost continually pops up. It is even used as the final shot, where the narrator says his release is still the key issue. This 'seems1 , though, little m ore than a lame excuse for failing to provide a fuller examination of the black condition in Kenya. A couple of years later, Drew and Leacock e x p r e s s e d i ^ ^ y l 76 dissatisfaction with Kenya, A frica. Drew felt that the documentary genre (presumably referring to this film and Yanki, No 1) was less satisfying than the single person dramas. He went on to say that the very fact of its lengthy narration made it inferior to a film like Eddie, 41 which has much less outside commentary. At any rate, it will be interesting to see that with Nehru, they studiously avoid a broad show-, the-whole-country approach, even though the outcome is still less than satisfactory. At least they were willing to risk many different m is takes on ambitious projects, rather than repeating easier formulas. The Living Camera - a note Over the next couple of years, from middle 1961 to the end of 1963, Drew Associates (which no longer included Albert Maysles) made an even dozen one-hour films. Of these twelve, only two were shown on network television. The other ten films were eventually tied to gether as a series called The Living Camera (a name sometimes m is takenly applied to all the films). They made their films during this time in the hope of enticing a buyer for a TV series that would contin 42 ue, but this never came about, mainly because the networks consid ered the films to be documentaries and they chose to produce their own. The Living Camera series was eventually shown on RKO General sta tions. P rio r to the time they were shown on American television, several of the films were shown at European festivals and even had a 77 few commercial showings there, so the work of Drew Associates was known and discussed in Europe well before it made any impact here. The films were all financed by Time, Inc. , at a reputed total 43 .- ■ > cost of about two million dollars. It remains to that;'organization's everlasting credit that they so richly supported such an ambitious ex periment. In term s of both technique and subject m atter, it was quite a gamble. Bucking the network feelings about independently produced documentaries (recalling the conflict at ABC that led to John Daly's resignation), it is simply incredible that Drew Associates was given sufficient freedom to make these relatively expensive films on subjects as unnewsworthy as a retiring airline pilot, a high school football game, and a young pianist's competition. For whatever compromises made to network tastes, there is an integrity in the adventurousness of the whole enterprise which is still formidable in retrospect. There is some irony, though, in that the films adjusted to prime time network conditions but rarely attained that goal. On the Road to Button Bay The one Drew Associates film thatjwas shown on network te le vision in 1962, a year they were at work on six other films that would eventually become a part of the Living Camera series, is a piece of completely unconde sc ending Americana. On the Road to Button Bay slips easily into its story of three girls from Topeka, Kansas, and their '78 1 trip to a Fiftieth Anniversary Girl Scout celebration in Vermont. The ' structure is simply defined (preparations for the trip, the Jamboree, the return) and the small moments of drama and fun are plentiful. The only ’’crisis" is not a dominant element of the story, a minor trauma as one of the girls cries over the problems of being a patrol leader. For the most part, the film is carried by the light banter of the kids and their wide-eyed innocence while coping with a series of unfamiliar sit uations. Had the film -m akers desired, the film could have gone out "to get" the Girl Scouts, to subtly ridicule their activities. Happily, there is no suggestion of this, and On the Road to Button Bay is a de light. Some argue that this low-key type of subject is the only sort suitable to direct cinema techniques. Bluem says, "The very success of Drew's method in 'Button Bay1 stressed the reason for its failure in almost all the News Documentaries which Drew's unit(produceS-. " He feels that in Button Bay "the unity of climax and resolution was inher ent in the story, " and that this isn't possible with more controversial 44 subj ects. While agreeing that direct cinema is eminently suited to situa tions with little news value, the rest of Bluem's structural analysis is pointed 180 degrees in the wrong direction. It is the Button Bay kind of story where "the unity of climax and resolution" are least inherent in the story. A suggestion of the usual Drew structure comes up often 79 (cutting between the preparations of each of the girls for the trip, the m ini-crisis previously mentioned), but there is too much happening to allow it to take charge. Because no dramatic course of events over rides lesser activities, the film is hardly committed to a crisis stru c ture. In more controversial situations, eventual climas and resolu tion are the elements that initially determine what the story will be. Regarding The Children Were Watching, a film which Bluem dislikes, he argues in quite contradictory fashion, saying in effect that crisis and conflict were too much in evidence in the real events. So when Bluem says he likes Button Bay for its "inherent” structure, what he is really saying is that drama may be present in more controversial subjects, but it is better left to "human interest" stories of little public consequence. He skirts the central issue of the extent that the crisis structure is suited to any subject, whether large or small, preferring instead this veiled suggestion that m atters of public concern are best left to the "creative" documentarians. His discussion of structure is simply rationalization to support this narrow view. By the time of Button Bay, their equipment was as flexible as it would become. Shooting everywhere and in synch is now quite nor- mal, but itHa.jeasy to forget how much this adds to a film like Button Bay. Being able to record one girl's difficulty in getting up at 5:30 45 A.M . for a practice camp-out,, to follow them on a train, and always to catch their mumbled comments and cute expressions gives the film 80 ' a personal intimacy sufficient to sustain what otherwise might have been dull in the extreme. The relationship of the cam era to the people it records will continue to be a m atter for consideration, but the fact of the film -m aker's ability (should he choose to exercise it) always to be with his subject should not be ignored. On the Road to Button Bay is a good place to point up, once more ' ' 1 the difficulty of assigning creative responsibility for a particular film. Besides Drew's customary credit as Executive Producer, the credits list six film -m akers, two assistants, four editors, and two assistant editors, making a total of fifteen acknowledged contributions. To call the film Drew's, Leacock's or anyone else's, is quite a simplification. (|2Afdrriittedl^iini|mne^a=se:s it is not so difficult^) When so many people shoot different portions, which others may edit, the best we can do is pin final responsibility on Drew, who did run the whole show, and note individual contributions when appropriate. On the Pole and Eddie Many w riters have assumed that On the Pole and Eddie are a l ternate titles for the same film; in fact, they are two different films. (To confuse m atters, such is not the case with Mooney vs. Fowle and Football, two names for one film. ) On the Pole, except for a brief portion, was filmed at the I960 Indianapolis race. The first half of Eddie is taken from On the Pole m aterial and the second half was shot '81 in color at the 1961 Indianapolis race. The distinction is necessary because the second film is not m erely a sequel. Both films are about race car driver Eddie Sachs, but the manner in which the se'cond is shot and edited, and the film ’s division into half-and-half coverage of two races, makes it important to maintain the distinct'hirl between the two titles. On the P o le.begins with some newsreel footage of an Indianapolis race and we see a car spin out. It is now a year later, the narrator says, and Eddie Sachs is back to try once m ore. We first meet Sachs as he drives a passenger car, telling the cam era about the advantages of the pole position (first row in the race, on the anside). The early part of the film has several scenes that have Eddie speak director to the cam era, explaining different aspects of the race. There is also a poolside interview with Eddie's wife about his past accidents (narrator: "Dark memories that return on a sunny day"), where she tells about the operations he had after a particularly bad crash; "They even put holes in his eyelids so eyelashes could grow. I think it's a wonderful f ‘ ‘\ thing. " Theoretically unsympathetic to using interview m aterial, the Drew films used it on occasion, but generally (as in this case) only to supply information of a non-factual nature instead of as a substitute for action. Also atypical in the first part is a shot of a newspaper headline, carrying in a glance more about the town's excitement than any scene could show. In big letters the paper reads "Sachs Wins Pole. " Below 82 this and sm aller: "10,000 Turks Repulsed. " Not dwelt upon, it is quite humorous, but fortunately they did not try for laughs like this on other occasions. As race time nears, action begins to dominate talk. Following a printed title, "4:00 A. M. - Day of the Race, " a fine unnarrated se quence of early preparations is an effective suspense-builder. A large number of cars are already on their way to the track. We also see an early m ass for the drivers (as withtthe bullfighters in Bullfight in Mala ga) and shots of souveni^and program sellers. Nicely inserted isja£^T> quick shot of nurses walking onto the track, the sort of journalistic de tail that Drew wisely chooses not to comment upon. Eddie becomes less concerned about the cam era as the race gets closer, but having already seen his normally assured manner accentu ates his present quiet nervousness. Busy taping his goggles and lost in his own private thoughts, he jumps up late for the Star Spangled Banner. As he gets into his car, he silently clasps his hands, closes his eyes, and mutters a prayer. He's in tears, and it is inconceivable that he could be concerned with the presence of the cam era at this point. The footage of the race is hardly more than competent, but a couple of points are worth noting. Near the start of the race, a grand- stand collapses. There are only<tw;o brief shots of it and the sound of the track announcer calling for a doctor, and then back to the races. In an interview a couple of years later, Leacock said that eight people were ' 8 3 ; 46 killed in that mishap. The incident is nearly ignored in the film, a fact worth mentioning in the face of criticism about the Drew films that they always exploit dramatic incidents. Here, it was not part of Eddie's story and wound up a wholly understated moment. Also interesting is the simple difference in filmed life-and-death situations when the aud- ience feels close to a protagonist. In X-Pilot it was hard to care about the outcome of an equally hazardous task. In On the P o le, even if you don't like Eddie you still care what happens to him. He is not a neutral personality. Eddie.,has to quit the race because of race trouble. This un- precedictable outcome had no bearing on the film's opportunity for r e s olution. Like P rim ary and many of the others, whatever happened, win or los e, there was still an ending. As the winner is being cheered, Eddie stands alone on the track. The action at this point is described by Colin Young as follows: "He becomes aware of the cam era, tries to pretend he has not seen it, but we become aware of his bluff --w e see him putting on an act, we see him gradually becoming resentful of the cam era he had earlier accepted and welcomes; and because of this we see morq^ clearly below the surface of a man who lived to win and lost - - p r e cisely because, when Sachs was no longer lost in his own task, the cam - 47 era became an intrusive element. " This explanation may be over-interpretive, but an important point is made - -a subject can be aware of the cam era and in spite of that (or because of it) we can learn something about him. In On the Pole, Sachs shows three different levels of cam era awareness. The first is in speaking directly to the cam era, as when he discusses some aspect of the race. Here he tries to put forward a positive view of himself, though we may still feel differently about him than he might wish (as we could in the scenes of the white colonialist in Kenya, Africa). The second level is found in the scenes just before and during the race, where he is so wrapped up in other things that we truly feel he forgets the cam era. The third level is this last cas e,/~~*"2j^ when Sachs sees the cam era and pretends he isn't noticing it, but we realize'’that he does. Young feels that On the Pole is the most articulate film that 48 came from the Drew-Leacock association. I would agree, but with the proviso that "articulate" not be equated with best. On the Pole is of particular interest for the reason just cited, the rich interplay of cam era-subject relationships. Also, the subject is most suited to the usual structure of the Drew films, something close to a traditional k V i story-telling method. (It is worth noting that^j.like P rim a ry , the sub- 49 ject was again chosen by Drew. ) The issue of "finding" or "forcing" a story is an extremely tricky matter, but here the conception is whole. Given the subject, the structure seems precisely right. On the Pole showed conclusively that their kind of recorded reality could be as 8 5 exciting as any fictional drama. One may well ask, though, if that is the best use of direct cinema; but given that purpose (which most of the V '" Drew films have), On the Pole fulfills its dramatic dimension ad m ir ably. With such a smoothly flowing structure, though, there is al~ ways a nagging feeling that something is wrong. Because a cinema- verite film is dramatically satisfying may be eymiTrnore reason tcT- sus- pect it of sacrificing some aspects of truth on the altar of entertain ment. Leacock takes issue with the very scene Young likes so much, saying that it is too easily misinterpreted. He thinks that "in fact, 50 Eddie was just damn well pleased to be alive. " There may still be some room for this interpretation on the basis of the filmed evidence, but the emphasis on winning throughout the film naturally leads to the assumption that he is heartbroken by the loss. While Leacock's opin ion may be no more correct simply because he was there, On the Pole still might have left a little wider possibility for less cliched interpre tations. As it is, the dramatic resolution tends to limit the ambiguity of the outcome. Eddie fits the role of tragic hero too closely. The rationale behind the "crisis" format includes more than its dram atic efficacy. Justification for this structure (as it is expressed in the narration of some of the films and also by several who have w rit ten about the films) includes the feeling that a person's true nature comes out in crisis situations. By seeing a man in crisis, the ~ 86 1 argument goes, we learn things about him that would never be appar ent in less hectic situations and that he himself could never express in direct interviews. Consider, for instance, this explanation of the closing moments of On the P o le: "After the race, his thoughts of r e tiring are gone. He will, of course, try again. Why does he race? He never tells us, but we know, in an intimate and complex way that defies verbalization. We know because we have been close to Eddie 51 Sachs during a crisis in his life. " Like the "moment of truth" in bullfighting, the crisis is supposed to be a man's ultimate test. In On the Pole, this idea holds up. It worked so well, in fact, that it came close to being a formula, with less than satisfactory con sequences in situations not so well suited to this structure. Further, we might question the philosophical (or rather, psychological) basis for this approach. Do crises indeed show the "true" nature of man? Can we really assume anything about a person and his motives from how he acts in crisis? Summing up on this point, three advantages are generally claimed for the crisis structured They are: 1. The subject is less aware of the cam era during these diffi cult moments, and hence acts more naturally. 2. The building up to the crisis, the crisis itself, and its resolution, provide an exciting dramatic structure. 3. By seeing the subject put through a test, we learn things about him that we couldn't find out through other means. On the Pole is the quintessential Drew crisis film, and the one where these attributes relate more closely. There are Drew films where the subjects seem less ay/are of the cam era (Football), where the structure is more satisfactory and the resolution more complete (Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment), and where we learn more about a person in a crisis moment (Jane); but never is there so harmonious a combination of these elements’ as in On the Pole. .-. -M i.— i I . ... On the Pole has a P rim a ry -like conclusion, with Eddie and his wife leaving Milwaukee for another race. The last words of the film are an open invitation to a sequel; M rs. Sachs tells her husband as they drive away from Indianapolis, "Next year, Eddie. " The "next year" Mrs. Sachs spoke of comes in Eddie, where condensed On the Pole m aterial makes up the first thirty minutes. The narrative bridge between one year and the next is continued: still photos of four drivers who were killed that year, superimposed over a shot of a car crashing. The narration intones their names and tells where they were killed. (The risk of death was not overstated, as Sachs himself was killed in a crash several years later.) P art Two bursts into living color with some rapidly speeded-up shots of the parking lots and grandstands fill ing up on the day of the race (a gimmick used in P rim a ry , and that Chris Marker later employed in Le Joli Mai). Seeing Eddie in color requires some reorientation. The color gives him more presence in ' 88 a literal sense, making him seem more in the present, but the use of color feels overly obtrusive and unnecessary. When we see the re le a sing of hundreds of balloons as we did in On the Pole (a yearly ritual before the start of each race) the difference in color is too large; it detracts from the narrative. Further, everything in this half (shot at the 1961 race) is outdoors. Apparently, color also kept them from go ing inside, an unnecessary restriction, for the chance to stay with the subject as much as possible should be more important than the beauty of color. This half is nearly all of the race, unlike On the Pole which used the race as a climax to a long series of preparations and scenes that let us find out about Eddie. The 1961 race is shot very differently from the preceding year's, which was more conventionally executed. ■ "7 Here, thereis a constant intercutting between the race's.-saction and M rs. Sachs 1 reaction as she watches from the stands. As Eddie pulls in for a tire change, for instance, cut to M rs. Sachs yelling for them to hurry up. When there is a car crash, we hear the sound of her screaming before cutting to see her expression. Throughout the race, we see almost as much of her as we do of the race itself. This kind of editing raises serious questions. It isn't' simply that there is crosscutting between two actions, but that we are to be lieve that the cuts are "honest, " that the two actions are wholly sim - < " ' v ultaneous. There is a great deal of intercutting in the Drew filnjs, as between Kennedy and Humphrey in P rim a ry , or the black family and the white segregationists in The Children Were Watching, but usually these cuts do not necessarily require our believing that the two eyents are occurring at the same moment. Here it is essential, for if we do not feel that M rs. Sachs 1 scream comes at the exact moment it is put on the sound track (at the time of the car crash), we feel manipulated and cheated. An acceptable device in fiction films,Ht is impossible in direct cinema employing a narrative structure unless we believe in the simultaneous occurrence of the two events, because dram a arises solely from that fact. Leacock and Drew claim absolute synchronization in this 52 case, and there is no reason to doubt them. There is, at least, a specificity to M rs. Sachs 1 responses that leads one to believe that the editing has been honest. One must note, though, that the drama in the race depends upon a certain omniscient view; two simultaneous events must be covered in order to appreciate either. This is a fundamentally different approach to the recording of an event (by means of multiple cam era crews and later editing it all together) than the technique of shooting with one cam era and trying to construct a narrative from that. On the Pole and Eddie (or the two halves of Eddie) are good examples of these two prevailing tendencies in storytelling (and editing) tech niques. The first tells a more or less continuous story of one person. The second seeks to provide a fuller view of an event through cutting 90 between what are, in effect, two stories occurring at once. In each case the event is the same (the running of a race), but the methods chosen to cover it are different. are concluding scenes stressing his determ inate^ to try again. This ending is probably the worst of the possible outcomes (in term s of drama) because it is so close to what happened the year before. B e cause of that, the whole second half seems superfluous. So, the weak- the two halves of the film combine to make Eddie less satisfactory than On the Pole. David David is about an ex-addict living at.Synanon House, where a group of sim ilar individuals voluntarily join together to help each other stay away from drugs. We are with David for a week (or so the n a r r a tion states), waiting to see if the young trumpet player will be able to stay off heroin. His story gets sidetracked a couple of times by epi sodes of two other addicts, both of whom eventually leave, presumably to return to drugs. This works neatly, suggesting only too obviously the possibilities for David. There is the inevitable go at a crisis moment. At a time when the stories of all three addicts are coming to a head, the n arrato r says Eddie ends with Sachs coming in second, and once again there ened dramatic tension and the unreconciled editing differences Retween 91 that "emotions are building up to an explosive Synanon session. " The session turns out to be a little more than a dull encounter group situa tion lasting for at least a fourth of the film. The experience is less than enlightening and not a satisfactory resolution to the manufactured crisis. The film ends as it begins, with shots of David swimming in the sea. This week (says the narrator) has been a victory for David. David is redeemed by a tangible degree of concern for its title subject’s fate, a feeling of cam eram an's love for his subject. Where in On the Pole our interest in Eddie as a person is closely tied to the excitement of the race, in David we care more for the nature of his struggle than for dramatic titillation. There are a couple of beautiful scenes with David and his wife and child, the tenderest moments in any of the Living Camera films. David's music is also skillfully employed, a fittingly melancholic sound that is used for mood in several well- edited sequences that seek to do nothing m ore than convey the feeling of the place at that time. (Admittedly, some find this contrived. Henry Breitrose, for one, objects strenuously: "It is as if the style scream s to the audience 'Isn't this poetic and m oving ! 1 It may very well have been, but the qualities of poesy and emotion are destroyed by its ob- 53 viousness. " ) The moments when plot is not advanced are invariably the most interesting in David. The better qualities of David are due to D. A. Pennebaker, and assigning credit here is only done because David is indicative of a 9 2 : particular sensibility that is evident elsewhere in Pennebaker's films. 1 In its own way, Pennebaker's work is equally as distinctive as Lea cock's, and while his range of interests is more limited, his style is no less identifiable. Louis Marcorelles even goes so far as to say that only Pennebaker, among all those who worked on these films, was able to assert a personal style, and the he accomplished this in David and 54 Jane. While Pennebaker's accomplishment is not so unique as M ar corelles asserts (because Leacock displays a personal style as well), anyone familiar with his later work would know who is responsible for David. The Hemingway-like ending of David brings up a touchy point, the degree to which a film-maker should have control over the m a te r ial he shoots. M arcorelles, in the same article, raves about the final moments: "The last scene attains an extraordinary plastic beauty; it gives us the nostalgia of a more refined classical cinema, of a Frank Borzage enriched by nuances of direct: David's success is in the bal ance, he goes bathing in the California waves, entering almost timidly into the water. And Pennebaker's cam era follows him from a distance, trembling imperceptibly, as if at the m ercy of the waves which carry 55 him. " Pennebaker, however, dismisses the ending completely, say ing that it was forced on him against his objections. He thinks it false ly suggests that David is better off at the end of the film than he was at 56 the start and that this simply wasn't so. Whether or not Pennebaker i is correct in his interpretation, this is a good place to assert what should have been assumed from the first: the edited film should not contradict the film -m aker's view of the event. Marcorelles may be right about the beauty of the last scene in David, but if the person who . shot it doesn't think it's a true representation of the event, then it shouldn't be there. Involved in this case, of course, is the possible conflict between truth and dram a, a matter which goes well beyond the more obvious questions of creative freedom. Petey and Johnny Petey and Johnny belongs to that category usually labelled "in teresting failures. " Tackling a particularly difficult subject, a teen age gang in a New York slum area, the film falls victim to linked diffi culties --th e non-compatibility of the subject m atter to the enforced dramatic form. This is the reverse of a common problem. The sub ject clearly encompasses a surfeit of gripping incidents. Rather than having to inject interest into seemingly banal m aterial, the problem here was to find a form that could make sense of a mass of footage which lacked the preferred type of crisis situation. Patricia Jaffe, who worked on the editing of the film, confirms what is obvious from the final version: " . . . there were volumes of material with no real core idea. Petey Thomas's daily contact, as a youth worker, with East Harlem gangs was the one thread running through the film. The footage, shot during six months, was diffuse and d,ealt with diverse in dividuals. Some of it was concentrated on one of the more prominent gang m em bers, Johnny, an older youth in trouble with the police for illegal possgshion of weapons. Drew decided that Petey's relationship to Johnny should be the film's central idea, a concept that the material did not support. In an attempt to structure this difficult film, all the exciting moments were pulled from the footage and strung together with a force that did violence to the final film. Sequences relating to Johnny were juxtaposed to others dealing with a wide variety of indivi duals. The sequences themselves were never allowed to play out but were instead cut to the bone, so that only the 'moment 1 remained. The 57 film has no air, no connective tissue ..." Colin Young puts it more diplomatically when he says "Drew chose what he considered the best — .. - 2 - , - ; ■ * * * '* — - * * . 58 V of two betrayals1 ^" sli'ckedcupptheesubjeet 'fdrithe-.’S^kemf the audiences - ^ However one puts it, the problem is again structural. Ideally, of course, no "betrayal" should be necessary in editing, a structure should be possible that is both true to the subject and interesting for an audience. But between conception and realization a lot of things can happen, and that goal is not so easily attained given the many un certainties of undirected situations. It is too easy to come along after ward and say what should have been done. Whether the problem is pin pointed as too much shooting of peripheral m aterial, fundamental un suitability of subject m atter, or a cliched structure is now speculative. 95: The result, whatever the reason, is little bits and pieces of fascinating m aterial that even by themselves are finally unsatisfying. The film tries to cover too much and winds up being about not enough. Perhaps some small part should have been expanded or a simpler story line found that would not suggest so many possibilities ultimately thwarted. Trying to tackle challenging m aterial should assume a willingness to break from old methods. As it is, Petey and Johnny looks like the r e sult of applying unclassifiable unknowns in a standard formula. Petey and Johnny is the only Drew film to employ a device com mon in the work of some other film -m akers (especially William J e r sey): narration read by a participant in the film rather than by an an nouncer. In this case it was essential, but it admits a failure by re a l izing that an insider’s view is necessary to make sense of the story. Given the constant shifting from incident to incident, the audience has to be continually supplied with a point of view. Petey, the social w ork er, provided a running commentary throughout the film. To some ex tent this is a useful approach, but the narration ventures well beyond the expository to interpret states of mind of the participants and to pass judgement on them. Further, Petey is a failure as a dramatic character. Paragons of virtue are as unacceptable in direct cinema as in fiction, and Petey compounds the felony through excessive m o ral izing. Some skillfully captured moments remain. Drew and his people 96 were able to capture some feeling of the street. Sequences of the fun- 5 9 eral for a boy stabbed in a gang fight (reportedly filmed by Leacock ), a street corner singing group, and a pool room scene, all have a power that isn't quite drowned in the structural quagmire. However, good moments culled from six months of filming simply aren't enough. But direct cinema would not be as interesting if every project yielded p r e dictable results, and Petey and Johnny could not have failed so th o r oughly had it not been ( by shooting in a genuinely unpredictable situa tion) such a daring attempt in the first place. F ootball Football (actual title: Mooney vs. Fowle, but known under both names), about a game between two Miami high schools, is prim arily the work of James Lipscomb. Taking advantage of the prodigious r e sources the Drew team had at their disposal (at one point there were £ ) 0 eight cam era crews in action ), the film doesn't fall victim to the Petey and Johnny problem of voluminous footage chopped to pieces in search of a controlling idea. Football is successful because its makers understood that freedom in direct cinema does not mean random film ing. It is not just the story of a football game edited together from shifting points of view. In the same way that a fictional genre like the w estern or gang ster film can allow a film -m aker greater freedom by affording him the power to subvert its restrictions, Lipscomb is able to get around the limitations of the crisis structure. Although the film rushes forward to a sure resolution (since the game will end), concern is for what the people in the film do out of a desire to win. Where we cared (or were supposed to) whether Eddie Sachs wins a race of Scott Crossfield brings his plane home safely, in Football, while a contest is still the basis for a story, who wins isn't of crucial importance. This comes about by deliberate selection. By making tlae film a story about two teams and their coaches, and emphasizing parallels rather than differ ences between the two, the final outcome is de-emphasized. If, ipjf^ stead of Mooney vs. Fowle (the names of the coaches), the film had been Mooney, for example, then this would have been On the Pole all over again. There is a widely held assumption about direct cinema films that they are often only as good as their choice of subject. In the p re s ent case, Colin Young states the basic argument: "Football exploits a situation of straightforward conflict. Given extroverts in front of the 61 cam era a skilled crew cannot miss. " This is too easy an assum p tion. On the one hand, the most unlikely subject can become interest ing in the proper hands (Leacock's Happy Mother's Day comes quickest to mind). Likewise, potentially exciting m aterial can elude even the most skillful film -m akers. There are no sure-fire subjects, and also no telling what might turn out to be of interest. One would not expect a ' 98 ; film about a high school football team to present such interesting possi bilities, but the unexpected, dimensions within routine subject m atter is strictly" a m atter of film -m aker sensibility, not of having "extroverts" to film. In P rim ary, the differences between Humphrey and Kennedy were emphasized by cutting from one to the other while they were en gaged in sim ilar activities. From a tense and quiet Kennedy on elec tion night, cut to Humphrey laughing and enjoying a television show. E arlier, from the folksy atmosphere of Humphrey phone-in TV p ro gram, cut to a television in the middle of a stately, prepared speech by Kennedy. Devices like these support a structure w^hich continually . tries to play upon the personality differences of the candidates. The same method of comparison through editing during parallel activities is employed in Football for precisely the opposite purpose, to show that the view from both sides is identical. One well-executed . scene shows the setting up of a cam era from a local television station . and the beginning of an interview with one of the coaches. In the m id dle of the interview, there is a cut to the other coach during his in ter view, with the cam era in the same TV-like stationary position. B e sides the sim ilar content of the interview halves, the cut to the other coach shot from the identical cam era position implies that the same setting-up procedure also took place. Likewise, a cut from one coach to the other and back during their pre-gam e pep talks reveals the 9 9 : essential similarity between the activities of the two men. And like their coaches, the boys on both teams and the kids in their schools are wholly homogenous. Sometimes, it is even difficult to differentiate the two sides. These editing choices liberate the film from a preoccupation with personality quirks and (since the outcome of the game becomes incons equential when the opponents are interchangeable) perm it stru c ture to be subordinate to content. The emotional intensity behind each side’s desire to win, the pressure on the kids to perform , is illustra ted in dozens of ways. The active nature of the participants (Young’s "extroverts") is the raw m aterial, but Lipscomb and company knew (or found) what they were after. fT- Assuming that life does not always conform to dramatic con ventions, it would be expected that cases would occur when people do things that are "out of character" or that seem unmotivated. One case of this comes during the closing moments of the game, when the win ning coach is twitching more nervously than his assured victory would suggest he had to. A fictional w riter would have to justify this reaction, but it is pure gold in direct cinema. The problem is shifted to estab lishing the credibility of the event, to showing conclusively that the twitch (in this case) did indeed come in the closing moments and wasn't simply a shot from earlier in the game cut in at this late moment. In fact, one perceptive w riter (who understood the film's parallelism) accused Lipscomb of exactly that. The assertion of the truthfulness of the shot was taken care of in advance by one of direct cinema's surest weapons, the continuous take. As Lipscomb said in a letter r e plying, in part, to the above-mentioned article, after the close-up of : the coach there is an outward zoom as the crowd counts out the last 6 3 seconds and the coach is then carried victoriously from the field. While the film -m aker had to notice the tic in order to first zoom in on it, its truthfulness in term s of when it happened can not be questioned. It is subjectively selected, but hardly any less true for that. Emphsizing small details is accomplished very effectively in Football because the details (such as the tic) support the more appar ent determined frenzy. The scene of a pre-gam e locker room prayer was easy to get ( though no less effective for that reason). More in teresting is the cheerleader's huddle before the game, as one girl whispers a hastily improvised prayer (" . . . Help us win, God, b e cause you know we are the greatest"). It has been reported that the film -m akers didn't even know what the girl was saying until later. Someone just held a microphone up, and afterwards they found it was a 64 prayer that had been recorded. Such methods are bound to turn up surprises, and they require a structure which can include them with out over-emphasizing their importance. (Football is also the classic example of one level of cam era consciousness, often suggested to be the only valid one, of people so wrapped up in their own activities that 101 I the effect of the cam era's presence is negligible.) Finally, then, it boils down to credible content and meaningful structure. Football is a social document, a case where journalism and cinema (supposedly the two opposing forces that Drew and Leacock represented) coexist easily. It is in the' company of a select few films which are successful in illuminating the American life style through direct cinema techniques. Football is firmly rooted in the ordinary, but it manages to maintain a high level of excitement without com promising its m aterial. Susan Starr Susan Starr is one of the more predictable Drew-Leacock films. Given the subject, a young girl preparing for the finals of the Dimitri Mitropoulos Piano Competition at Carnegie Hall, there is little that can't be anticipated if one is familiar with a few Drewt’ films. It is not a bad film, just not a terribly interesting one. The dramatic structure is taken one step past conventional to thoroughly polished. After seeing Susan during her cab ride to the auditorium and the beginning of her performance, there is a "flash back" to two days earlier, leading back to the point where the filming began and then going on from there. The film intercuts Susan's prep arations with the parallel activities of two of her competitors. (Sens ing that it may have been a bit much, the narrator says that we are 102 only seeing three of the four final contestants.) Thus, when Susan is in bed with a sore throat, there is a cut to someone else practicing. This technique, cutting between people preparing for the same event (whose conclusion will provide a sure ending for the film)), is scarcely advan- ced from the P rim ary structure. This convention can be excused if it frees the film -m akers to do something else, but Susan Starr is consis tently unsurprising. Perhaps the structure of the film is at fault, be cause the most mundane occurrences in films are acceptable provided they are not formula reinforcements of cliches. There are certainly suggestions of interesting possibilities that were not followed. Susan's pushy parents, who had her practicing since she was very young (one of whom is a frustrated pianist clearly living vicariously through Susan), were worth further investigation. Within the crisis structure, though, they were left only a small place. The one unexpected occurrence turned out to be Susan's on- cam era meeting with a boy (another contestant who was eliminated earlier) that she was later to m arry. This is a happy advantage in directs/cinema, to be sure, except that it is exploited to its fullest. In one of the trickier transitions in these films, there is a sly job of cut ting from the announcement of Susan placing third in the competition (as voice-over on a shot of Susan riding in a train) to the sound of her playing again over a quick montage-like rehash of the scenes in the film where we saw Susan with her eventual husband, leading up to scenes of their m arriage. Her loss is inconsequential, it seems, since the Com petition found her a husband. Since the m arriage presumably took place some time later (because we see them meet two days before the event), there is reason to object to its tidy use to wrap things up with a quick, happy ribbon. Although the ending isn't false, since their earlier seen scenes set it up in term s of motivation, it's a little too cute. Being open to the unforeseen is certainly a part of direct cinema, but when the unexpected occurs, one shouldn't pounce on it like a cat devouring a rodent. Nehru Nehru is almost an open admission of failure by the Drew team, a shift from the avowedlinftention to make a film about the Indian P rim e Minister to an auto-critique of the problems encountered in following him and the difficulty they had in maintaining the relationship they wished to establish. The result is something of a disaster, but one that lays bare important unstated assumptions behind the Living Cam era philosophy. The original idea was for Leacock and Gregory Shuker to film Nehru for fifteen days prior to an election, providing the dual opportun ity to observe Nehru during a crisis period and get a first-hand look at India as he travelled. The idea is a familiar one for the Drew group. Besides P rim a ry , Kenya, Africa tried the same approach. So, from 104 ■ the outset, they expected a familiar kind of conflict. To put it mildly, things didn't happen quite as they had envisioned. Leacock describes the problems: "... we had thought that because there was an elec tion coming up there would be some kind of tension . . . but the elec tion of Nehru was such a foregone conclusion that you barely noticed 6 5 it. " Lacking that conflict (no mention is even made of election opponents), another was found in the editing ro o m - - between Nehru and the film -m akers. The film begins with Leacock and Shuker introducing them selves on cam era, and then explaining what their relationship was to be with Nehru and the manner in which they work. (This was shot after- wards in New Yorki)^ Leacock says that the arrangement would be that v : ../ "He (Nehru), for his part, would ignore our presence" while the film m akers would promise not to interfere with his activities in any way. Shuker (who was to record sound) tells of the need for getting the microphone in close and demonstrates the method used to obtain syn- chronized sound, tapping the mike. And so the action begins. Leacock and Shuker provide the n a r ration. The first scene shows Nehru at some sort of reception. Shuker says: "Nehru greets his guests but ignores our presence. The deal is on. " During a meal, Shuker reports what is said, explaining that he couldn't get close enough with his microphone. The scene continues with what almost looks like a parody of the pitfalls of direct cinema: 105 a dog starts barking at Shuker and conversation at the table stops as they watch his loud canine encounter. Normally rejected gaffes like this one are a major component of the film. One almost envisions editing room conferences about which of several scenes is most em barrassing, thus meriting inclusion in the finished film. At one point, Leacock narrates: "Nehru notices som e thing. Now I pan over to see what it is (the cam era pans over to Shu ker, then the shot of Shuker is frozen for several seconds) . . . A slip on his part of the bargain, " for not ignoring the film -m akers. A scene that rivals the dog-barking scene in term s of self-parody involves a struggle by Leacock and Shuker to hop on a jeep in the midst or a surg ing crowd. Leacock manages all right, but Shuker tells of first having to throw the tape recorder on and then getting his hand stuck under a bar on the jeep. Soon after, Leacock shows Shuker covered with flow ers that have been tossed in the direction of the Prim e Minister. Things go on like this for most of the film. Shuker taps on the mike, Nehru notices the cam era or makes an explicit reference to it, and so on. Then, a final crisis occurred, or was created. Says L ea cock in the narration, "We were moved with an overwhelming desire to talk to the man. " Shuker continues by saying that to interview Nehru would jeopardize the chance for further filming, but they will take that chance. In a strange way, the relationship of subject to film -m aker is treated as a mystical spell that can be broken with a single word. An 106 • interview is set up, one that fully justifies the general reluctance of direct cinema film -m akers to resort to interviews. The questions are ludicrously uninformed and the answers unrevealing, as in this tepid exchange: Shuker: How do you feel about the kind of life you have to live? Nehru: Generally it's a satisfying life. The film ends with a final reminder of the film-making process, Shuker again tapping the mike. Clearly, some drastic measures were taken in putting the film together. Drew made the decision to edit the film in this manner be cause, he says, they had "run the risk of starting to tell a story about • a person during a period that was not a key or important time in his life" and that it wasn't apparent from the footage that this was indeed such a crucial period for Nehru. He feels that the interaction between the film -m akers and the subject was evident, and says "At some point '< I crossed the Rubicon and decided that was more relevant and interest ing, and a better frame of reference, at least for an A m erican audience, than simply to see what Nehru was doing along with conventional n a r ration. Or, as Leacock briefly sums it up, the form is "a gimmick 6 7 Drew dreamed up to save a boring film. " There has been a strong divergence of opinion as to the source of e rro r, whether it was in the choice of subject or ft lie manner in 107 : which it was edited. One French critic who has written astutely about Am erican cinema-verite feels that the fault lies in the incompatibility of film -m aker and subject, that Nehru lacks the "champion" personal ity of a John Kennedy or an Eddie Sachs. Nehru's Indian sensibility, this argument goes, is not sufficiently akin to the kind of American character that is on the go all the time and able to tolerate more easily the presence of the cam era. The e rro r, then, was in believing that 6 3 this method is "absolutely and universally valid. " (This view is p er- haps supported by Leacock’s observation in an interview that NehrpA "was just doing what he usually does day after day. " He excused the film as a result of inexperience, claiming that they were not yet at a point where they could make films in other than "high pressure situa- 69 tions. " ) Others saw the fault elsewhere. Colin Young calls the stru c ture a "hold-over from conservative classical dram a" that is totally , unnecessary. His conclusion has far-reaching consequences: "It ought to be enough to spend fifteen days with Nehru, so long as the film maker is telling us something we did not know before, and probably could not 70 know by any other means. " This is perhaps the single most p ro m is ing sentence in ail early cinema-verite criticism , one of the few state ments which encourage c-v film -m akers to become more adventurous, rather than suggesting that their work is too "emotional" (as Bluem and Shayon say) or their goals impossible to achieve. 108 , It may not be clear that’the two points of view represented by Bringuier and Young are here mutually exclusive. The form er accepts the effectiveness of the Drew films where the subject is suited to the crisis structure, and claims that the successful films will be those that recognize the limitations in subject possibilities. In other words, structure dominates subject matter. The latter, on the other hand, implies that any subject which interests the film -m aker is suitable m a terial, and that direct cinema should reject traditional theatrical forms and search for new ways to structure the films. In this view, what was wrong with Nehru was not the Prim e Minister himself (as Bringuier a s serts) but in Drew's and Leacock's lack of faith in the possible interest of their subject for its own sake without a story to prop him iip. Each argument makes a valid general point, but neither is en tirely applicable to this specific case. The fault, in fact, lies in the film -m aker's interest in Nehru solely as a public figure, a man of a c tion. They want him to conform to their own image of what he should be like. To this extent Bringuier is correct: Nehru is not John Kenne dy. But the erro r lies in their thinking he could be, not in any inherent unsuitability of the subject. Young is partially correct in this instance — it should have been possible to make a film about Nehru. This is not, however, a structural problem. It is a m atter of the subject having sufficient confidence in the film -m akers' acceptance of his normal a c tivities. Leacock and Shuker were not ready to do that; they were 109 ■ expecting action. In a way then, Nehru is a very honest film, reflect ing their awareness of their inability to win the confidence of the sub ject. But admitting your mistake is not equivalent to transcending it, and Nehru remains an unsatisfactory work, albeit a very curious one. It should be kept in mind that economics required every film ex periment, as all of these are, to look like a success. One does not send a film crew to India and then come back and'abandon the project in the editing stage. Unlike a scripted film, which can be written and then abandoned if it looks unsatisfactory or unrealizable, a direct cine ma film involves far bigger risks. With Nehru, they gambled and lost. But a failure costs as much money -to make as a success, and has to fill the same amount of television time. Jane Perhaps the most common criticism of direct cinema is that a person constantly subjected to a cam era can never truly forget its presence, that he is never "natural. " The situation is not quite this simple, for "natural" tends to remain an undefined term . The tension between film -m aker and subject is dependent upon several variables, but of importance here is that whatever the nature of this tension, to a large extent it is visible on the screen. Use of the word "natural" im plies an inability to judge off-screen manner, but by what criteria? At best, we are able to judge varying degrees of subject response to the 110 cam era, employing no norm other than previous moments in the same film. A degree of awareness of this problem is already apparent in these films. The very fact of their preference for people accustomed to the limelight (politicians, actors, musicians) suggests that they felt this sort of person would be less affected by the presence of a cam era. (A more obvious consideration inttheir selection is, of course, audience interest in famous personalities. ) These are the people who are "on" all the time, whetfeer.tplaying-to one person, a roomful, a large aud ience, or a cam era. And because we see them as public figures, we can be aware of this facet of their personalities, their inclination to perform. This notion leads to Jane, for it follows the question of acting in front of a direct cinema cam era in a natural direction. The film shows Jane Fonda in rehearsals for a Broadway play, "The Fun Couple, 1 1 through its second night closing. The degree to which Jane is acting is> always in the open; in fact, it is a prim ary interest in the film. Contin ually present is the obvious contrast between her on-stage acting style and her off-stage manner. That we would not, then, consider the possibility of an on-cam era and off-camera difference is naive --th e first comparison invites the second. And as soon as we recognize this, it ceases to be a problem. The role playing and deception becom e^'in stead, a key concern. When you know there is distortion in a i n measurement you are able to compensate for it. (This is an analogy Leacock also likes to make, no doubt a reflection of his early physics training. ) The game of who is aware of what (the viewer aware that the subject is aware of the camera) sounds complicated, but in p ra c tice it is readily comprehensible. We mentioned before Louis M arcorelles' feeling about a d is cernible style being present in the two Pennebaker films, David and Jane. While he doesn't go on to explain what he means by this, we are now on the track of it. The two films both push their subjects' defenses to the limit. As can also be seen in Don't Look Back, Pennebaker's film on Bob Dylan, he is particularly adept at filming people when they are doing very little, in direct opposition to the cinema-verite maxim about trying to film people when they are involved in other things so that they will forget the cam era. Pennebaker’s cam era invites its sub jects to pretend they are ignoring its presence, for through that p r e tense we will learn something about them. Jane Fonda was interviewed a year after the film was made, and there is a good indication she came to understand this. In part, this is what she said: "Jane was a nightmare because I was filmed rehearsing and acting, and there were moments when 1 didn't know when I was acting and when I wasn't. There jvas the cam era all the time, from start to finish; it was very strange. It was only when I saw the film, a good time after, that I understood what I hadn't realized during the exper ience. The film was truer than the experience itself . . . My term s with the play were false and ambiguous. Thus on the whole, in a sense, this film was a false thing about a false thing, and it is that which was true . . . I learned many things as an actress from this film. I saw that the best way to make something happen is to do nothing (my ital- • \ ,,71 i c s ). " This excerpt shows Miss Fonda's keen insight, after the fact, of the revelatory power of Pennebaker's cam era, her realization of the possible paradozes in his way of filming. (There have also been r e ports that Miss Fonda was greatly upset when she saw the film for the 72 first time. Even if exaggerated, they lead to an interesting specula tion on the power of direct cinema. A ctresses should be accustomed to seeing themselves on the screen, but, of course, Miss Fonda had never really seen herself in this way. ) The film certainly does catch her during a hectic period. The play itself looks like an obvious disaster from the first moment. The fascination throughout is in the effect that the impending catastrophe is having on the company, and their blind faith that they may somehow have a hit on their hands. Jane is romantically involved with the play's director, and the strain on their relationship brought about tby,the play's difficulties is convincingly captured. The travelling from city to city for tryouts, the endless rehearsing, the backstage tension 113, before opening night: the theatrical cliches are subverted by the com plete m ess that are trying to perfect. Nominally another crisis - oriented structure, Jane has a full hour of the same feeling that the last moments of On the Pole had, the observation of someone caught with their defenses down because they aren't able to maintain publicly their own self-image. The best moments are surely plaed for the cam era: Jane in her dressing room mugging in front of a m irro r, Jane and her director in a taxi cab (she whispers something to him when she doesn’t^want the cam era to hear), and an excellent scene of Jane read ing the reviews of her performance. Louis M arcorelles raises a ques tion that one hears frequently: couldn't this be done better in a fiction film? Isn’t ,1 in this case, Lumet's Stage Struck a more persuasive 73 portrait of a young actress than Jane? This is an interesting addi tion to the earlier question of book versus movie concerning The Mak- ing of the President I960 and P rim ary. On one hand, cinema-verite is faulted for not being close enough to written journalism, on the other for possibly being less effective than dram a. M arcorelles is only partially convinced of Jan e's superiority: "At the level of im m ed iate perception, the physical sensation that something is really happen- A 7 4 ing as it is being filmed, Jane holds all the cards. " Left unsaid, however, is the implication that beyond the "level of immediate p e r ception, " fiction films are superior. Direct cinema does not seek to displace the fiction film any more than it would written journalism. But if the defenders of the old er forms feel threatened, perhaps it is for good cause. A better com parison with Jane than Stage Struck is the scene in Citizen Kane of Susan Alexander Kane reading her bad reviews. Welles' scene is a skillfully edited interplay between Susan’s yelling and Kane’s quiet r e actions. Its effectiveness is heightened by lighting and cam era position to enforce the relationship between the two people, especially in the last moments when Kane literally overshadows Susan. In Jane, the corresponding scene is remarkable by its understated simplicity. Stripped of fictional invention, Jane's thinly masked restraint, her n ear-tears reading, is even more theatrically powerful. Not scripted or rehearsed, there is no need for the scene to justify itself dram ati cally, no use for camerawork to emphasize what is already abundantly evident. Superior to fiction film or not, a scene like this at least de serves recognition of its legitimacy. An annoying little "sub-plot" is added to Jane, and it sticks out obviously and artificially. Near the beginning there is a brief shot of New York Times Drama Critic Walter K err, who isn't heard from a- gain until close to the end of the film, just prior to the play's opening. We then follow his journey from the Times office to the play and then back again. The old technique of parallel editing is then trotted out, and from this point to the scene of Jane reading K err's review, the story lurches back and forth between K err and Jane (him typing in his "115 office, her partying at Sardi's, etc.). This comes as an unnecessary intrusion at a time when Jane's story alone has more than enough m o mentum of its own. The K err m aterial is a hedged bet, reflecting un certainty as to whether the rest of the story could stand alone. Jane, like On the Pole, is able to sustain interest without editing devices to impose conflict. A scene of Jane alone in her dressing room is quite unlike any other in the Drew films, very close to a sort of actor's improvisation in front of the cam era. Jane, sitting before a m irro r, is not content to rem ain still, and instead launches into a series of grim aces, looks, bits of impersonations, and the like. According to Pennebaker, there was a dispute between him and Drew while editing this scene as to whether the sound of the cam era should be filtered out as much as possible. Pennebaker felt that the noise should remain, making it clear that the audience was not seeing Jane alone in her dressing room, 75 but Jane alone in her dressing room with a cam era observing her. D rew apparently won out, as the sound of the cam era is scarcely evi dent in this scene. Pennebaker was right, of course, but his intent still remains clear. No pretense is being made of "invisible reco rd ing, " a notion brought up m ore frequently by cinem a-verite' s d etrac tors than its practitioners or defenders. Jane, then, is not typical of the Drew films, for the nature of its probing stems from a different notion of the possibilities for direct cinema. It is the product of a cam era style that does not wish to mini mize its presence, instead serving almost as an instigator of the action. It is safe to assum e that such fine distinctions were lost on the majority of Jan e 1 s audience, but the difference between, say, On the Road to Button Bay and Jane is unmistakable in retrospect. They are charac teristic of two wholly separate approaches to this kind of filming, be ginning with different assumptions about their subjects that result in entirely separate relations between the cam eram an and what he is film ing. The form er is closer to journalism, a kind of surface reporting that is often all that is necessary for a very likeable, effective film when the subject is cooperative; the latter tracks the elusive, openly questioning both the subject and the recording method. Direct Cinema and News - a brief note The final two films of the Drcw-Leacock association once again relate (as did P rim a ry and The Children Were Watching) to specific news events. In both cases, however, there was a substantial gap be tween the occurrence of the event and the television appearance of the film. Now that several years haveypassed, this gap may seem unim- portant in relation to the value of the films as historical records, but as a general principle, the gap is more serious. While the delays were not due so much to the Drew organization as to the problems of tele vision programming, the films must have had a feeling of^stale news 117 when they first appeared. The immediacy of direct cinema, partially akin to television news reporting, is enhanced by a brief span between event and film. In the case of The Chair, about the attempt to save Paul Crump from the electric chair, the events took place in July, 1962, and the film was not shown on American television until October, 1964! (It had been shown in Europe as early as March, 1963, a full year and a half before American screening. ) Crisis; Behind a Presidential Com m it m ent, concerning a confrontation with George Wallace over desegrega tion of the University? of Alabama, covered events taking place in June, 1963. While it was shown on television only four months later, this is still an extended dealy when the subject involved is an event that was front-page news at the time. The potential of direct cinema in relation to events of a news worthy nature (admittedly only a tiny segment of the direct cinema spectrum) has scarcely been touched. In situations where audiences already are familiar with a good portion of the circumstances (and come to the film with an interest in the subject that doesn't require suspense to be maintained), there could be greater opportunity for this intimate sort of coverage. Of course, even these fledgling attempts were met with an avalanche of criticism (especially C risis), so the possibilities are substantially limited by widespread attitudes about the components of this kind of filming. With some widening of the television market in 178 ~ recent years and hopefully into the future, perhaps there will be renew ed interest and greater freedom for these experiments to continue. The Chair The Chair is a hybrid of the two main tendencies in the Drew films, between the multiple cam era coverage approach to an event of short duration and the method of closely following a single person for a long period of time, ultimately capturing particularly intimate m o ments. It is clear from the final film that an enormous amount of m a terial was shot (reports vary between 60,000-70,000 feet of 16mm film, roughly 30-35 hours when projected, compared to 18,000 feet for P r i m ary) for there are a number of extraordinarily personal moments that one would think had to be culled from many^houfsyoTfilming. The blend ing of these two approaches might, on first thought, suggest an ideal synthesis, but in fact, it indicates the incompatibility of mixed view points. It is an issue that was to have a good part in what eventually led to the end of the Drew-Leacock association, a fundamental breach b e tween their conceptions of the possibilities for direct cinema. Once more, at the risk of sounding repetitious, the film revolves 7 A around a highly tense situation. In this case it is literally a life-and- death matter: Will Paul Crump, a black man sentenced to death nine years previous but now substantially rehabilitated (according to many who know him, including the prison warden) be executed, or will his 119 lawyers be able to have his sentence commuted to life imprisonment? This is surely powerful m aterial, with strong emotional content, oppor tunity for discussion of basic social issues, and all tied together by a certain conclusion (and possibly a very upsetting one). What, then, goes wrong? It is not so much that what is there is so bad, but that it conforms too well to dramatic expectations. Despite the power of some individual scenes (among the best the Drew group ever shot), the raw m aterial seems seriously diminished. The story begins five days before the scheduled date of execu tion, and the principals are introduced quickly. Don Moore, a Chicago lawyer, along with Louis Nizer, brought in from New York to assist, are to prepare a last-ditch effort for a hearing that will decide whether to recommend a commutation sentence to the Governor. The warden, who we learn later will jpull the switch if execution is to be carried out (by Crump's request because the warden has become his friend), tests the electric chair. (This is another of the famous tracking shots, down one hall, into an elevator, down another hall, and into the room with the chair. ) The prosecuting attorney, his case all prepared, practices his golf swing at a driving range. And, of course, there is Crump himself, visiting with the editor of a novel he has been preparing. (Another fine scene. Crump is asked to do some rewriting. The look on his face as he asks, "Do you want me to do that now? " is quite moving. ) Topping even these fine scenes, the first part of the film has 120 one of Leacock’s great pieces of work. It is a very long take in Moore's office. He receives a phone call telling him that the Church will issue a strong statement of support for clemency. It is apparently something Moore has been trying to get for some time. After hanging up, he be gins to cry but then holds back, pauses, puts out a cigarette, and then really cries. The cam era moves away, as if in deference to the power of the emotion, and then the shot ends. A shot like this could only come about after a strong degree of trust between film -m akers and subject, and as the climax to a long period of shooting. Leacock (with Drew taking sound in this case) seems able to film intimate situations without provoking them, mini mizing the importance of the cam era's presence in a self-effacing m an ner that is communicated to an audience through theirestrained but p u r poseful selection of cam era movements. It is a style as personal as Pennebaker's, but more in keeping with the flow of events. Leacock's skill is evident in the more open actions of his subjects, Pennebaker's through the tension between cam era and subject. (This is a rough gen eralization rather than a strict differentiation. It is more correct in chracterizing the best moments of each than as a description of their total work. ) On the day of the decision, the suspense is played up for all it's worth. Sample narration: "At the County Jail, Paul Crump waits twen ty feet from the chair. " The warden conducts practice drills with the 121 chair while waiting for word. There is a shot of the Governor reading \ through some papers, others of Moore waiting in his office. Near the warden's office, cam eram en set up for a possible news conference. Moore receives a call that commutation is to be recommended. Elated, he talks about going to the races and sends his secretary to get a racing form. At a press conference, the warden announces that the sentence has been commuted to 199 years. Crump appearstbefore the press: "What have you got to say, Paul? " "I thank God. " "A little louder. " Over the noise of clicking cam eras, someone asks Paul to smile, but he is visibly shaken by the experience and not able to respond to the clamor of the scene. The film ends with shots of Moore at the races, and then of Crump being transferred to the prison where he will begin • his life sentence. The Chair certainly has no shortage of effective moments. The initial problem, though, is that it exploits traditional courtroom and death row cliches to the hilt: the young lawyer serving for no pay be cause his cause is just, the star defense attorney, the spectre of death, the warden with a job to do. It may well be true that real life is full of Ahigh drama, but The Chair deals in too many cliches when the film's evidence indicates a tension of even a higher order. An event may be too dramatic, as well as not dram atic enough, to adapt to conventional fo rm s. There have been several explanations posited as to what goes '"122 ; wrong, each close to the heart of the problem. Louis M arcorelles speaks of the shift in interest from Crump to Moore (partly necessita ted by the shooting conditions), resulting in the sacrifice of "simpler 77 human truths " for suspense-through-editing. It would be more c o r rect to say that given the shift from Crump to Moore, it was not a suff iciently committed shift. Had it been more completely Moore's story (or Crump's, as Marcorelles would have preferred), sim pler human truths might still have been evident. The difficulty arises out of the balancing act between separate stories. In another article, M arcor elles admits that the suspense may be strong and well-intentioned, but that nevertheless it is arbitrarily introduced and deceivingly toys with : 7 8 a man's life. Robert Vas implies that The Chair is either edited too much or not enough, saying that it "is no longer the raw m aterial nor is it the final, Shaped product. " His metaphor is crude, but the point is well taken: "Somewhere between the two extremes of raw m aterial and final product lies the banana-skin on which this technically so pro- 79 gressive way of looking slips artistically. " Godard, in his previously mentioned blast on American cinema- verite, is particularly vituperative in his use of a familiar argument: "After having seen The C hair, we know less about the electric chair than in a mediocre film starring Susan Hayward that follows melodra- 8 0 matic techniques (referring to Robert Wise's I Want to Live). " This is part of the same editing argument, since The Chair apes the fictional 123 courtroom and prison stereotypes in a formal.all too recognizable from film and television dram as. But Godard is wrong, for the problem with The Chair is not that we "know le ss” about the people and institu tions here than in comparable fiction films, but that we know them equally poorly. His argument suggests the superiority? of fiction films in dealing with social issues, where actually it is the dependence on fictional conventions and imitation of fictional editing techniques that is The C hair's crippling error. When a film is finished, the question of the particular source of a general problem, whether it results from shooting or editing or any other point of control, seems too open to unfounded speculation. In the case of The C hair, one could believe that the suspense orientation and stereotyped characters are an outcome of the choice of subject and/or the resulting footage. This argument would continue by saying that the editing possibilities were then rather limited, that they were dictated by the m aterial then at their disposal. This is an inviting interpreta tion, but in this case at least, it is a false one. We can pinpoint spec ifically the evidence against this, in support of a stronger feeling that reality was too powerful, and in a way they were not accustomed to dealing with. (The film, however, is far from a fiasco. In fact, it is out of respect for the passion still evident in the film that further study is useful. ) The prime responsibility for The Chair belongs to Gregory Shuker, who had the original idea for it and maintained his supervisory role through to the editing. Pennebaker and Shuker (on sound) covered Crump and also Nizer. Leacock and Drew (sound) were on Moore, and 81 together they all covered the parole board hearing. This [split means that neither group knows what the other is getting. Especially in a sit uation of brief duration (here it was a couple of days), structure comes after the fact. The relationship between the parts, the points of tra n s ition between them, the overall thrust of the narrative: these are edit ing not shooting decisions. The Chair is not a unique case in this r e s pect. Nearly all the Drew'films were shot with at least two cam era crews, often many more. What is unique is the incompatibility of the . separately shot m aterial and the preference for maintaining indepen dent narratives and not supplying much of any one. The Chair should have been either the story of one person or else eight hours long. Pennebaker's two good scenes of Crump (with his editor, at the press conference) and Leacock's two with Moore (two phone scenes, one when the Church supports them and the other when commutation is recommended) are highlights for which one craves de tails. It is a cheat to show displays of emotion without sufficiently preparing for them. Deciding to juxtapose such moments (not even considering problems of different shooting styles) means simplification of ideas: one conflict after another is a device of melodrama. In the midst of this falseness, anything is possible. It comes 125 as no surprise in this context to learn that the great shot following the warden on his inspection of the electric chair was actually done a 82 month later. When direct cinema comes from bits and pieces, this opportunity for deliberate falsity within a supposedly chronological narrative can be an overpowering temptation. And to make matters worse, part of the shot is used a second time. When a structure leaves room for such manipulation, we must categorically reject its use. Without credibility at the base of our response to a cinema-verite film its prime source of strength is cut off. The unquestioned power of in dividual scenes in The Chair makes the falseness of the overall stru c ture that much more apparent. It's simply too exciting to be true. Even more tantalizing are the suggestions that some of the events in the film might not have been as stereotyped as they appear. Leacock says in an interview: "... many things were omitted because they did not fit the con ception required of the film: 'Will he or won't he? ' Will Paul Qrump be saved from execution? For instance, the young lawyer was terribly pissed off when Louis Nizer came in on the case. And said so. 'Who's this s.,6 .b. coming out from New York? ' And he was terribly concern ed with the racetrack all the way through it. And sometimes you won dered, 'How the hell is this guy ever going to get out? ' He was never 8 3 going to get the bloody brief written. " Even discounting possible exaggerations here (although Penne- 126 baker has also expressed sim ilar feelings), it still indicates an inflex ibility in the editing that is anathema in direct cinema. Editing can conform to a film -m aker’s personal vision, but that vision becomes highly suspect when it coincides so closely with traditional dram a. Further, when someone edits m aterial he didn't shoot, the chance for ' falsity is clearly greater. At this stage, obligation to reality is more likely to take a back seat to efficacy as entertainment. The Chair was the subject of an accusation that has since been levelled many times at cinema-verite work. It is surprising, in fact, that it had not come up earlier and m ore often. The issue is privacy. A BBC-TY executive in discussing American direct cinema said that The Chair "illustrates more clearly than any other film the danger of this kind of filming --th at it may degenerate into a sort of voyeurism, a hunt for any situation where people are stripping themselves emotion- 84 ally. " Except in ra re cases (so far, at least), this seems like a manufactured problem. Provided that those being filmed give their consent, where is the immorality? The most private moment in The Chair is the look on Crump's face while he is being callously treated by reporters at the press conference. It is hardly an incident of voy eurism . The issue of privacy becomes a matter of viewers being sen sitive to situations tiiey would prefer not to watch or acknowledge. C risis: Behind a Presidential Commitment For three months in 1963, basic issues of direct cinema were discussed on newspaper editorial pages and elsewhere throughout the country. The brouhaha caused by Crisis: Behind a Presidential Com mitment is perhaps more interesting historically than aesthetically, but the curious, case is worth some examination. Two weeks before the scheduled court-ordered integration of the University of Alabama, Gregory Shuker visited Attorney General Robert Kennedy and requested perm ission to film his activities during the anticipated crisis. Following his approval, the cooperation of President Kennedy was secured. Shuker said that Drew Associates had long wanted to do "an inside story" during a national crisis, one invol- 85 ing the President but where national security was not at stake. A month after filming took place, a story appeared in the New York Times which simply reported the facts in the above paragraph, told Shuker1 s description of some incidents in the film (then being edited), and briefly explained their shooting methods. Two days later, the following editorial appeared in the Tim es. Remember that this was writtenjsolely on the basis of the report that a film was shot, and not from having seen any of it. "Not Macy's Window "It is astounding that a documentary film (for TY use) was allowed to be made last month in the offices of the President and the Attorney General while they were engaged in actual decision-making conferences on how to handle Negro registration at the University of Alabama. "Under the circumstances in which the film was taken, the use of cam eras could only denigrate the office of the President. How can anyone -- even or especially the President --a c t and talk without some consciousness of the cam era and the tape recorder? The process of decision-making is not the occasion for the creation of an 'image. 1 The propagandistic connotations of this filming are unavoidable. "The 'Tour of the White House' with the F irst Lady was of an entirely different nature. So are TV interviews with the President or •the Attorney General in their offices. But to eavesdrop on executive decisions of serious Government matters while they are in progress is' highly inappropriate. The White (House isn't Macy's Window. As if that w eren't enough, the Times published a letter a short time later expressing "de.ep appreciation" #or^the editorial and adding, "It would seem that those really qualified as officeholders of im por tance in our national government would, by nature, have some feeling of humility, and be not without some sense of dignity of public office, 87 particularly as to the dignity of the law. " That was the only letter the paper printed concerning the editorial, though presumably som e one m ust have written a coherent defense of an opposing persuasion. Plainly, then, a sensitive nerve had been touched. The news article of two days earlier had quoted ABC as saying / /V V ' \ , fi^hoped to present the film soon and that they were trying to obtain a sponsor. Whatever the reason for the delay (whether in completion of editing, A ^ ^ h e sita tio n after the outcry, difficulty in finding a spon sor), Crisis was#not shown until October 21, 1963. (Sad to think that footage relating to Kennedy of a different nature would fill the airwaves- a month later. ) The early furor, as we shall see after discussing the film itself, had not died down a bit. Crisis; Behind a Presidential Commitment begins with n a r r a tion that says, in part: "You will see a historical document. In con formity with the agreement under which this film was made, the sound in certain scenes in the President's office has been omitted to protect the essential right of Presidential privacy during the decision-making process. " The narrator then assures the audience that the "essence" of the discussions will be told by narration. What this meant was that in the two scenes in the film that in volve the President, only the first few moments of each included any conversation recorded on the spot. (The longest portion of synch sound involving the President lasts about thirty seconds, JFK talking with Ted Sorenson about whether to give a television speech concerning the c r i sis.) The narrated "essence" in each case does not include anything particularly private, leading one to wonder at the reluctance to include actual sound. It might be recalled, though, that in the 1961 Adventures on the New F ro n tier, the same problem existed on a more extensive 130 . scale. (We can also note that the earlier Kennedy film produced no r e action whatsoever. Presumably, it takes a crisis to get the newspapers interested. ) The fault here might be attributable to hesitation in the midst of controversy, or meekness on the part of the film's producers. It is certainly strange that they should want to film a crisis expressly involving the President, but then not wish to record his voice. I have questioned several of the participants in the making of the film reg ard ing this m atter, but they either don't see it as a problem, are reluctant to discuss it, or express opinions involving personal blame that could not be substantiated. Suffice it to report that this was a heatedly d is cussed issue during the editing of the film. The President, then, is a minor character in the drama. Much m ore prominent is his brother, the Attorney General, and there is no use of "essence" narration where he's concerned. The story unfolds in a traditional Drew manner, here very effectively employed. The first few minutes consist of parallel editing of two sim ilar scenes, Robert Kennedy at his home, then going to his office and considering his plan ned strategy, and Governor Wallace engaged in similar pursuits. It would appear, as with P rim ary, that there was an attempt (at equal time for the two sides to expose their views. Wallace is not treated as the villain of the piece, and, in fact, he comes over very well. There is an amusing moment with him as he leads a brief tour of his home study. He describes a picture on his wall of a Confederate general whom he 131 quotes to the effect that it is better to die young having lived a life of principle than to have a long life of compromise. Saying that, he adds to the cam era crew, "Of course that may not mean much to you fel lows. " In a meeting with his officials, he explains their strategy and insists that there will not be any violence (a good close-up of his hands, as he hits his palm twice while he sayd, "Those are my orders. We are going to keep the peace. " Curious that nobody accused Wallace of managing news, as they said of the Kennedys). Bobby, of course, is no weak personality either. Arriving at his desk, he rolls up his sleeves and gets on the phone to General Abrams, who is in charge of the troops that are ready to assist if necessary. The resoluteness be hind the manner of RFK and Wallace is an effective suspense builder, the irresistable force and the immovable object. The first of the two JFK scenes, as mentioned, shows him dis- w cussing whether to give a national TV speech. He sits in his rocking chair, looking quite tired. Related civil rights problems are discussed, but we hear of them only through narration. Also, in this "second act, " the two Negro students who will atempt to register talk about what's to occur, and Deputy Attorney General Katzenbach briefs federal m a r shals. The second JFK scene, a long discussion of alternative stra te gies for the confrontation, is described almost entirely by "essence" narration. After this, we do not see John Kennedy again except for his face on a TV screen at the very end. The film so far has been preparation for the "crisis, " the actual confrontation at the University steps between Wallace and Katzenbach. - ' ' 7 Activities on the day of the crisis compris/e most of the film. This se c tion is the finest example to date of the possibilities for compiling a record of an event through later cutting together m aterial shot sim ul taneously in a number of locations. This method is germane to one of the film ’s key points, that decisions often have to be made which'gou/ld be better implemented if more complete information was available .quickly as to what is occurring. In the edited film we have a fuller knowledge of the event than any single person had at the time. (The Chair tried to do this too, but succumbed to the dangers of simplifica tion because the event was so complicated. In C risis, the shorter time period and defined period of crisis is more manageable. ) Occasionally the editing makes this point a little too deliberate (cutting back repeat edly to RFK during the time of confrontation, as he keeps asking ques tions over the telephone to someone who is reporting the event to him), but the honesty of the editing appears to be unquestionable. There is also an excellent scene which shows both sides of a phone conversation between Robert Kennedy and Katzenbach, in which Kennedy interrupts their strategy discussion to let his daughter talk to "Nick. " (According to Leacock, they didn't even know they had both sides of this conversa tion until they looked at the footage when shooting was all over. L ea cock had a half hour of Katzenbach's nodding and occasionally replying, 133 without Leacock even knowing what he was talking about. It matched up to the Pennebaker-filmed Kennedy half. The sequence was totally 88 /% unplanned. ) This conversation includes the most disarmingly p e r sonal evaluation of the film, when Kennedy tells Katzenbach that he "can almost dismiss Wallace as a second-rate figure. He's wasting your time; he's wasting the students' tim e." The confrontation itself is in two stages. The first is Wallace's refusal to move from the doorway as Katzenbach tells him he is in vio lation of the law and then repeats this again. Katzenbach backs off; cut to RFK trying to get in touch with him a short while later. He finally contacts him by means of a car telephone, and though Katzenbach tells other cam eram en and reporters to get back, we still see and hear him talk to Kennedy on the car phone. The crisis is concluded ;\vHen Wal lace steps aside in the face of National Guard troops. From there, it's a simple journey to the conclusion, as the President goes on TV about the incident, Wallace gives his opinion, and a couple of days later two more blacks enter another Alabama university. So, as this deliberately detailed summary should make clear, the view of the Kennedys "behind the scenes" is hardly scandalous, and the film includes favorable Wallace m aterial as well. Crisis (like P rim a ry ) puts personality into governmental processes, a worthwhile contribution since it certainly has always been there. We are able to realize that the names in the newspapers are more than just public 134, figures, but people. It is good to know that alternative courses of im plementation are discussed, for government tends to appear so auto matic. And even though this is an unusual case, it does show how the Executive Branch can enforce a law. With all of these pluses, and what appear to be no minuses in term s of content, one might think that the original controversy was allayed when the film was finally shown on television. Surprisingly, the uproar was even louder. In New York, because the Drew Associates approach was con sidered such a departure from accepted practices, educational TV sta tion WNDT (which was not the station Crisis was shown on, since it was an ABC special) followed the showing with a discussion titled "Presidency by C risis. " Editors from Time and National Review, CORE Director Jam es F a rm e r, and documentary film -m aker Willard Van Dyke gave their views onjke film. F a rm er considered the whole event staged, and said that Wallace was play-acting. Opinions ventured by the others included their feeling that this technique made actors of everyone, that television film -m akers (unlike print editors) should not be allowed to edit what they shoot, and that the President was respon sible for the scheduling of the program , timed to aid his own political purposes. Of the four panelists, only Van Dyke felt it to be a w orth while project. The others objected to both the techniques and the p u r poses of the film. ^ Newspaper editorials were still harsh. One, running under the headline "No Business in Show Business, " asked: "Does anyone for a moment suppose that the participants in these events . . . were unaffec ted by the cam eras . . . ? The public . . . will never know to what extent 90 it was all play-acting. " The New York Times television critic te r m ed the program a "peep show, " voiced the same criticism s as the above editorial, and added a host of other negative rem arks, including the suggestion that Robert Kennedy's statement to Katzenbach that Wallace could almost be dismissed as a second-rate figure (which is paraphrased here as "that he should be treated as a second-rater, " a loose rephrasing with an altered connotation) detracts from the "essen- 91 tial honor" of the Administration's conduct. And to top it all off, the Times editorial page reminded everyone of their original opinion ex- pressed at the time of filming, and added that their "worst fears were confirmed by the critics. " Echoing a common cry once m ore, the edi torial concluded "It is improper to make a stage-show of the inside 9 Z processes of government. One shudders to imagine the response if Shuker hndjthe others 1 had executed their original intentions - - i f an "inside story" had really been made. F irst, as has been noted, Presidential secrecy p rero g a tives were not violated in the slightest. Newspaper and magazine a c counts of the event included more detailed strategy analyses than Crisis even attempted to convey. More obviously, Crisis does not deal o with Presidential decision-making (or, for that m atter, decision- making by the Attorney General). The events in the film are related to implementation of decisions already m ade, and that is a crucial distinc tion. Rather than going "Behind a Presidential Commitment, " Crisis * ------------- deals with events subsequent to the commitment. The decision to en force court-ordered integration has been made before the film begins, and Wallace has also previously committed himself to opposing it. I There is never discussion as to whether either side should change its mind, if their course of action is proper, or what political ram ifica tions could result. In C risis, we find how their plans work in practice and do see some flexibility in logistical term s (whether to use m a r shals or troops, etc. ), but in no way is the private discussion of n a tional policy violated. The main thrust of the argument advanced by criticstof/Crisis in regard to "play-acting for the cam era" is so remarkably naive and poorly thought out that we shall examine the question once more. The initial confusion stems from use of the word "acting" or, even worse, "play-acting. " The suggestion, of course, is that the people being filmed are behaving^differently than they would if no cam eras were present. But different in what way? Would Robert Kennedy not let his daughter on the phone in the middle of an important conversation? Would he not say that Wallace might be dism issed as a second-rate figure as far as Katzenbach was concerned? Are these activities caus ed by the cam era and would they not occur in its absence? (This only 137 ' concerns the part of the argument relating to governmental situations. ' When the statement is made that "For the Attorney General to tolerate cam eras in the privacy of his home during the height of a national cri- 93 sis borders on the unbelievable, " then the critics are revealing the extent of their paranoia. To see the Attorney General ever so briefly at a meal with his family is hardly a breach of national security or a severe imposition on Kennedy's personal life. It certainly does not, as is specifically charged in this instance, "impart a feeling of play acting. ") The acting accusation concerning Crisis disintegrates more fully the closer it is examined. On the one hand, observers questioned the credibility of certain scenes, and then, on the other, admit to the truth of some rem arks and then say they are im proper. What they see and don't believe is acting; what they see and believe is disreputable because it should be private. One cannot have it both ways. And, as before, if one thinks the cam era is affecting the action, why can't that be taken into account in evaluating the actions of the p a r ticipants? If, as Jack Gould says, "Time after time a viewer could see for himself that participants were conscious of the lens, which automatically raised the question of what was being done solely for the 94 benefit of the cam eras, " then why is that not a valid question? This is where Drew does himself a disservice when he says that "In Crisis I am quite convinced that the cam eras did not, in anything that was seen ~i 38 9 5 in the film, influence people's actions. " Whether he is correct or . not, even when there may have been some influence it is not necessary to wither away in the face of it. As has been suggested before, those times when we feel there is certain influence can often be the most r e vealing moments. The final point in this regard is one of perspective. Crisis attempts to establish the relationship between executives who want their decisions enforced and the people below them who must carry out their directives. It shows the links, in other words, between the gen erals in Washington and their soldiers in the field. So, a good deal of f i Crisis showed public, rather than private, events. The crisis 'itseli^: Jp the confrontation at the university, was a national spectacle already. Drew Associates did not cause it to happen or affect it. Participants in the confrontation were already involved in public manipulation, or there would not have been the publicity-making confrontation in the first place. The cam eras, then, were only recording an event where people were already cognizant of their own image. That should hardly come as a surprise to anyone, but none of the film ’s critics seemed to be aware of the fact. After The Chair and Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment, Leacock and Pennebaker left Drew Associates. Time-Life support was terminated following the Living Camera series, and by this time substantial differences had developed between Drew and the other two. Before going on to subsequent cinema-verite work, we need to evaluate the period of the Drew-Leacock association independently because of the strict aesthetic in the films and the special circumstances that led to their production. It is incorrect to assume that what is ch aracter istic of the Drew films is characteristic of direct cinema. Their con sistent but particular attitudes towards suitable subject m atter and structure embrace only one possible approach to uncontrolled docu mentary. But as the basis for a critical model and in their own right, the films produced in this’perTod m erit close study. 140 Notes 1. "Television's School of Storm and Stress, " Broadcasting, 60 (March 6, 1961), p. 83. 2. Louis M arcorelles and Andre S. Labarthe, "Entretien avec Robert Drew et Richard Leacock, " Cahiers du Cinema, 24 (February 1963), 19. 3. Author's interview with Robert Drew. See pagel64for more on word and picture logic. 4. M arcorelles and Labarthe, "Entretien avec Drew et L ea cock, " p. 19. 5. Information in this paragraph combined from three sources: Ulrich Gregor, "Leacock Oder Das Kino Der Physiker, " Film (Mun ich), 4 (January 1966), pp. 14-15; Richard Lcacock, "To F ar Places With Camera and Soundtrack, " Films in Review, 1 (March 1950), p. 3; Robert Christgau, "Leacock Pennebaker: The MGM of the Under ground? " Show, n. s. , 1 (January 1970), p. 92. 6 . Leacock, "To F ar P la c e s," p. 7. 7. Louis M arcorelles, "The Deep W ell," Contrast, 3 (Autumn 1964), p. 248. 8 . Author's interview with Richard Leacock. 9. Gregor, "Leacock," p. 15. 74V 10. Jam es Blue, "One Man's Truth: An Interview with Rich ard Leacock, 1 1 Film Comment, 3 (Spring 1965), p. 20. 11. Author's interview with Richard Leacock. 12. Information in this paragraph from two sources: Ian Cam eron and Mark Shivas, "Interview with Richard Leacock, " Movie, No. 8 (April 1963), p. 16; Gregor, "Leacock, " p. 15. 13. M arcorelles and Labarthe, "Entretien avec Drew et L ea cock, " p. 1 9. 14. Information from Author's interviews with Robert Drew and Richard Leacock; "Television's School of Storm and S tress, " p. 83. 15. Jam es C. Lipscomb, "Cinema-Verite, Film Quarterly, 17 (Winter 1964), p. 63. 16. Louis M arcorelles, "Le cinema direct nor am ericain, " Image et Son, N o; t T1 « 8 3 (April 1963), p. 52, 17. Christgau, "Leacock Pennebaker, " p. 92. 18. Cameron and Shivas, "Interview with Leacock, " p. 16. 19. Author's interview with Robert Drew. 20. M arcorelles and Labarthe, "Entretien avec Drew et L ea cock, " pp. 2 0 - 2 1 . 21. Sarah Jennings, "An Interview with Terence Mccartney- Filgate, ” in Terence Mccartney-Fulgate: The Candid Eye, ed. C har lotte Gobeil, Canadian Filmography S eries, No. 4 (Ottowa, 1966), p. 6. 142" 22. Author's interview with Richard Leacock; Gregor, "L ea cock, " p. 16. 23. George Bluestone, "The Intimate Documentary, " Tele- vision Quarterly, 4 (Spring 1965), p. 52. 24. Marcorelles and Labarthe, "Entretien avec Drew et L ea cock, " p. 2 1. 2 5. Author's interview with Richard Leacock. 26. Author's interview with Albert Maysles. 27. Author's interview with Richard Leacock. 28. Claude Julien, "Un homme dans la foule, " Artsept, No. 2 (April/June 1963), p. 46. 29. Jean-Luc Godard, "Richard Leacock, " in "Dictionaire de 121 Metteurs en Scene, " Cahiers du Cinema, 25 (December 1963 - January 1964), p. 140. 30. "Television's School of Storm and Stress, " p. 83. 31. Author's interview with Robert Drew. 32. Robert Lewis Shayon, "The Fuse in the Documentary, " Saturday Review, 43 (December 17, I960), p. 29. 33. Cesare Zavattini, "Some Ideas on the Cinema, " Sight and Sound, 23 (July-September 1953), p. 67. 34. A. William Bluem, Documentary in Am erican Television (New York: Hastings House, 1965), pp. 128-30. 35. Ibid. , p. 130. " ‘ ' 1 4 3 ' i 36. Ibid. , p. 134. 37. ’’Television's School of Storm and Stress, " p. 84. 38. Paul-Louis Thirard, "Drew, Leacock, and Co. , " Artsept, No. 2 (April/June 1963), p. 43. 39. Louis M arcorelles, ”L'experience L eacock,” Cablers du Cinema, 24 (February 1963), p. 17. 40. Gregor, (4'LeJTcoclt} " p. 18. 41. Marcorelles^and Labarthe, "Entretien avec Drew et L ea cock, " p. 26. 42. Louis M arcorelles, "American Diary, " Sight and Sound, 32 (Winter 1962-63), p. 5. 43. "Living Camera, " New York Herald Tribune, August 11, 1964. 44. Bluem, Documentary in A m erican Television, p. 195. 45. A good photo of the two-man crew filming on the train ap pears Ibid. , p. 96. 46. M arcorelles and Labarthe "Sntretien' avec' Drew et Lea- ' _ _ r-- — 3 < s ? -____ , - . — • v - ._ _ _ .- i_ cock, " p. 26. .'V ■ . ' S > 47. Colin Young, ,* i Cinema' of Common Sense, " Film Quarterly, — — — ——— — — — — 17 (Summer 1964), p. 27. 48. Ibid. 49. M arcorelles and Labarthe, "Entretien avec Drew et L ea cock, " p. 24. 144 50. G erard Alcan, "Experimental Film -m akers Who Make News, " Film World, 2 (1965-66), pp. 168-69. 51. Henry B reitrose, "On the Search for the Real Nitty-Gritty: Problem s and Possibilities in Cinema-Ye rite, 1 1 Film Quarterly, 17 (Summer 1964), p. 38. 52. Marcorelles and Labarthe, "Entretien avec Drew et Lea- • cock, " p.^25f 53. B reitrose, "The Real Nitty-Gritty, " p. 38. 54. M arcorelles, "cinema direct, " p. 52. 55. Ibid. 56. Author's interview with D. A. Pennebaker. 57. Patricia Jaffe, "Editing Cinema Ve^ite, " Film Comment, 3 (Summer 1965), p. 46. 58. Young, "Cinema of Common Sense, " p. 28. 59. M arcorelles, "L 1 experience Leacock, 1 1 p. 15. 60. Cameron and Shivas, "Interview with Leacock, " p. 18. 61. Young, "Cinema of Common Sense, " p. 28. 62. Breitrose, "The Real Nitty-Gritty, " p. 39. 63. h-Lipscomb, "C inem a-V erite," p. 63. 64. Gregor, "Leacock, " p. 17. 65. Cameron and Shivas, "Interview with L eacock," p. 17. 6 6 . Author's interview with Robert Drew. 67. Author's interview with Richard Leacock. 145" 6 8 . Jean-Claude Bringuier, "Libres propos sur le cinema- verite, " Cahiers du Cinema, 25 (July 1963), pp. 16-17. 69. Cameron and Shivas, "Interview with Leacock, " p. 18. 70. Young, "Cinema of Common Sense, " p. 28. 71. Jane Fonda, "Jane," Cahiers du Cinema, 25 (December 1963 - January 1964), p. 187. 72. Hal Seldes, "D. A. Pennebaker: The Truth at 24 Fram es .'peF Second, " Avant-Garde, No. 7 (March 1969), p. 48. 73. Louis M arcorelles, "Nothing But the Truth, " Sight and Sound, 32 (Summer 1963), p. 116. 74. Ibid. 7 5. Author's interview with D. A. Pennebaker. 76. For a good illustrated synopsis see "The Chair, " Show, 4 (April 1964), pp. 51-55. 77. M arcorelles, "Nothing But the Truth, " p. 115. 78. Louis M arcorelles, "La foire aux v e rite s," Cahiers du Cinema, 24 (May 1963), p. 30. 79. Robert Vas, "Meditation at 24 F .P .S . , " Sight and Sound, 35 (Summer 1966), p. 121. 80. Godard, "Richard Leacock, " p. 140. 81. Cameron and Shivas , "Interview yyifbSLeacock, " pp. 17-18. 82. Blue, "One Man's T ruth," p. 19. 83. Ibid. 146 ' 84. Antony Jay, ’Actuality, " The Journal of the Society of Film and Television A rts , No. 15 (Spring 1964), p. 6 . 85. Val Adams, "TV Filmed Kennedys in Alabama C risis, ” New York T im es, July 25, 1963, p. 49. 8 6 . New York T im es, July 27, 1963, p. 16. 87. New York Tim es, August 7, 1963, p. 32. 8 8 . Gregor, "Leacock, " p. 16. 89. Information in this paragraph from: John Horn, "Docu m entaries S core, " NewYorkHJeraJdTTjribune, October 22, 1963; Bluem, Documentary in A m erican Television, pp. 131, 133, 249. 90. New York Herald Tribune, October 24, 1963. 91. Jack Gould, "TV: Too Many Cam eras, " New York T im es, October 22, 1963, p. 75; "Behind Closed Doors, " New York T im es, October 27, 1963, II, p. 3. 92. "Government on Camera, " New York T im es, October 23, 1963, p. 40. 93. Gould, "Behind Closed Doors, " p. 3. 94. Gould, "TV: Too Many C am eras," p. 7 5, A 95. "Documentarists on Documentary"fin Bluem, Documentary -------------------------- in Am erican Television, pp. 264-65. CHAPTER III Direct Cinema and the Crisis Structure The Drew films are a synthesis of cinema-^ejpite techniques and ficitional conceptions of character, action, and structure. This is * not just a way of saying that filmed reality is subjected to traditional plot structures. The union is considerably more intense. Essentially, it is a grafting operation perform ed by maintaining the purity of film ing methods and putting them to the service of particular theories of what these films ought to be about and how they should be put together. But this does not provide sufficient description of the process, as each step is affected by those before and after, and the interplay of fictional notions and real situations exists at each stage. The Drew films are consistent in structure and subject matter. They represent a personal vision'in the same manner that fictional directors can make films that are an expression of their world view. We shall not worship on the altar of omniscient objectivity, for direct cinema in its very quest for a closer relationship with the world a- round us becomes an intensely personal form of communication. It is not the propriety of Drew's assertion of choice that will be considered, but rather the nature of that choice and its limitations. A phrase that has been in constant use during discussion of the Drew films is "crisis structure. " We have noted many examples of stories whose forward propulsion was provided by an anHcipated crisis moment. The basic organizing principle behind a Drew film can usual ly be stated in the form of a success-or-failure question. Will John Kennedy win the election, or will Hubert Humphrey? Will Eddie Sachs' win the race? Will Paul Crump be saved from the electric chair? Will the Kennedys 1 integration strategy work? This description of plot may sound overly simplified in that the same device can often be applied in explaining the structure of fiction films, plays, and novels, at the ex-' pense of ludicrously distorting the com'plex concerns of the work. (Why did Kane say "rosebud"? Will Hamlet avenge his father’s death? Will Ahab find and destroy Moby Dick? ) But the point is that this is_ a traditional fictional structure and not an inevitable conclusion of direct cinema methods and intent. There is no eternal verity in human exis tence that forces one to structure films in this manner. As in fiction, the Drew films take advantage of devices which provide a skeleton to build upon. Were it otherwise, each film would have a particular form that is wholly unique. Since this chapter emphasizes so strongly the specific choices made in choosing subjects and editing, it is necessary to restate that the crux of the films, the reason they are worthy of serious study in this context,.is their strong faithfulness to key direct cinema concepts, namely, trying to record real people in undirected situations with live 149 i sound. To examine the choice of subjects and the editing methods, and subjecting them^tp at times harsh criticism , is in no way to denigrate the Drew team 's prodigious ability to enter a world scarcely accessible to film prior to their work. But because the technique is so potentially powerful, these other areas require examination. The Crisis Moment - its origins and justifications The initial basis for the form of the Drew films actually p r e dates the development of their filming techniques, a fact that is diffi- cult to reconcile with the view that their fictional tendencies were something of a compromised afterthought. For Drew, the films b e came an extension of his earlier background: "I worked at Life for a number of years, practicing a form of photojournalism which required 1 you to be constantly present with your photographic subject in order to capture the exact place and time when the climax occurs (my italics^- I came to conceive of the idea of a movie journalism done in this way with simultaneous sound. Key P ictu re, the title of his early pilot film for television, suggests the attempt at extending the photo tech niques. This was a natural, and inevitable, idea. The Life picture essays tried to tell a continuous story that had a dram atic impact; why not take advantage of film for the same purpose? The concept is m ass- oriented certainly, designed to package reality in an attractive form. 1 50 But the best photo-articles were always aware of their limitations. They were the pictorial counterpart of the journalistic human interest story, though they were often accompanied by igngthy stories. Likewise with the films, from the very beginning there were no illusions as to goals. Those who speak of the dram a in the Drew films, -v- - j 'y . with an accusatory tone often imply that he wasn't awareQof what he was doing. The structure, whatever other qualities it might p’ gjTs^ss, was anything but accidental. Given Drew's objective (as expressed in the quote above), one should at least note his consistency in realizing it. We are confronted with a forthright, determined approach, and muddl ed execution of their basic philosophy is a rare occurrence. Drew, like the Life photo essayists, saw the crisis moment both as the ultimate goal of shooting and the conclusion of the story. One kept filming until the crisis moment came, and then the story had an ending. This was a pragmatic structure, then, because the sequence of events in the finished film could correspond to the chronology of film ing. The film -m aker would be "recreating reality" by acting as a w it ness and then not juggling events out of sequence or deliberately falsi fying the record of his experience. And, obviously, this structure can conform to traditional storytelling methods. It is a familiar form that maintains audience interest and responds to deeply felt human needs for story resolution and unity. The requirement of a crisis moment appears to do no more than 151 specify a period in which to film, providing in return a workable stru c ture. An event is picked up at some arbitrary J,in progress" point (Narration filling in earlier details if necessary), and from there to the crisis there are seemingly no restrictions. The positive aspects go further, for although a story comes about through the crisis stru c ture, it is ostensibly a means to an end: "The story for me has to go someplace, something has to hap pen. At the start, I've got a good idea of the things that can happen, V . C\ but that's not the determining thing bedause whatever happens, I'll have a story. What really happens in any of these stories is that something 2 is revealed about the people. " The crisis structure, then, was seen as a way to study people through a method that attempts to subsume both reporting and story telling. At worst, the story would be a fictional element to support a non-fictional result. At best, the story would be a true representation of an exciting period, a key time in someone's life. A final quote from Drew, in an interview recorded shortly after Yanki, No! but well be fore most of the product of the Drew-Leacock period, still sums up the goal: "What makes us different from other reporting, and from other documentary film-making, is that in each of these stories there is a time when a man comes against moments of tension, and p ressu re, and revelation, and decision. It's these moments that interest us most. 152'' Where we differ from TV and press is that w e’re predicated on being 3 there when things are happening to people that count. ■ " So, the objective has been extended: get that crisis moment, but only so that we can see how people react in such situations. The Crisis Moment in Practice It is fine to say that one should strive to capture crisis mo ments, but what does this mean in term s of film-making? Presum ably, one could follow anybody and eventually a crisis situation will develop. There are obvious drawbacks to this procedure, not the least being that it might take years for this to happen. But more interestingly, how could the film -m aker be able to anticipate which events are dram a tically relevant as preparation for the crisis? For example, if a love affair turns out to be the dram a you are after, would you have known to film the earlier stages of the relationship? Short of filming every waking moment for months on end, such a loose method might not even result in a dramatically interesting film. Clearly, this method is too diffuse and haphazard when one wants to build around a crisis moment. What happens, then, is quite logical. Situations are selected where a crisis is inevitable, even if the precise outcome can not be foreseen. As Drew said, "Whatever happens, I’ll have a story. " In other words, "crisis moments" could more-practically be referred to as ’’different possible outcomes in a situation certain to be resolved. " 1 53 One has only to recall the Drew film that most clearly failed to meet this requirement. In Nehru, there was no inevitable crisis. A true crisis situation conceivably could have developed, but they lost their bet. They still came up with a crisis moment --th ey manufactured it. ; Beyond the question of control, this was an unsatisfactory solution b e cause it was transparent, and hence dramatically unsatisfying. For a Drew film, that is disastrous. The Drew films are even more specific in situation than a gen- •■ A eral crisis orientation might indicate. They belong prim arily to one V/ category of inevitable crisis events: the contest. A bullfight, a p rim ary election, an auto race, a musical competition: these are all con- , tests. Several of the other subjects, a Broadway opening, a jet plane test, initial enforcement of a law, come very close to contest situations as well. These are all events where a person tries to win a set objec tive, so the result is decisive in one way or another (win or lose), but always certain to occur. Contests are crises from start to finish. There is no problem of waiting for a crisis moment to occur; it has already begun. There may be points of greater intensity, but even the slowest moments are still part of a general crisis situation. The end of the contest can be a pronounced crisis moment also, but it may not be the only one nor the most interesting. In Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment or The Children Were Watching, the outcome never seems so important 1 53:"’ (whether the schools are integrated) as the activities leading up to it. The supposed crisis moment is almost anti-climactic because of the intensity of what precedes it. This method begs the question of the crisis moment's impact. Even when part of the film covers a period preceding the actual contest (On the Pole, Football), there is no difference in intensity. What we have come to, then, from "crisis moment" to "different possible out comes in a situation certain to be resolved" is now simple "pressure situation." When the whole film- becomes a crisis moment, the con- elusion of the film is no more than the outcome of the crisis rather than the anticipated time of character revelation. P art of the attractiveness of the crisis idea as originally conceived should be the assumption that what comes before is not a crisis, that some dramatic change takes place that will enable us to get a fresh look at the people involved. Revelations in crisis, combined with opportunities to observe activities at other tim es, can provide a multi-faceted view of the subject. On the Road to Button Bay does give a suggestion of non-crisis life, and it is present here because the girls are irrepressibly them selves in any situation. But that film is a special case anyway, one of the few which do not try to generate interest through conflict. But even in Button Bay one feels a crisis mentality at work, as a portion of the film covers the problems of one of the girls assuming the responsibility of leadership, leading to a scene where she cries over her difficulties. ' 155 : Almost always, the Drew films are a series of crisis moments of re- ' lative intensity, sufficiently distributed so that dne never sees an ex tended segment without pressure. It is not quite correct, then, to compare the Drew structure to "traditional" or "classical" dramatic form, for beyond their shared propensity towards crisis resolution, the means of development are scarcely similar. Another way of obtaining a crisis moment is, of course, to cause it yourself. Very much to Drew's credit, he was rarely guilty of direct tampering with events. The distinction between perhaps artifi cially creating a crisis situation in editing (as in Nehru) and physically percipitating one at the time of filming may seem like hairsplitting, but there is an important difference. The latter goes a long way towards destruction of the whole direct cinema aesthetic, the form er is only a means of potentially transforming it. Drew could honestly say, in re f erence to the dramatic element, that "We don't introduce this element, 4 we discover it. ” To him, the crisis moment was to be found, so that . rather than creating an imagined reality, he chose those aspects of reality which interested him. The method is assailable only for its limitations and when it isn't honestly "found" (as by editing), and not as a direct subversion of truth through deliberate tampering with the sub ject. ("Discovering, " though, is hardly the process employed in the Drew films for locating drama; something like "colliding" seems a more appropriate description. ) It is preferable for the films to limit 1 5 6 “ , possibilities and be successful on those term s than had they endeavored to extend the possibilities through taking an active role in preparing m aterial to be filmed. The pressure situation method is also supposed to be desirable (besides its dramatic reasons) because people will be less aware of the presence of the camera. In the tension of perpetual crisis, the influence of the cam era is theoretically not so important as whatever else is going on. This is) a point well taken, even though it simplifies the problem of cam era influence. The curious thing in this argument is that, in effect, it says by choosing an unnatural situation in which to film, you m ini mize the chance of unnatural influence. If the sole interest were some sort of unhampered truth, a more likely approach would be to find the situations which seem in themselves to contain a truth that interests you and then seek to minimize your influence by any means possible. The argument concerning cam era influence in crisis situations is justi fication after theTact. It appears to say that the cam era does not dis tort the event any more than the situation itself does, i. e. is the truth about an unusual event. Another outcome of using the contest is the likelihood that the film will cover events that last no more thanWfew days. The period before a crisis moment can naturally be expected to be a time of intense activity, and the films often start here,. On the Pole was shot in four 5 days, the day of the race and the three before it. Susan S tarr took the same length of time, The Chair a day longer, and Crisis a bit long er still (according to the narration in each). Interestingly, if there is any quantitative difference between shooting methods on the films, the increase is in the number of crews filming rather than the length of time any one person is covered. In other words, there is a stronger tendency to increase simultaneous coverage over a brief span than there is to follow a single event through a longer period of time. The result:' instead of a traditional sort of character development (or even depend ing upon character change for its dramatic value), the films take advan tage of the opportunity to provide a view of reality not available to any participant. In this regard, the contest is well suited to direct cinema m eth ods. Films shot over long periods of time that try to tell the continuous story of a few people without extensive narration are incredibly difficult. The multi-viewed moment is much easier to edit; you simply cut from one place to another at parallel moments. And continuity is also easier in a short period of time, since there is a greater likelihood of events containing their own logic. For instance, a cut from Paul Crump on Death Row to his lawyer in his office is more ^ ’ acceptable when it takes place shortly before the scheduled execution; we immediately make the logical connection between the two events (that while Crump is waiting, his lawyer is trying to save him). Were it months earlier, however, we would have to be told the reason for going from one place to another 158 because the pressure of time would not then provide an "automatic 1 1 link. nature (little travelling around, r. vw er peripheral activities) has another important advantage over the film covering a longer period. When shooting lasts many weeks or months, the natural tendency is to select the best moments, to condense a greater m ass of m aterial. This is not direct cinema's forte, condensation being m ore a fictional device. •Direct cinema excels in whole chunks of life, long takes full of many possibilities. A moment, like Paul Crump's lawyer crying, is nothing, without the context of the rest of the scene. Events of shorter overall duration are more likely to allow space for these fuller scenes to play themselves out. time to understand the difference. In Petey and Johnny (shot over a six-month period) the resulting m aterial had a form lessness not con ducive to a crisis structure and more events occurred than could be effectively handled within the limited time period of a one-hour film. The result was dually unsatisfactory --th e episodes were chopped up and a form was created to build to a crisis. The story could only be told, and the different episodes joined together, by a great deal of n a r ration. /* '< The brief duration of a contest and its generally self-contained One has only to look at the cases when shooting lasted a long Theoretically at least, the short filming period should serve “ 1 5 9 " cinema-verite by also tending to prevent the film -m aker from growing attached to his subject in such a way that his conception of the material becomes unduly biased. Unlike Flaherty's idea of non-preconception, which came to mean finding the story in the course of shooting even if it meant starting all over once you hit on the essential elemtns, the direct cinema approach is closer to the actual meaning of the word. These film crews were practically thrown into unfamiliar situations, with little prior planning or preparation. The spontaneity of this ap proach should serve to make each assignment result in entirely differ- ■ ent kinds of films, but the similarities of subjects and situations in the Drew films tended to lessen this possibility. They carried preconcep tions from film to film. There is yet a further reason for short time periods in a crisis structure -- longer ones provide no added information which they de- crease the sense of drama. In The Chair, for instance, there would have been no reason to begin the film at an earlier point. The drama was in the proximity to the final moment of decision and, in fact, one might wish for still more information as to what occurred during that brief period. Eddie, compared to the earlier On the Pole, demonstrates the same point. Repeating the race a second time accomplished no more than repetition of action without added character revelation or in creased dramatic excitement. While a structure of repetition can be a means to break out of a linear narrative (as in the Maysles' films), 160 ' repetition for its own sake is purposeless. The contest situations also led to another device that made edit ing much simpler. The films could be the stories of several people who were rarely, if ever seen together. P rim a ry , Football, Susan S ta rr, C risis, and others all show this trait. Again, it was a useful way to get around the difficult single person continuity problems. (Re- L J * portedly, it was Leacock who first recognized the practical advantage of this method.^*) Like the simultaneous-moment cutting mentioned earlier, when a part of one person's story was missing, not interesting, poorly shot or recorded, then one simply cut to the other story. T ra n s itions were easy; they were frequently performed on parallel actions. From Kennedy making a speech, the cut is to Humphrey doing the same thing. From Susan S tarr practicing the piano, cut to one of her oppon ents engaged in sim ilar activity. The first story can then be picked up at a later point. (Parallel editing, of course, has been a cinematic tool since Griffith. ) Two stories are advanced that would be much more difficult to develop independently. A curious result of this intercutting technique is that it is not as forceful a device as one would expect. It would^ seem to be the perfect way to emphasize conflict, to contrast personalities. In P rim ary and some other cases it occasionally does just that. But more often, it seem s, the cutting points up sim ilarities. When a cut is made on the basis of action (from one person doing something to another engaged in 161 a related pursuit), the activity tends to dominate personality differ ences. Thus, in C risis, when a sequence goes back and forth between Robert Kennedy and George Wallace, it does not emphasize differences between their personalities (or politics) as much as it suggests that they both do a lot of the same things. It is almost a neutral cutting device, good or bad depending upon the affinities of the m aterial on each side of the cut and the sense of editing intention behind them. For instance, in Jane, the intercutting between Jane and Walter K err after the play o doesn't work because the K err segments begin so late in the film and weaken the story tension already established. There are many cases of the same thing in Petey and Johnny, people popping in and out more or less arbitrarily. But when there is already an established^connection ijJ between the intercut sequences and there is no doubt of these actually being simultaneous events, then the device can be tremendously effec tive. The cut from one locker room pep talk to the other in Football, the RFK-Katzenbach phone conversation in C risis, and precious few others, are all we have to begin to get an idea of the power of this technique. Many tim es, this kind of cutting is simply a bland editing device. For real effectiveness, both elements have to be present: clear connection and certain honesty of cutting (in term s of time). The main probem with the structure of intercutting stories, then, f i is that it can be used at cross-currents to whaj finally seeps through. The cutting appears to set up oppositions, to exploit conflict for 1 6 2 ' dramatic purposes. But when the images belie the attempt, when the conflict seems far less rigid that the ordering of the images would have you believe, the images themselves become suspect. This same idea can be expressed several ways, by emphasizing different steps in the process, but these different explanations are all ways of saying the same thing, that the structure does not always support the view that one ' can abstract on the basis of the bits of filtered reality that the images represent. v>.V i ,. In criticism of the films, this idea has often been expressed by v . -" x saying that the editing looks "forced. " Patricia Jaffe reflects this feel ing in her observation that "Many of the Drew films were flawed by pushing the m aterial into a mold where none existed" and attributing this characteristic to a "result of Drew's inclination and experience, ” 7 his push to keep the audience at a constantly high level of excitement. What she is saying is that the editing wishes to tell a story not present in the m aterial itself. Her conclusion (very close to B reitrose's and others) is that the best Drew films are those where the conflict and resolution are already present, as in the self-contained situations of On the Pole and Football. In other words, given an editing method that seeks to establish crisis, the best films are those where the crisis is already present. This, of course, borders on tautology, and doesn't really tell us much about the films. Louis M arcorelles, with his customary perspicacity, is quite " 16'3 ~ aware of the editing problem in the Drew films, saying that, for him, "the failure of most of these passionate attempts comes from the ab- 8 sence of controlling unity in the editing. " He explains the problem as a clash between the styles of the individual film -m akers when their separate parts are combined into one film. Except for The C hair, though, it is difficult to support this argument. f/W)hat he really wants to say, I think, is that he wished Leacock and Pennebaker would have had a larger role in editing, feeling they were less crisis-oriented than Drew. He does not, then, come to term s with the crisis structure and its editing problems, but only suggests that the films would have been better if they were not what they indeed are --film s about crises. So, though he senses that something is wrong, he does not provide a satis factory answer for what it is. What the editing discussions all lead to, in the final result, is this: the simple recognition that editing can be as much a form of "fic- tionalization" as scripting or acting. It is often harder to spot, possibly insidious, and sometimes scarcely credible. Because the integrity of the filming situation is respected (in that no one is directed, no scenes are prepared), the opportunity to play off this aspect, to suggest by implication that the film must still be showing "what happened1 ’ no m at ter how it has been edited, is an easy temptation. Opening narration in the films often plays up the technique, emphasizing that it is a "true story ’1 (said at the start of On the Pole), that it "actually happened" 164 ' (David), that "it wasn't planned, it's for real" (Petey and Johnny), and without "any acting" (Button Bay). It is, in fact, the sanctimonious repetition of the claim to undiluted reality that w ears thinnest in the narration and comes closest to undermining the whole approach. Con-' stantly exploiting the filming method by directly paying homage to it, the narration seeks to legitimize the editing structure as an invisible joining together of truths. To Drew's credit, aside from the narration problems, he doesn't hide the role of editing. In fact, he recognizes its key form a tive role in the films. The operative phrase, however, rather than "editing" is "cutting on picture logic. " This is no euphemistic cover- up, but an expression of how Drew sees his role: "I'm interested in one approach only, and that is to convey the excitement and drama and feeling of real life as it happens through films. The idea behind pic ture logic, basically, is that if a documentary can be understood by hearing it alone without seeing the pictures, then it is a conventional film cut on "word logic. " But, on the other hand, if (as Drew once put it) one "turns off the sound and can follow the logic -- even the drama -- of the show in what evolves visually, then we are confronted, perhaps, with a reality that is captured as it happened (my italics). Drew's "perhaps" is a fortunate though hesitant addition, for it recognizes that picture logic may mean other things. Picture logic is an attempt to justify visual storytelling as truth. 16 5 The degree to which a story can be followed visually, however, is by no means a measure of its veracity. In fact, the ease of a visually flowing story might actually indicate that the rough edges of reality have been hewn for the sake of drama. The very smoothness in the tight suspense of The Chair is exactly where it may be faulted. Reality does not always coincide with drama, and when it does we have better look twice. The picture logic idea also ignores the deep, basic difference between narration and live, synchronized sound. As much as we can despise excessive narration (an easy target), to ignore the spoken word is to forget perhaps the single most crucial difference between direct cinema ^nd other forms of film-making, that we are able to hear people saying things that no one has told them to say. There is nothing at all wrong in the "logic" of a film evolving (which must mean the way it is edited) through what the people in it say; no betrayal of the direct cine ma ideal is involved. In fact, it is just as inc&rrect to a sse rt the su prem acy of the visual over the aural as vice versa. Separating the two I aspects, thinking in mutually exclusive term s of picture logic or word logic, are only two ways to justify artificial structure. When credibility is questioned as a result of editing, the house of cards is ready to topple. When uncontrolled events are fashioned to meet fictional conceptions, then the shooting process itself is equally open to question. One simply no longer knows where falsity begins, "166 ! once it is clear that it has affected the ends. Andrew Sarris describes I a showing of Jane and The Chair in Montreal where National Film Board people were skeptical about some of the crudities of the films, and he attributes these (presumably occasional sound difficulties or wandering zoom shots) to "an attempt to con an audience into thinking that som e thing is more real when it is awkward, or rather that awkwardness is truth. While cinem a-verite is always open to this kind of accusation (in fact, Sarris m arshals it in attack against Don't Book Back, a Penne- baker film not from this period), the atmosphere in which it may have some validty is when other sorts of obvious trickery are present, as in the possibly false conflicts of intercutting stories. The Drew Hero hDrew's feeling has been noted that the structure of these films was simply a method of insuring a complete story, that its real purpose was to assist in studying people. If that were true, it might then be possible to excuse certain limitations and rigidity of structure in ex change for substantial variation in the personalities involved and exten sive insight into their nature. But, like the general situations, the people involved vary only with a certain sphere. This is no accident. Character and structure are closely bound. We have observed several cases where observation of people may have been distorted by dramatic expectations of what they should be like (especially in On the Pole and 167'; i The Chair). Exactly which came first (the subject-types or the stru c ture) is difficult to determine, but their symbiotic relationship is clear. The ideal Drew subject is an active, positive hero, for this is the person who will act assertively in a crisis situation. In such m o ments, the precise action is not so important as the need for there to be any action. An indifferent hero would be unthinkable in a Drew film. Of course, the hero concept is a fictional one, easily supported by the ; dramatic expectations of the crisis structure. In On the Pole, for ex- ample, the cam era had to stay with Eddie so long that he resented its presence, so we could then feel his reaction as a crisis moment. With out that moment, On the Pole lacks resolution. One does not show the events leading up to a crisis without having a character who will follow through in some way. Several of the Drew films show their heroes in weak moments (an exhausted Kennedy, the crying lawyer, Eddie after the race), but only to reinforce their final resilience in crisis situations. That final upbeat is more than a bit cliched and not always convincing, too much a "pick yourself up, dust yourself off" type of philosophizing that ties things up rather neatly. As Jean-Claude Bringuier points out in a fine article about the Drew films, whatever the outcome of the ordeal in one of these films, it is positive. If Kennedy lost the prim ary election, he would say what Hemphrey does, and what Eddie Sachs does, that he will start all over T 6 ‘ 8 ~ again. Bringuier goes on to not how, in effect, these heroes are p e r petuations of American myths. "America exists in Only Angels(Have 12 Wings as well as in Leacock's films, and it is the same A m erica. " His reference to a Hawks film is particularly astute, for the image of the hero in a good number of the Drew films is indeed quite Hawksian. A male professionalism often dominates: pilots and race car drivers risking death (both have been subjects for Hawks films), \ Robert Kennedy and his depulry Katzenbach out to subdue George Wal lace, fighting lawyers working hard to save their client against great odds. Success in a Drew film (as in a Hawks film) is m easured by the way you handle yourself in a tough situation, how well you do your job when the chips are down. And if you don't quite make it, like Eddie Sachs, well then next (time you'll just have to do that much better. As in Hawks, while the popular images may contain some in sight into the American character, the mythic aspects can limit the possibilities for reality. The insights may be less mythic than simply reinforcements of American cliches. Even the more exposed moments can add to the deception, for which of the Drew heroes is exposed in an unexpected manner? Their personalities are molded by their profes sions, but the professions enforce stereotypes that the films exploit. We come to a film about a race car driver withvihj^expectation that his one goal is to win. When we see him lose, we can only read his re a c tion as disappointment. In a story about a lawyer working to save a 169 I ,-o condemned man we assum e nothing less than all-out dedication to the job. But what happens, in the first case, if Eddie Sachs is really just glad to get out of the race alive, if he wasn't concerned simply about winning? And what happens if the lawyer is more interested in making a name for himself than winning his case, and if he isn't as prepared as he should be to go to court? This is not to say that these are tru er in terpretations of the events in On the Pole and The C hair, but it is a : serious deficiency of the films that they do not allow room for any in terpretations beyond the ones enforced by the hero image. The crisis moment is falsified when the hero is untarnished no m atter what happens. This is where the two films in which Pennebaker asserts his cam era style, David and Jane, are m ore interesting as human docu ments than many of the other Drew films. The best Drew films were shot during highly charged situations involving many people (a football game, an integration crisis1 )^ times when personality seems hyps im portant than the dram a of the moment. Kennedy may fit the hero image, but the real interest in Crisis is the excitement of participating in the event, which is bigger than the personalities involved. In Football, the incredible intensity of feeling is expressed by everyone, not just the two coaches. David and Jan e, in contrast, leave their characters vul nerable to the extent that even if David stays away from drugs or Jane's play had been a success, we have observed them at a time when they were at the edge of control. Though the presence of the cam era is more - - 170 clearly a factor in these two films, the complexities of the characters 1 are m ore fully brought out simply by nature of the less active situa tions. The tendencies toward stereotypes are not deliberate m isrep resentations. Drew, like Hawks, is personally sympathetic to the hero conception, and its presence in the films is more a furtgtion of the ex tent he asserted his personal predilections than a m easure of precon ceived falsity. Drew should not be castigated for the type of hero his films have (or for dealing with heroes at all) any more than Hawks should, although together they are, of course, equally susceptible to the accusation. There is no reason to assum e that Drew was bound to come any closer to "truth" than Hawks solely on the basis of the shoot ing techniques. We can wish that he would have sensed the potential for direct cinema to surpass fictional techniques, but that he did not desire to do so in no way minimizes his actual accomplishments. The same mentality that would ask Drew to be different from what he is would have to ask why no Hollywood director in the Thirties used sound as Welles did in Citizen Kane, or why no one before Griffith made a film comparable to Birth of a Nation. Once potentials have begun to be realized (and in direct cinema this has scarcely started), it becomes quite easy to fault the first pioneers for not going further than they did; For Drew, the use of heroes was a reflection of his personal interests. He hoped to pull television documentary out of its doldrums 171 through dram a, and the need for personable subjects if this is to be the goal is clear. Drew freely admits he had certain "peculiarities and _A- prejudices" in regard to the kinds of people ^suitable for these films, and goes on to say, "I hate to see films about people who are mentally ill or are being detained in prisons: people who aren 't free, people who aren't on their own (my italics) . . . I avoid assignments like that like 13 the plague. " That is certainly a point to notice in his films: the people involved willingly submit to the pressure situations. They a s pire to heroic stature, if not always attaining it. Character and Crisis The Drew hero and the structure of the films reinforce each other. In fact, they are almost two ways to discuss the same idea. R e call what Drew said: "In each of the stories there is a time when a man comes against moments of tension, and pressure, and revelation, and decision. It's these moments that interest us most. " Expressed in this manner, the two ideas are one; one defines the other. The crisis moment is the time when a person responds to this kind of situation, and the type of confrontation is archetypally heroic. The next question, though, is whether the crisis structure requires this kind of main p e r sonality. In its broadest sense the answer is no, since there are certain ly dram as that are wholly dependent upon a crisis-like structure but which have scarcely sympathetic, much less heroic, main characters. But if the goal of the crisis moment is seen as an attempt to evole audience interest, then the kind of person it best portrays is easy to see. (Again, this is not a defense of the'crisis moment, but rather an explanation of the consequences once it is assum ed that such a stru c ture is necessary. ) Recalling several of the early Drew films, Bull- fight at Malaga and X -Pilot, the supposed crisis moments were rather boring because there was no close identification possible with the p a r ticipants. Now certainly bullfighters and jet pilots are within|the idea of a hero, but these particular ones come across as too distant, too cold. The difference, the "warmth, " found in the later films results from their taking advantage of the intimate possibilities of direct cine-, ma techniques. We can care about heroes when they have recognizable human quirks, like Eddie Sachs1 little prayer before his race or seeing Bobby Kennedy's daughter run through his office. The luxury of inti macy (including the moments of supposed weakness mentioned earlier) are the basis for our interest in the outcomes of the crises. F or Drew, this identification has always been necessary, and for that m atter, still is. In talking with him while he was editing a feature length film about gliders, he was particularly insistent upon the need for the audience to see events in the film through their effect upon a person they can connect to. His phrase for footage where this identi fication is absent is "unattached seeing, " m aterial which, however 173 spectacular, lacks a human connection: "When that airplane flies into ' a storm , I have to know that the central character is in the plane, that he's looking through the canopy, that he's making decisions. Unattach ed seeing is a term that for me reflects a psychological fact, which is 14 that a physical film is boring, while a psychological film isn't. " The 'Crisis moment alone is not, in fact, a crisis moment at all, without the S 3 77 7 audience understanding its effect upon a person and feeling that the p e r son is reacting in some way to it. Crisis and Truth The prim ary justification for the crisis structure is that it pro-, vides a vehicle to discover a kind of truth about people. We shall use that goal as the basic standard in reaching some conclusions about crisis structure. Is the crisis situation literally the "moment of truth"? By observing people in pressure situations, Drew means to put them to the test. There is an intense, unspoken faith in the reyelation of c h ar acter under stress. But using the films as evidence, what do we learn about people in crisis? The "truths," it turns out, are often empty or misleading. The basic erro r stems from the unfounded assumption that external appear ances and actions are sufficient to interpret inward thoughts. The con nection is tenuous at best, and often wholly non-existent. Motivation is still a m atter of complete speculation. We never know why people do 174 ! what we see them doing, and we have nowhere to turn for motivation but to conventional dram atic expectations. A key test is the scene in The Chair when lawyer Don Moore cries. It is the most dramatic moment in all the Drew-Leacock films, and hence should be even more revealing than other less intense crisis moments. But what good, after all, is Moore to Crump unless he acts? We simply assume that Moore cries out of unselfish devotion to his cause, since we have come to that view of defense lawyers from fic tional sources and from a simple human desire that this be his prim ary motivation. Without more information (perhaps of the sort Leacock says was cut out), we have nothing to go by. A similar moment is the coach's tic in the closing moments of the game in Football. Yes, he's still tense even though his team has just about won, but what are we to make of it? It didn't have to happen, but it is hardly an action of any depth, as exciting as it may be to see it captured on film. It could never have been acted so convincingly, but that could only prove that it takes real people to perform truly superficial displays of emotion. The strongest case for a crisis moment revealing character is the scene with John Kennedy on election night in P rim a ry . The reason it is effective points up failures in the crisis situations of many of the films. Most importantly, there is a contrast between the Kennedy we see through most of P rim ary and the one in this scene. He is without 17 5 the flashy smile, looks considerably more fatigued, speaks more open- '?wwi ly, and appears quite different from the familiar public Kennedy weq were used to from earlier views in the film. There isn ’bV' single other case of that kind of character change in the rest of the films (except briefly near the start of Qn the Pole), and crisis situations should be nothing else if not times of considerable flux. Just what kind of truth the Drew people had hoped to discover through the crisis situation remains unclear. Dramatic excitement appears to have been higher on the list of priorities; Drew must have felt there would be no m ass audience interest in less intense situations, and truth would take care of itself because of the shooting methods. Their best films are those which do not aspire to any chca/r^cter depth (ignoring the cam era influence situations), like Crisis and Football, excelling instead on a sort of super-journalistic level where milieu, a good deal of exciting activity, and possible sociological implications are uppermost. But since the films definitely are personality oriented, this leaves us many cases of lots of footage about people we never come to know. Ultimately, crisis moments are probably much more decep tive situations if knowing people is a fundamental goal. The truths are too simple, too easily obtained, often highly suspect, and too consisr-pj tently misleading. One possible advantage of the crisis moment moves away from character revelation into ideas. Heated situations may encourage ■ 176 ■ people to speak their minds more freely and display feelings that may be less apparent in calm er times. The white segregationists in The Children Were Watching are so angered by the attempt to integrate their schools that they are less reluctant to reveal themselves. While these situations can make fine films, they operate on a different level.' The situations fluring out buried feelingsf^buj; they do not have any depth either. They show us situations we might wish to know about, but if it. is insight into people we seek, they don't show a lot. People only m at ter in these films (The Children Were Watching, Kenya, A frica, Yanki, No 1) as representatives of ideas and rarely in their own right. Crisis moments are most revealing in situations which one might think would be less than ideal -- cases where the cam era is clear- ly influencing the subject. At best, all we can know of a subject's "psychology" in these films is the degree to which he is aware of the cam era. The whole operation is based upon one key condition, that the subject is trying to maintain appearances, attempting to project his own conception of personal character. The Drew films' claim to character insight is implicitly two fold: that the crisis moments themselves are m ore revealing (by put ting people to a test) and that people at these times are less subject to cam era influence, hence the film-making process is even m ore( direct. In regard to the second prem ise, minimal cam era influence in crisis situations is no guarantee of character truth. But by limiting the 177 I definition of the crisis moment, the relation between cam era and char-' acter during these times can be placed on more solid conceptual ground. The key difference is in what the crisis moment is generally thought to be and those less frequent moments of genuine personal crisis. Given the condition of deception by the subject, the crisis m o ment is that time when the subject is stripped of his defenses as a r e sult of failing in some way. Consequently, this moment would come after the supposed crisis has run its course, after an outcome has been decided. A moment surely falling in this category (insight into character through cam era influence after usual crisis) is Eddie Sachs after the race in On the P ole. F irst, the stipulated pre-conditfpn is here: Eddi-( c^> has been boosting an image of himself throughout the film. But only when the race is ended and we see Eddie annoyed by the intrusion of the cam era in his defeat do we really begin to learn something about him. Theoretically, this should be the time of least revelation, since the crisis that takes up most of the film (whether he will win the race) has subsided. That crisis has only served the cause by sufficiently weaken ing Eddie's defenses for the final "kill. " After the race, the complex interplay between the relentlessly following cam era and the off-guard subject is truly a fulfilling moment worth the hour's preparation.-ty -r- ^ & Eddie shows himseIf'af-raickto show disappointment, trying to act "nat ural" but not being sure what natural means in term s of the image he 178 wants to present of himself. Another scene like this is in Jane when Miss Fonda reads the tv ? V£,eviews after the opening of her show. Her situation is very much like Eddie's - -already defeated, not knowing quite how to act, and wanting still to maintain an edge of control over the cam era. Though a moment of crisis, it is not correct to say that the cam era's presence is less important. In fact, we would want Jane to feel the cam era's presence, to be forced finally (but not directly by saying anything to her) to allow penetration of her ritualized defenses so carefully maintained in other parts of the film. The setting up of defenses is a necessary condition, for if the subject refuses to place b a rrie rs between himself and the cam era, tr y ing to reveal character is then like pushing into a pillow, it just gives way and moves somewhere else. Someone like Susan S tarr is not an appropriate subject for a crisis situation, since she too easily accepts the cam era. Likewise, we would never expect Nehru to reveal himself in crisis because he refuses to become involved in the deception of p re senting a special image to the cam era. Only subjects offering some resistance have the kind of depth which can be rewardingly plumbed within a crisis structure. The revealing moments through cam era in fluence are a reflection of the subject's failure to meet heroic specifi cations. A more compassionate regard for these people, and a closer relationship with them, would have been a more natural way to observe them. But by choosing to follow them in crisis, the film -m akers judge them according to their level of achievement, a complicity with the very forces that expose theses' people to failure. This kind of character revelation demands failure. If Eddie had won the race, the film would have been a trifle. Imagining a scene of Jane Fonda reading a favorable review the morning after a hit play sug gests the shortcoming in successful crisis resolution. The tragic di mention, the fall from excessive pride, is non-existent if victory is the outcome. Thus, this kind of film, while immensely revealing, is only a chance occurrence. It is character revelation through the luck of w it nessing failure, an ironic characteristic in films which generally idol ize heroic accomplishment. The difference between crises of cam era influence and the kind Drew prefers is a distinction between psychological and physical crisis. Paradoxically, considering Drew's ataied preference for subjects that are "free, " this form of cam era insight comes in moments of greatest construction. Drew's crises are physical acts (success struggles, sit uations of visible pressure), the truth taken to be those moments when the subject shows himself bearing the burden of conflict. The other cases (like Eddie Sachs, Jane) are post-struggle situations, beyond questions of winning and losing. It is a m atter of outer versus inner |crisis,” 4 V — x ^ \ - ^ To sum up: 180 * 1. Crisis moments seek to bring out special kinds of behavior that, through contrast with other moments, will tell us something about the subject. Generally, they do not tell us anything that adds to our in sight into the person or that is sufficient evidence in itself to broaden our understanding of the character. 2. People in crisis situations may demonstrate contrasting be- havior (Moore's crying in The Chair) that still might not help us under stand the person. Observing activities in crisis is no inherent guaran tee of more revealing moments. Often, through unavoidable dramatic expectations, these actions can be quite misleading. 3. When people attempting to shape their image before the cam era are brought through a crisis that does not leave them triumphant, their struggle to maintain a form of dignity (involving a duplicity to wards the camera) can be informative on a psychological level. These conclusions are not too encouraging, and become even less so when we note that crisis situations are not prerequisite to under standing through cam era influence (thus taking the edge off the third point). In Jan e, for example, the scene of her alone in the dressing room is as revealing as the review scene for essentially the same re a son, our awareness that she is putting on an act forlthe cam era. Ob serving a person in defeat after crisis is surely only one way to use the cam era as a probe. Actually, scenes wholly without dramatic weight (like the dressing room scene) can be even more revealing, since the subject is freer of immediate preoccupations and better able to concen trate on the subtleties of deception. But more crucially, we must question seriously the complete efficacy of the crisis structure as a means to learn about people, be cause even given that structure, the most revealing (and/or interesting) moment's) have little or no correlation to the level of crisis intensity. In other words, we manage to learn about people despite the crisis sit uations, even within that rigid structure. To take examples from the Drew films themselves of relatively crisis-free moments: 1. Hubert Humphrey talking and sleeping (in The car in P rim a ry . Z. David (in film of that title) with his family. 3. Nehru gretting government officials. 4. A street corner singing group in Petey and Johnny. 5. George Wallace in Crisis describing objects in his office. All these situations are revealing for no further reason than we learn something, how everts mall, about a person that interested the film m akers and interests us. Freed of the crisis requirement, the mo- ments stand on their own, unbound by the strictures of plot advance ment. This is rather a backhanded compliment for the crisis structure, however, to say that it makes less pressured moments that slip through seem more honest. The related ideas of editing and character conception discussed in earlier parts of this chapter (parallel editing for conflict, the Drew 1 82 ■ heroes) are so closely tied together that the elimination of any one would undermine the necessity of the others. Less emphasis upon crisis would minimize a hero mentality and would not require the suspense of edited contrasts. Likewise, non-heroic subjects will not fall into crisis situations and hence different structures will result. When Drew says they '’discover" the dramatic element, that discovery means that they locate the conditions (crisis situatibny) active subject) that they know will result in a certain kind of film. That's an awful lot of baggage to carry around, and it results in a damaging kind of uniformity. It might be thought that the crisis moment structure is only a vehicle, simply a technique that can be kept constantly fresh through applying it in an everchanging succession of situations. Would that this were so! The Drew films excel in constant re-examination of a p a rti cularly limited area of investigation, the lust for achievement that seems so typically American; but we must recognize that it is not the all-purpose form for a great many subjects. It suited Drew's interests and some fine films have come about through its use, but, to repeat, it is only one possibility for cinema-verite, Structure is the greatest variable in this kind of filming, and Drew's is but one kind. There's still a whole world unreachable by the crisis structure. Drew found certain elements of Am erican life which w ere easily adapt able to a structure that found its roots outside cinema, in theater and photojournalism. Some day, hopefully, the crisis structure will be 183 ; looked upon as a transitional phase comparable to the early days of the fiction film, when traditional theatrical conceptions had not yet been discarded. Reality is powerful stuff, and Drew and his people got their hooks into only one segment of it. But even the suggestion of future potential is unimaginable without the necessary groundwork provided by these films. Their importance as a crucial stage in the development of a whole new kind of cinema can only increase, and there will always be; a great deal to learn from these seminal efforts. Notes 1. Louis Marcorelles and Andre S. Labarthe, "Entretien avec Robert Drew et Richard Leacock, " Cahiers du Cinema, 24 (February- 1963), 19. 2. Author's interview with Robert Drew. 3. ^Gideon Bachmann, "The Frontiers of Realist Cinema: The Work of Ricky Leacock, " Film Culture, No. 22-23 (Summer 1961), p. 18. 4. M arcorelles and Labarthe, "Entretien avec Drew et L ea cock, " p. 24. 5. Ibid. 6. Author's interview with Robert Drew. 7. Patricia Jaffe, "Editing Cinema Verite, " Film Comment, 3 (Summer 1965), pp. 44-45. 8 . Louis M arcorelles, "Le cinema direct nord american, " Image et Son, No. 183 (April 1965), p. 52. 9. "Documentarists on Documentary" in Bluem, Documentary in A m erican Television (New York: Hastings House, 1965), p. 259. 10. Ibid. 11. Andrew S arris, "Digging Dylan," in Film 67/ 6 8 , ed. Rich ard Schickel et al. (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1968), p. 252. 1 8 5 12. Jean-Claude Bringuier, "Libres propos sur le cinema - verite, " Cahiers du Cinema, 25 (July 1963), p. 16. 13. Author's interview with Robert Drew. CHAPTER The Maysles Brothers The early films of the Maysles Brothers, Albert and David, were the first clear attempt to employ cinema-verite (although they prefer the term "direct cinema") in non-dramatic fashion. Unlike the Drew films, the Maysles' work lacks clear dram atic resolution or character revelation through w in-or-lose climaxes. Still, their films are not a complete departure from the Drew approach and are much clos er to his work than to, say, Frederick Wiseman's . The Maysles films are equally consistent in regard to maintaining a personality- oriented structure, and while not dependent upon the same sort of crisis-oriented conditions, they do have a sense of people trying to prove themselves (or, at least, to survive) in pressu re situations. In Maysles films, however, the pressure never lets up. The contest never ends. Albert Maysles, like Leacock, showed an interest in an incip ient cinem a-verite aesthetic before there was any name for it. In 19 56, with a background in psychology and almost no knowledge of film, he talked CBS into backing his plan to shoot footage of mental hospitals in the Soviet Union. The resulting short film (about ten minutes in length), Psychiatry in Russia, is of little more than historical interest, a brief, diary-like record of his three-month trip. Maysles provides his own narration, in the absence of live synch-sound, and all the shots appear to be hand-held. It is a competent account, but the visuals are gener ally uninteresting and the limitations of non-synch shooting are again evident (as in Leacock's early work). The follo^ingVyear he shot a film about Polish youth with his brother David (who had previously w ork ed as assistant to the producer on a couple of feature films). In 1959, • A1 Maysles met Richard Leacock and D. A. Pennebaker in Moscow, where they w ere shooting a film on a Bernstein concert. This associa tion led to his work on P rim ary , Yanki, No !, and Kenya, Africa, and David worked briefly for Drew Associates as well. In 1962, breaking from Drew, they formed their own company. For all their films, A1 has been cameraman, with David taking sound and editing. Showman Showman is again a landmark film, the first American cinema- verite work entirely free from the constraints of crisis situations and plot progression to a clear resolution. Their first film is literally a slice of life, a record of some time spent following Joe Levine, a film entrepeneur then rising to the top on the’financial strength of his H er cules. While there are threads of narrative continuity, there is no real story or dram atic character change. Levine is no different by the end of the film and he has not passed through a particularly climactic 188 1 period. The film has the engaging quality of feeling caught on the run, with events happening too quickly to be molded into a tightly ordered structure. Showman is an almost pure form of revelation through sit uation, each scene looking selected for nothing more than insight into the film's main character. The film is not completely structureless, however. Its prime . unifying force is the simple convention of chronological continuity, with arbitrary starting and ending points. It is matched only by Leacock's later A Stravinsky P ortrait in placing complete faith in the typicality, the everyday activity of a time period seemingly chosen at random in one person's life. Both films even have a way of making the possibly spectacular into the acceptably routine. Levine's trip to Rome to p r e sent Sophia Loren her O scar for Two Women (a Levine-produced film) is given no greater emphasis than his breakfast conversation with his cook: it is just another entry in the filmed "diary. " A pattern of life develops, a repetition of response, which argues that we have seen suf ficient m aterial to get an idea of what Levine is like. Beyond the structure of limited non-crisis chronology, there are some simple continuity threads, though just as many possible "little stories " which might develop out of single episodes never do. Levine's promotion of Two Women and his dealings with Miss Loren connect sev eral scenes, and his reunion with childhood cohorts at a Boston dinner has some follow-up. But a supposed meeting with Kim Novak never 189 takes place, and there are a good number of episodes unconnected with any others. (Most memorable is a radio station "debate1’ between L e vine and David Susskind over questions of audience tastes and film art.) F reed from plot advancement, the film is full of spontaneous moments unmatched in fiction films. The introduction given Levine at the Boston dinner, like the m ayor's speech in Leacock's Happy Mother's Day, is the kind of florid banality which rings true of experience in a way that a fictionalized incident could never get away with. ("The man with a golden touch has a heart of gold, too. ") Cinema-verite can make cliche fresh: the ethic of non-interference means that everyday speech and typical relationships are again within the province of film. Levine's "yes men" are a fictional cliche, but their very presence in the film argues for a certain unmanipulated form of observation. ("You were down to earth, Jo e ." "You should write a book, Joe.") These kinds of cliches are also acceptable in this film because Levine himself provides a running critique to many incidents, as when he quickly disassociates himself from the aura of nostalgia surrounding the Boston reunion. Levine's complexity in Showman develops from the contradic tions of his personality which are expressed not through a balance of scenes showing him in a "good" or a "bad" light (the typical "objectiv ity" of many television documentaries), but directly in each moment we observe him in action. If one were to take sides, one could conclude 190 " that Levine is either a monster destroying public taste or just a very ambitious guy who has won out over other ambitious guys, but whatever one's opinion of Levine, it could be supported by the entire film and not just selected scenes. No one episode is advanced as being "m ore" true l of Levine, in marked contrast to the possible revelations of concluding crisis moments in Drew films. What's Happening! The Beatles in the U.S.A. What's Happening! The Beatles in the U.S.A. is again an "on the run" film. The Maysles were offered the opportunity to film The Beaties' first trip to A m erica only two hours before their plane arrived (the first scene in the film). ^ Shot over a five-day period, the film has even less plot continuity than Showman. The Beatles are followed through press encounters, hotel rooms, night clubs, and performances, with the bare-bones structure: of beginning at the group's New York a r rival and ending with their return to London. The first full-length synch-sound cinem a-verite film completely free of narration (no small accomplishment), What's Happening has a look of being almost acciden tally recorded, when in fact its structure and thematic concerns are surprisingly consistent. The film seems so entirely objective, so free of external com ment, that some accused it of being little more than a glorified news reel. The view of Antony Jay, then Head of Features for BBC-TV, is ..............~ "191 ; typical of this response: "... as most documentary film -m akers un- I derstand the term , it was hardly a film at all . . . I think it will be hard for anyone who comes fresh to this film in ten years' time to believe that anything so unutterably tedious was ever transmitted: its view- ability depended entirely on a nearly obsessive interest in everything to do with the Beatles . . . unless there is no difference at all between the documentary producer and the newsreel cam eram an, it had almost. no relevance to the development of documentaries . . . It is not about 2 art, it is about keyholes." Jay's ten years have not quite passed, but his anger at the seeming form lessness of the film should be kept in mind during the ensuing discussion, as the im pression might otherwise be transm itted that What's Happening is overly structured. Despite appearances, the film offers a good deal more than private views of famous people. Jay's rem arks, however, m erit a reply. A. William Bluem has argued that cinem a-verite "can nullify an essentially intellectual m essage - - o r impede, in annoying fashion, our appreciation and understanding of it" and that cinem a-verite "can inter- 3 fere with rationality (it is designed to do so). " While Jay would c e r tainly deny that What's Happening even has an intellectual message, however obscured, the two views overlap in an implicit belief in the necessity for overt statement of purpose in documentary. The tone of such prescriptive directives, like many of the films made in accordance with these beliefs, sounds rather preachy. The Maysles in What's '192 Happening, and in their work generally, are as concerned about m e s s age as Jay and Bluem, It is not even a question in Maysles films of m essage "hidden" in a surface of unintexpreted observation, but in stead a refusal to spoon-feed interpretation when the m aterial itself is open to consideration from a number of points of view. This approach, rather than interfering with rationality, openly encourages it, since none of the thinking is done for you in the form of narration or easily followed plot. While my view of the film is, of course, personal, one ■ can only hope that observation of internal consistencies in a film, lead ing to conclusions in regard to theme, are an effective argument a- gainst accusations like those above. The idea of The Beatles as a commodity, a product that is be ing sold, is certainly clear in the film, but even more apparent is the atmosphere of excessive com m ercialism which makes it impossible for them to function in any other way. Some critics have found the film wanting for failing to differentiate between the four members of the 4 group, but this is not so much a shortcoming of the film as an obser vation of how people in the film treat them. To say that the film could express distinct personal characteristics of each of the four would mean that the situations where they were observed would allow for such differentiation. As the Maysles did not plan any of the events they film ed, if The Beatles all come out looking alike, we must analyze the p ro cesses that lead to this merging of personalities rather than find fault with the film for recording this phenomenon. The view of the four Beatles as interchangeable components of a^marketable commodity, of individual characteristics sacrificed to group commercial cohesion, is the kind of insight which a preconceived approach to the subject could very possibly have obscured. (One such approach might, for instance, have independent sections about each of the four, thus deliberately stressing their differences.) The emphasis upon The Beatles as a product is reinforced through the appearance of numerous com m ercials and frequent discus sions (even some paradies) of advertisem ents. To give a few examples 1. As they are driven from the airport, they hear one of their songs on the radio, followed directly by a cigarette ad. 2. In their hotel room, they hear a wine com m ercial (again directly after one of their songs), and then joke about it., 3. George is interviewed on the phone by a radio disc jockey who has to interrupt to do an ad. 4. Paul objects to the use of ads in news broadcasts and shows for children. 5. John and George perform a mock cigarette com m er cial. 6. With another radio d. j. , they are each asked to yell the station's call letters and number into the phone. Whether these scenes were selected from a great variety of m aterial 194 or are an inevitable result from following The Beatles for five days is an arguable point. In either case, the thematic pattern p ersists. The strongest argument for intentional thematic statement is the inclusion of The Beaties' return to London Airport. They are met by a mob of fans identical to the crowd that greet their arriv al in New York. One would have expected the film to end with their New York departure, as the film is ostensibly a report on their A m erican visit, so the brief London footage comes as something of a surprise. The one shot makes the film circular in structure and reminds us that Beatlemania is not an exclusively Am erican phenomenon. They are a world-wide commodity. Theme is so non-assertive in What's Happening for two reasons: the lack of specific crisis situations to point up the tensions at work and the refusal to press for point-of-view through cam era style (or n a rra tion). A1 Maysles' cam era simply follows action, rarely moving in on. small details or gestures. Maysles' cam era in the early films seems m ost at home in scenes of chaotic movement, as in the shot in P rim ary following Kennedy through the crowd or the Peppermint Lounge sequence in this film, when in one long take we are brought into the frenetic a t mosphere completely, made to feel like a participant. Louis M arcor elles called this latter shot "the most revealing moment of the Maysles technique . . . We are in, intensely taken into an action and the emotion it engenders. For the first time, we catch a glimpse of a cam era de- picting really physical actions. " If there has been a progression in the 195 . Maysles style, though, it has been away from this kind of first person "atmosphere" shooting into what we might call a more psychologically oriented filming approach, a way of shooting that is concerned with the. relationships between a .small number of people and the role of the cam era itself. Some suggestions of this progression are apparent in these first films. In What’s Happening, The Beatles, for the most part, refuse to pretend that the cam era is invisible, accepting it as just another natural element of intrusion. They often perform directly to the cam era, or at least mug occasionally in its direction. Sometimes, however, the probe goes on a little too long for their liking, as in a shot of Paul, when he fools around awhile for the cam era but then gets bored, so he sits wait- ing for the cam era to move away. It doesn't/^and the two are locked in a momentary struggle, as Paul stares directly into the cam era, chal lenging it to move elsewhere. (There is an almost identical shot of Rolling Stones drum m er Charlie Watts in Gimme Shelter. ) There are few such moments, but this element of open confrontation (as we have noted'with Pennebaker) is a far different approach from the concept of the cam era as an invisible (or at least unobtrusive) recorder, as is the case in Showman. Another departure from impersonal observation is the occasional tendency to select reactions rather than following actions. In a reveal ing scene in What's Happening, a manic disc jockey named M urray the 196 K does a report to his listeners via telephone from The Beatles hotel room. At one\ -oint he says, "They've got ice in their pockets. They're V / real cool!" The cam era is on John, staring incredulously at the man's performance and way of expressing himself. There is a somewhat sim ilar cam era choice in Showman, when Levine is talking with a group of* his subordinates, the cam era staying on Levine regardless of who is speaking, as if in judgement of the relative importance of the others' comments. These are selections made in the cam era, rather than through editing, as in the What's Happening «hot the emphasis upon John is asserted through framing and angle rather than thifough a cut to him. In scenes filmed with one cam era, depictions of non-verbal atti tudes to some on-going event (what are usually called "reaction shots") must be incorporated within one shot, as this one is, since a cut will invalidate the credibility of the shot by suggesting an immediate r e s ponse when a viewer might wonder how much time has in fact elapsed between the two set-ups. An example of this problem occurs in Show- ' man, when Levine looks out a window of his Cannes hotel room, and there is a cut to a girl on the beach, and then a shot of Levine still look ing out the window. Quite obviously, the footage of the girl was shot some other time, and actually we have no idea at all what Levine was looking at or for how long. Because a scene in a cinem a-verite film carries with it its own internal evidence as to whether only one cam era is present, be it size of the room itself or lack of continuity between 197 ‘ shots within the scene, the traditional suspension of disbelief in regard to cutting in fiction films cannot apply (that each shot is, indeed, con tinuous in time within a scene, though weeks might have separated their actual filming). For this reason, credible selection comes through changes of emphasis within a shot; the cam eram an becomes his own editor. He becomes his own editor, that is, if he wishes to. Generally, as in this film, the cam eram an follows a c tio n --if someone talks, we see him, and if another person replies, the cam era pans over to him. It is the decision that the listener may be more important to watch than the speaker, the refusal, that is, to follow action, that selection is be ing applied. Occasional shots in Showman and What’s Happening, like the examples above, are the first indications of the potential complex ity of this seemingly straightforward shooting style, and of the need for new criteria to evaluate these films. A smooth cut to indicate a re a c tion, perhaps an element to be valued in a fiction film, can be highly undesirable in a cinem a-verite work. Since What's Happening doesn't have much of a story (even in comparison to other cinem a-verite, like the Drew-Leacock films), one might wonder just what function physical editing does have (as opposed to the editing-within-the-camera described above). Since the prim ary objective of the film might be term ed simply "interesting observation, 1 1 rather than story advancement, the editing process is not dependent 198 upon a view of progressive development of character in the fictional sense. Ideally, a film like this would consist of all technically com petent m aterial that was shot, but that specific scenes have been s e l ected to the exclusion of others does not make the film any less ^truth ful. " Since there is little contextual meaning in the film, in the sense that meaning doesn't result from the ordering of scenes (as in films with a narrative), editing selections do not alter the meaning of inde pendent scenes. More scenes would just supply more evidence, which would make for a m ore valid portrait only in the same way that a l a r ger sample would give a statistical survey greater validity. In crisis-oriented films (or, more generally, films with plot resolution), if a happy scene, for instance, follows a scene of crucial defeat, a point has been made through editing (or in our trust that edit ing is being faithful to actual chronolgy). In a film like What's Happen ing, where such dram atic reversals do not take place, the order of scenes is not nearly as important, which is a way of saying that editing ceases to be as powerful a formative device. Each sequence stands on its own, and its relationship to other sequences is cumulative rather than dependent upon direct transitional (or chronological) links from one to another. Several scenes more or less would not alter the film, whereas such alterations in a P rim ary or an On the Pole could result in very different conclusions about characters, in view of the pivotal position structure holds in those films. 199 This may leave such films open to the kind of criticism noted by Colin Young in the case of Showman, from people who say "they learn no more when it is over than after ten minutes - -that it stays on the surface. This view, in its way, is a compliment to the Maysles a p proach, in that "staying on the surface” suggests that the film -m akers have been sensitive to the fragile chemistry of cam era-subject in ter action and have chosen not to upset the delicate balance implied in such a relationship. An unexamined assumption in the quoted position is just what "the surface" is, and what kind of insights we can expect from these films. This is a broad question, but in relation to the Maysles films, there is a faith in the complexity of personalities which argues that the accumulation of observation (the filming) is an evidence - gathering process rather than a search for logical structure. The May sles in these films are not after "the" truth about Joe Levine or The Beatle.s; they are not defining their significance for us. In this sense, the films are not informational in intent, hence the accusations that as the films progress we don't "know more. " The M aysles1 role is closer to being an intermediary between their subject and us. This does not, certainly, imply an impersonal recording process, but at least they don't function as creators of fictional structures in order to reduce ex perience to recognizable patterns. A Hard Day's Night, The Beatles' first theatrical film, was clearly influenced by What's Happening. Semi-documentary in intent, 200 the Richard Lester film does not use The Beatles as characters, ex cept perhaps to conform to their own popular images. Many scenes in the film appear to be directly inspired, especially in its questions from reporters and the scene where George goes to an ad agency, only to be' confronted by a guy whose "gear" and "fab" argot is reminiscent of M urray the K's carrying-on. The fictional film tries to capture the same sense of claustrophobia, and its use of shots of fans to convey the mystic power of Beatlemania is sim ilar, if a good bit more over- stated. Interestingly, in view of the previously mentioned criticism of What's Happening for failure to differentiate between the four, A Hard Day's Night does isolate each for certain segments of the film, a lib er ty the Maysles w ere not free to take. These segments of the Lester film, though, are the most obviously fictionalized, and seem rather flat in comparison to the scenes of rehearsal preparation and perfo r mance. The film ends with a post-concert escape by helicopter, but unlike the New York departure in What's Happening, which only leads to the London return to identical chaos, the Lester film opts for the rosier view of genuine release, as the helicopter takes off and the film ends. What's Happening is also the prototypical perform er portrait, bearing close resemblances to Pennebaker's film on Bob Dylan, Don't Look Back. Both films deal with a perform er's tour of a foreign country, and are structured on that basis. The newness of the perform er to the country he's visiting leads to many press interviews, a way of getting verbal response without the film -m akers taking a d ir ect hand. In both, the idea of perform er as commodity is important, and consequently there are quite sim ilar scenes of their managers negotiating deals (sim ilar, too, to telephone deals in Showman). Both; films invite interpretation ofhheir subjects as social and cultural phe nomena, exploring the milieu they travel through and the responses people have to them. By taking perform ers out of their usual environ ment, the films about them can be viewed in several ways - - a s person ality studies and explorations of the stars as products of society. Meet Marlon Brando If Antony Jay and others felt that What's Happening was hardly even a film, one wonders what they would think about Meet Marlon Brando, which challenges even more radically conventional notions of documentary structure. Unfortunately, the film has had only the most limited distribution, reportedly because of Brando's refusal to permit 7 its release, so the issues the film raises have not been the subject of much critical discussion. Meet Marlon Brando didn't even start out to be a film at all. The Maysles were assigned to film a battery of press interviews which B^rcihdo was giving in New York to local television reporters from v a r ious cities across the country to plug his film Morituri. As the ' 202 shooting progressed, the Maysles felt there was an interest in the m a terial of a sort no one had anticipated, and they shot more than their 8 assignment had hailed for, financing the extra shooting personally. The half-hour film consists entirely of a succession of these interviews. There is scarcely any direct information conveyed, as Brando is continually evasive in the face of a stream of rather ridicu lous questions. Nor is there any discussion of the film supposedly be ing promoted, beyond Brando challenging an interviewer who says "It's a great picture" as to whether she's actually seen it, only to get a sheepish negative reply. Typical of his responses to questioifs about the film are these two exchanges: Interviewer: Do tell us about your movie. Brando: Why? Interviewer: We'll all be watching for Marlon. Brando: Don't watch too close. Occasionally he tries to shift the discussion to serious topics like edu cation, problems of the A m erican Indian, or man's essentially violent nature (quoting Dr. Louis Leakey), only to be brought back to more mundane topics by TV hosts who could care less about these subjects. Increasingly exasperated, Brando ends his final interview with this highly sarcastic comment: "For God's sake, go see it. You won't know how to proceed in life if you don't go see Morituri. " The cam era style is totally unemphatic, almost invariably a stationary two-shot of Brando and his interviewer. There is never any 203 visual emphasis supplied by pans or zooms (except in one interview done in Central Park) and hardly any cutting within interviews. The deliberately flat visual style, along with the minimal structure, make Meet Marlon Brando one of the "purest" examples of Am erican cinema- verite so far realized. On first seeing the film, there's a certain astonishment, after one or two of the interviews, in realizing that the whole film is going to consist of nothing but these interviews. This structural audacity, though, appears less radical when defined and placed within the context of the M aysles 1 work to this point. The film can be viewed as a sort of controlled experiment where external variables are kept at a minimum. In each segment, Brando is put through the same process of having to "sell" a film he's not interested in to a person he doesn't like. Again, one could argue that we don't "know" any more about Brando at the end of the film than after the first interview, but in term s of the film's credibility (or, rather, Brando's), it is the very repetition, the lack of "new" information, which gives the film meaning. The absence of plot in the Maysles films discussed so far (and the ensuing critical accusa- , tions this has led to), would be the first indication that the structure of the Brando film, while surprising at first, is only an extension of ten dencies previously expressed. The repetition of incident in Meet Marlon Brando is a result of , the tendency in Maysles films to separate personality from plot. To 204 understand this, let us compare the Maysles films to the Drew films. In Maysles films (with the possible exception of Gimme Shelter), one always has the feeling of people being m ore important than events, whereas in the Drew films, because of the relative weight given to the situation in which the individual is placed, personality is defined by action to a far greater extent. This is not a negative criticism of the Drew films but an observation in keeping with Drew's stated prefer- g ence for people who do things. When we think of Eddie Sachs, we think of him as a man who races cars; he lacks an identity apart from his profession. People in Drew films are unhappy only in failure, not out of dissatisfaction with what they must do. In the Maysles films, a tension usually exists between a p e r son's "nature" and what he does to make money. (This is strongest for Brando, Paul Brennan in Salesman, and The Beatles; least for Levine. ) Because of this tension, we get a stronger sense than in the Drew films of people whose identities can be discussed apart from their professional activities. We do not necessarily think of Brando in the film as an actor, but as a man who is also an actor. (Robert Steele, quite properly, .can talk about how Brando "substituted his real p e r sonality for his persona. " ^ ) This distinction is m ore important than it may seem, for it is the frustration between Brando's view of himself and the way others see him that most clearly defines the nature of his situation, and this frustration is developed by repetition. Brando, 205' unlike Eddie Sachs, cannot ''win. " There is nothing he can "do, " given the situation, to triumph, because the situation itself is so comprO(~^J mised. In relation to structure, then, because Brando (as well as other Maysles subjects) is not defined by action, it is entirely illogical to say that "nothing" happens for thirty minutes except a repetition of identical situations. In fact, it is the structure itself which makes his predica- . ment clear, in other words, which reveals his personality. One of the interviews alone, perhaps as a single episode in a Showman-type film of many different Brando activities, could only express these feelings in skeletal form. If we see "knowledge" in this film (using the word in answer to those who would say you don't "know" more about Brando by the end) as a better understanding of Brando's contradictory position, the 'depth ofrhis compromise, then the form and length of the film are quite important. The film can also be taken as an ironic comment on the in ter view process itself. American cinema-verite film -m akers have almost completely avoided the use of interviews, and this film is a useful index of the M aysles 1 probably feeling in this regard. (The interview scenes in Pennebaker's Don't Look Back function similarly. ) By running so many short interviews in sequence, they demonstrate the equal inability of all to draw Brando out on matters he would like to discuss. The film is a series of badly directed Brando perform ances, each interviewer 206 trying to make him play their game. Meet Marlon Brando is further revealing in regard to the actual promotion routine - -in seeing that a movie star has to go through this curious form of torture. Apart from Brando's reaction to the inter views, one wonders how anyone would subject himself to such an ordeal. Like Showman and What's Happening (and perhaps Gimme Shelter), the film is also about the merchandising of art, or at least the surrdunding business environment. Given that Joe Levine's or the early Beaties' notions of art might be rather simplistic and that even having appeared hforituri leaves Brando something less than artistically untarnished, in all cases there is certainly a feeling that the people in question have made compromises by giving in so readily to the lust for money. Brando's series of inane interviews, like The B eatles 1 tour, is a crazy idea to begin with, endured only for personal commercial benefit. Brando, like the others, is aware of his huckster role and of his function as a commodity. He tells one interviewer: "I'm like the hula hoopj'Tt comes along and everybody buys it, and after awhile, nobody buys it any more. " Like other Maysles personalities, it is Brando's degree of self-realization which makes him sympathetic. Maysles heroes, when w e're not laughing at the absurdity of their situation {and Meet Marlon Brando is a hilarious film), achieve an almost tragic stature. ~ 207 Salesman Salesman is the M aysles' most ambitious work to date, and in many ways the most important product of American cinem a-verite. (It Should be noted that the credits read "A Film by The Maysles B ro thers and Charlotte Zwerin. 1 1 Miss Zwerin played a major role in editing. It is a vexing, problematic film, however. On the one hand, Salesman is startlingly pure, a rigorous attempt to capture a s pects of A m erican experience scarcely explored in early films of this kind, refusing to deal with a famous personality or an event of marked significance. On the other, Salesman is as neatly constructed as if it were largely pre-scripted, full of devices heretofore m ore the province of fiction film. Its ultimate significance may lie more in the direction it signals and the questions it raises than in its intrinsic m erits, but it is certainly a film of crucial importance. The film depicts the activities of four Bible salesmen, beginning in Boston but taking place prim arily during a selling trip in Florida. All four are shown in independent sales attempts (they go to the homes of people who have stated their interest in the product by filling out a card at their church), and the great majority of scenes are these one- to-one encounters. At an early point, though the film begins to focus on one of them, Paul, the least successful of the group. As the film develops, Paul's lack of progress is played off against the relative achievement of the others, and he appears to become increasingly 208 .disillusioned about his work. In the last scene, he stands in a doorway, near tears, in seeming self-awareness of the Repressing nature of his situation. Like many of the Drew films, Salesman relies frequently on cutting between the activities of several people, in this case the four salesmen. A1 Maysles has observed, though without noting the sim i larity in approach to many of the Drew films, "We had a terrific ad vantage in filming four people rather than one, because we could break away from one person and give him a rest and pick up with another 12 one. " The film begins, for instance, with one sales transaction of each, all four times ending with their name and nickname ("The Badg er, " "The Gipper, " etc. ) superimposed as titles over a shot of the salesm an we have just seen in action. Paul does become the central dramatic focus, through a com bination of structural choices and events in the film. One way this is developed is through scenes of him talking while driving alone (with the film -m akers, of course). He discusses the other three in turn, and as he does so each is "illustrated" with another selling scene (Paul, in effect, functioning here as narrator, in a film otherwise devoid of n a r ration). Clearly, this is an arb itrary choice, as any of the four might have assum ed this function. Having made this choice, the other three begin to look more sim ilar; they are the ones getting sales while Paul flounders. central character is the manner that footage of a Chicago sales m eet ing is introduced. A scene of all four together ends with a line (which looks dubbed in for transitional purposes, as we don't see the speaker) referring to the upcoming meeting. The next shot shows Paul on the train to Chicago, and a voice-over begins from the meeting before cut- ting to the matching visual.) ; A man rises and tells of his optimism for the coming year. Cut back to Paul on the train, then back to the m eet ing for a sim ilar speech. So, the first speeches at the meeting are presented as flash-forwards, presumably as reflections of Paul's fears of not selling. This construction is a dramatic device, in that the meeting is used to interpret Paul's probable thoughts prior to his a r rival, an interpretation developed entirely through editing. This emphasis upon Paul supports the film 's central conflict-- his frustration at not selling while the others are. As the film contin ues, there are fewer sequences constructed of successive scenes with each of the four. Instead, Paul is more directly played off against th e ’ others. While the film lacks a climax, the last scene is the most ex pressive ^of1 his 'mounting frustration. Through the structure of con- V .s trast, we feel Paul is at the end of his rope. Quite frequently in interviews, the Maysles have argued that their films should be judged by the same criteria one applies to fiction films, referring to their work as a cinematic equivalent to the "non- 210 13 fiction novel" like Trum an Capote's In Cold Blood. We are certainly under no obligation to judge a film according to the m akers' view of how it should be considered, but the suggestion deserves consideration. The statement carries with it a couple of major implications: first, that no special attention be given to the circumstances that produced the film (including the knowledge that these men are really Bible sales men, that they were not told what to do, that nothing was restaged) and that the question of manipulation in editing is irrelevant. One should, according to this view, consider nothing beyond what is on the screen, and evaluate the film evidence accordingly. Attempting to follow this dictum, the film is whooly discussable in term s of the view of Am erican life it portrays, the metaphoric pos sibilities in the situation, the contradictions between religion and hawk ing Bibles, the pervading sense of angst, etc. This kind of explication, while certainly fruitful, sidesteps major questions. The crux of the argument above seems to be that a cinem a-verite approach can lead to superior fiction, when the real question should be why do we need fic tion at all. To say that the film should be judged like any other means that the approach is important because it gives the film -m aker ''better" m aterial than he perhaps could have invented, but that the same nec essity for working within a narrative still applies. Because of the cinema-verite ground rules, even the basi'd re- quirement of not restaging events, the method itself must influence the 211 form of the film. Therefore, to ignore the method in evaluating the film seems a forced approach. If we did employ standard criteria, we might judge the intercutting between episodes of the four salesmen to be a contrived means of comparison. We could wonder why the film jumps around so much when Paul seems to be the dram atic focus. More seriously, if only the usual criteria apply, the many scenes of selling are surely inordinately repetitious. Rather than argue against these hypothetical complaints, that is, trying to justify the fictional "look" of the film, the strongest argument against the idea of identical criteria is simply to evaluate what is, indeed, of interest and im por tance, and see how these elements are not generally a part of fiction films. Joseph Gelmis reports a very useful quote from David Maysles: "The most exciting thing in life is to watch the meeting of two strangers, 14 to see how they communicate. " We have talked already about repe tition in Meet Marlon Brando, and the use of identical situations to ex plore personality apart from plot development. The selling encounters in Salesman function similarly. The patterns developing from repeti tion in the dozen or so sales pitches are the source of greatest insight, not the function of these encounters within a larger narrative. It is the cumulative effect of these scenes and the wealth of detail within each that makes Salesman such a revelation, and not the narrative fashioned around them. These individual encounters, these spontaneous, 212 unrehearsed meetings between strangers, are the m ajor substance of the film. If anything, the "story" of P au l’s disenchantment with his job could be viewed as a gimmick, a perhaps artificial thread to tie the selling scenes together. The need for plot development makes the ordering of scenes suspect, and we can legitimately wonder whether the order is actually non-chronological, structured to suggest Paul's growing ineffectiveness when in fact the events themselves might not have contained so neat a progression. F or all we know, the scenes could have been filmed in nearly reverse sequence from how they are i presented, or in dozens of other permutations. The structure itself may be only a framework, but as in the Drew films, it still surely ap pears to be an unnecessary form of restricting the complexity of m a te r ial strong enough to stand unaided by such fictional supports. Where Salesman could have been truly radical, but still a natural outgrowth of the Maysles' earlier work, it edges back into the kind of manipulation that A m erican cinem a-verite was first reacting against. The flash-forward scenes of the Chicago sales meeting provide a useful point to examine the limitations of fictionalization. As m en tioned, the sequence is constructed to suggest that the meeting reflects Paul's fears about success. We see the scene "through his eyes, " clarifying the competitive p ressures he feels. The inclusion of the sales meeting footage is, in this way, justified by making it important 213 to the central character. The visual evidence, however, makes clear that the m aterial requires no such justification. Tike the police conven tion in Leacock's Chiefs, the sales convention presents a(microcosrnic portrait of widely shared Am erican values and goals. The salesm en's self-assured prom ises of great achievement and’ fhe extraordinary speech by the Bible's designer would make this m aterial strong enough to^tand completely on its own. The dram atic framework, the in sis tence through structure to evaluate the event as it affects Paul, forces a more limited view. If we wish to see greater significance in the scene, we must do so in spite of the way it is presented. The structure is unnecessary because the conflicts are present within the selling scenes themselves, even without the superstructure of motel scenes discussing Paul's increasing frustration. Again, we don't "know" more from all the scenes of salesmanship than any one, but as in earlier films, the sim ilar encounters are rich in both v a ria tion and in defining overall patterns. The salesm en's forced jocularity, their wheedling for a sale, the petty lies, the playing upon religious values, the accepted cliches - -these entrees into people's homes have no equivalent whatsoever in A m erican film-making, documentary or otherwise. As in Meet Marlon Brando, no dramatic framework would have been necessary to support the interest inherent in such m aterial. To develop a structure to support these scenes implies a lack of con fidence in their own power to sustain an audience's attention, and I 2 1 4 , would like to hope these fears were unfounded. If these meetings be- ' tween strangers are "the most exciting thing in life, " one would think they could stand alone. Because the salesm en are so concerned with success, they ap pear to be relatively unconcerned with the presence of the cam era. The scenes of the salesmen when they are not selling, when they are together at day's end or during m eals, find them behaving differently. The cam era keeps them moving and talking, not playing to the cam era as overtly as The Beatles did, but at least aware they are being filmed. This is not to argue that they respond uncharacteristically, but the necessity for distinguishing levels of cam era awareness is important to evaluate their actions. The last shot of Paul, in fact, is quite like the corresponding moments in Jan e. The presence of the cam era appears to make Paul even more acutely aware of his failure, multiplying feel- ings he might prefer to keep hidden. Still, given the choice, the scenes where he fails to make sales and this frustration comes out directly within the context of events seem-to be sufficient for recognition of the nature of his predicament. Salesman, then, carries the Maysles approach several steps forward and perhaps a step back. It is a further exploration of the ' ^ themes of m aterialism , success, and commercialization present in the earlier films, developed at feature length without the need for big names or m ajor events. It is easy to be in sympathy with David M aysles 1 ‘"21~5" evaluation: "The great achievement in Salesman, something we were trying to prove to everybody, was that you could take someone from 1 5 everyday life and make a film about him. 1 : 1 Nevertheless, perhaps the major innovative element in earlier Maysles films, the disregard for conventional dram atic development, is at least partially com pro mised. To achieve one kind of purity, they may have lost sight of another. Gimme Shelter Gimme Shelter, like What's Happening! The Beatles in the U.S.A. and Meet MarlonfB^randdy^beganrasgaaroutinetcommercial \ assignment. The Maysles were hired to shoot some footage of The Rolling Stones' performance at Madison Square Garden. As with the Brando film, they felt an interest in the m aterial sufficient to film further at their own expense. They stayed on for the rem ainder of The Stones' American tour, which ended with a large free concert at Altamont (near San Francisco) where a man near the stage was stab bed to death. ^ The film, like Leacock's and Shuker's Nehru, introduces the film -m akers as characters in the film. At the start, we see David Maysles{ in front of a Steenbeck editing machine with some members of the group as David explains the rudiments of their filming approach, just as Leacock did at the start of the Nehru film. Gimme Shelter is 216 , constructed in a kind of flashback fashion, cutting between the main narrative of the tour and the events leading to Altamont, and the added dimension of filming the participants viewing themselves some time later (as in Rouch's and Morin's Chronique d'un ete). The structure is even more complex than simply moving between these two levels, as parts of planning conferences for Altamont taking place in lawyer Melvin Belli's office are also intercut throughout the film. The highly' intricate structure is surprising in view of the Maysles* past work. Gimme Shelter seems more closely related to the Drew-Leacock films than to their own. The structure is reminiscent of The Chair or Crisis: Behind a f \ Presidential Commitment, films of multiple coverage attempting to present a more complete view of a complex event than was available to any individual participant. Like the Drew films, Gimme Shelter is certainly crisis-oriented, climaxing with the Altamont stabbing which ‘ is repeated a second time in slow-motion (David Maysles operating the Steenbeck for group m em bers and the audience). In contrast to the Drew films, though, is the accidental, found nature of the crisis, as the stabbing, of course, was not anticipated, unlike the built-in climaxes of the Drew films. A Drew sim ilarity is clear in the Belli telephone scene, as he makes calls to arrange for the concern. Like the phone deals in Show man, they also recall the Kennedy-Katzenbach conversations in Crisis 217 i and the attorney's pleading by phone in The C hair. Even Pennebaker's Don't Look Back has an extended scene of bargaining-by phone. The fascination with behind-the-scenes planning has long been a staple of these films. In Gimme Shelter, their inclusion suggests an almost formula approach to coverage of an event, although its a formula first displayed in their own Joe Levine film. More positively perhaps, Gimme Shelter shares with What's Happening a strong interest in media projections of pop im ages. Where the Maysles could pan in What's Happening from The Beatles them -'l selves to their watching their own arrival (an event we had seen p r e viously) on a Walter Cronkite news show, in Gimme Shelter we see Mick Jagger (lead singer.for the musical group) and other mem bers of the group watching themselves on editing screens. Coupled with the openness about the manipulative possibilities in editing, since the film shows events being pieced together on a Steenbeck from film and radio tapes, Gimme Shelter functions as a critique of its own methods. F o r tunately, the people in front of the editing machines make no verbal judgements about the events they view, and a wide range of in terp re tations is possible. Nevertheless, Gimme Shelter is not as interesting, not as com plex, as the earlier Maysles films. A large part of the film is simply records of perform ances, and the crisis structure, while not planned, shares the limitations of that form. It is sadly ironic that this is by far the most widely seen and discussed Maysles film, for it offers only slight indications of the consistent range of their concerns and the r e wards of their filming approach. Still, in reporting events of a contro versial nature, no conclusions are pressed, no excuses offered. A cinem a-verite ethic is not entirely absent. 219 Notes 1. "Maysles B ro th ers," Film Culture, No. 42 (Fall 1966) p. 114. 2. "Actuality, " The Journal of the Society of Film and T ele vision Arts Limited, No. 15 (Spring 1964), p. 5. 3. Documentary in Am erican Television (New York: Hastings House, 1965), p. 128. Italics in original. 4. See, for example: Gary Crowdus, "BeatleMANIA . . . and Cinema Verite, " The Seventh A rt, 2 (Summer 1964), p. 29. 5. Louis M arcorelles, "Le cinema direct nord americain, " Image et Son, No. 183 (April 1965), pp. 52-53. Italics in original. Similar response to this scene in: Patricia Jaffe, "Editing Cinema- verite, " Film Comment, 3 (Summer 1965), p. 47. 6 . "Cinema of Common Sense, " Film Quarterly, 17 (Summer- ■1 '■ 1 111 — .— 1 — ■ " * ■ ‘ i . } : 1964), p. 40. 7. Robert Steele, "Meet Marlon Brando, " Film Heritage, 2 (Fall 1966), p. 4. 8. Ibid., p. 2. 9. See page 168. 10. "Meet Marlon Brando, " p. 4. 11. See Zwerin interview in/Alan; Rosenthal, The New Documentary in Action (Berkeley: University of California P re ss, 1971), pp. 86-91. 12. Rosenthal, The New Documentary, p. 81. 13. See, for example: Jam es Blue, "Thoughts on Cinema Verite and a Discussion with the Maysles Brothers, " Film Comment, 2 (Fall 1964), p. 29; "Maysles Brothers, " p. 114. 14. "A Drama Unfolds on the Road, " Ne w(sday, May 9> 1969j p. 48A. 15. Author's interview with David Maysles. 16. Albert and David Maysles, "Gimme Shelter: Production .Notes, " Film m aker's Newsletter, 5 (December 1971), p. 29. CHAPTER V D. A. Pennebaker D. A. Pennebaker1 s films since his period with Drew Associates have madebhiniIp r,o b a b ly the best known of Am erican cinema-verite film -m akers, especially for Don't Look Back and Monterey Pop. While he and Leacock formed their own company together, their work since then has been largely independent of each other. Leacock has done some shooting for Pennebaker's films and the two worked with Jean- Luc Godard on a film that Godard never completed that was to be called One A. M. , but their films since they both left Drew have not been col laborative works. ^ Pennebaker has also been cam eram an for Norman Mailer onbhisstihree films, Wild 90a Beyond the Law, and Maidstone. Besides all these projects, Pennebaker has made a number of other - 'T films of gjreat interest, though not as well known as the first two m en tioned above. Elizabeth and Mary Elizabeth and Mary was originally made for purposes of m edi cal study only. Above its scientific applications, it is a deeply moving work. The film is an account of "a day in the life" of twin ten-year- old sisters, one of whom is blind and mentally retarded. There are -221- 22 2 only two lines of narration in the entire film, identifying each of the sisters. The structure is quite simple: chronological, with c ro s s cutting during the period when the sisters go to their respective schools (Elizabeth to a special school for the blind, Mary to a neighborhood parochial school). The film begins with their getting up in the morning, follows them through this seemingly typical day (no special crises or unusual occurrences), and ends with their going to sleep. Elizabeth and Mary is one of the finest examples of a cinema- VyerjLte aesthetic in action. The goal of the film appears to be no more than to explore how this child lives (the emphasis is upon Elizabeth, the blind twin), how she interacts with her family, and how she acts in school. There is no attempt at generalization, arguing in any way that, she is a typical case, nor is there any special pleading in her behalf, singling her out as a vpnohlem child" that society must learn to deal with. The cam era just watches, scarcely commenting upon what it sees. The cross-cutting from one to the other while the twins are at their schools does allow for some comparison through editing, an im- ■ posed, interpretive device. This is a limited application of the same approach used extensively in many of the Drew-Leacock films: a lte r nating between two continuous chronologies for transition purposes. We see religious instruction at one school, then at the other; a noisy scene at Elizabeth's school contrasts with the rigid order at M ary's. 223 The differences are so obvious, though, that no strong point is made this way. Instead, it seems a minimal structural device for a part of the film, cross-cutting being a more natural way to maintain chronol ogy while showing the two independent activities (preferable to separate complete sections on each). This isn't even a problem for long, as most of the film deals with their time in and around the house, with no cutting back and forth between separate locations. Again, and characteristic of all good cinema-verite, individual scenes are often quite long. The film looks almost unedited, and there is surely no form of "plot" progression or character development. Less customary, perhaps, is the extreme mobility of the cam era, go ing from room to room without a cut. There are many scenes of com- pletely routine activity, and even some inactivity (especially in a,-: y* V?- lengthy shot of Elizabeth sitting in a rocking chair, rocking back and forth, issuing random comments). One really, feels as if he's moved in with the family, prim arily through the closely following cam era and the film's respect for real time. While their one day is shown in an hour, the film is remarkably unhurried. (The original version was re- ■ portedly eight hours long, which Pennebaker calls "a truly pure film, 2 --i but unwatchable, " a point I wish I were in a position to a rg u e.) Through showing an admittedly selected number of events, but allowing the chosen ones to run some length, the integrity of actual experience seems less violated than would have resulted had more events been included, but of shorter duration. The absence of control does not lead to a feeling of detachment or impersonal recording. Elizabeth and Mary is moving prim arily be cause traditional film b a rriers are broken and we are brought right into the subject's private world. T here's an extraordinary shot following Elizabeth down a long school hall, where again (as with Kennedy in P rim a ry ) it is almost as if we are her, so well-communicated is the difficulty such a simple trip has for the child. The film is shot very close, and while it may be perverse to point out that Elizabeth's lack of sight leaves her less influenced by the cam era's presence (although this isn't necessarily true), one feels like an invisible participant in a world otherwise impenetrable. By not preaching about her problems and in no way trying to convince us of the significance of her condition, Pennebaker tells us all we need to know. The lack of direct comment is exemplary. It is easy to imagine the same situation covered by a film -m aker who would be inclined to interview Elizabeth's parents and teacher, her sister, and perhaps even the girl herself. Instead, Pennebaker shows the family at dinner, and the combination of careful attention and deliberate equality with which she is treated during the meal says more than they probably could even have verbally articulated. Through other scenes, the love between the two sisters is apparent, and also the possible burden on the more normal child, as when she tries to play with her friends but 225 still watch out for her sister. In the film's last scene, Mary is doing her homework quietly on her bed while beside her Elizabeth goes to sleep. At first it is curious that Mary can work with full light while her sister sleeps, but then, of course, we realize why she can do so. Throughout the film, relationships become clear through seeing them operate, not through our being told how things are. It is impossible to imagine this film undertaken through any other means than a cinema - verite approach. Its very reason for being derives from a desire for observation without intrusion, and the film is unthinkable as either a pre-scripted, planned, or otherwise directly controlled work. One of the surprising things about Elizabeth and Mary is its a- typicality in relation to Pennebaker's other films. It is fair to say that cinem a-verite film -m akers hace tended, in each case, toward certain areas of concern, sim ilarities in structure, and even recognizable cam era styles. From P rim a ry and The Children Were Watching we would know that Crisis came from the same film -m akers, just as from David and Jane we can discern sim ilarities with Pennebaker's later work. But Elizabeth and Mary is a stunning surprise, a wholly fresh experienced) From this we could conclude that cinem a-verite film m akers ought to venture more frequently into new areas of concern, but it would be overly prescriptive to press this point. Nevertheless, Eli- zabeth and Mary is its own justification, a film that could only have come about through an intense concern for people, an unwillingness to 226 . tam per with situations the film -m aker enters, and a healthy unconcern for dram a or the kind of information-supplying usually associates with the documentary form. Don't Look Back Pennebaker's feature length film about Bob Dylan, Don't Look , Back, is a record of his 1965 British concert tour. It is a work much more in the m ainstream of Am erican cinem a-verite than might at first be evident and also has clear connections to Pennebaker's earlier films. Once m ore, the need to consider a film such as this within broader contexts should become evident, for Don't Look Back (despite appear ances) is not simply a report of a concert tour or an informal person ality portrait. The film appears to adhere rigorously to the irrelevant, refus ing to treat Dylan as a "documentary subject, " someone whose past must be explained, whose present motivations must be explored, and whose significance must be established. Pennebaker's attitude towards direct information is evident in the scene which shows the beginning of a radio interview for the African service of the BBC. Prelim inary conversation is seen, but as soon as the interviewer asks his first question ("How did it all begin for you, Bob? What actually started you off? "), there is a cut to very old footage of Dylan playing to a group of blacks and civil rights workers in Mis siSsfppi, not so much to answer i > 227 ' the question as to negate the sense behind asking it. Pennebaker is not :going to "tell" anything about Dylan, at least not through /traditional means, Don't Look Back owes a great deal to the Drew-Leacock films (besides his own David and Jane), as well as to earlier Maysles B ro thers' films. To a surprising degree, 'Don1 1 Look Back looks like a r e make of P rim ary . Both films take place in the backs of cars, in hotel rooms, and in public auditoriums. There are the rounds of interviews, the entourage of managers and public relations people selling their "p erfo rm ers," and the same feeling of exuberant ever-presentness in cam era style. The famous shot in P rim ary following Kennedy into an auditorium is inversely echoed in Don't Look Back after the final con- • cert, when Dylan is followed down a stairway, through a hall, out a door and into a waiting car - - a ll in a single shot. Once again, A m eri can cinem a-verite glories in the cam era's ability to catch action on the run and in the most difficult of shooting conditions, not just to revel in technique, but as a means of expressing a life style through a cam era style. The influence of the Maysles' What's Happening] The Beatles in the U.S.A. is obvious, in term s of both structure and subject m at ter, but sim ilarities to their Meet Marlon Brandq.,are more interesting, 0 as Don't Look Back is full of "unproductive" interviews. Even more openly than Brando, Dylan refuses to respond to the interview format. 2 2 8 ’ He often reverses interviews, throwing questions back at the reporters and ultimately questioning their whole approach to life, as in devasta ting encounters with a science student and a Time reporter. In all the interviews, there is scarcely a single question whose direct response yields any factual information. Instead, it is his deliberate evasive ness and disdain for the interview method which cumulatively evokes a portrait of Dylan. An important question in regard to Don't Look Back relates once more to the m atter of cam era influence. As with David and most particularly Jane, there is little effort on Pennebaker's part to shoot unobtrusively. Even more than in the earlier films, it would be very hiard to argue that Dylan isn't "acting" for the cam era. Of course, in . the eyes of many, this alone would invalidate the film as a "true" por trait. But again, this view makes certain assumptions about possible (or necessary) functions of cinema-verite that have to be examined in greater detail. Don't Look Back is actually one of the easier cases to consider in this regard. We begin by noting the frequency of situations where Dylan is shown doing nothing. Typical is a scene very like one in Jane, with Dylan in his dressing room before the final concert, n e r vously fidgeting and worrying about the condition of his harmonica. Were Pennebaker consciously concerned with avoiding situations of certain cam era influence, he would surely take refuge in the safer 229 ” t situations where the subjectyis actively involved in some specific activ ity. Choosing to film at times when his subject is confined and unable to ignore the cam era, Pennebaker not only reduces the relationship to a one-to-one subject-filmmaker confrontation, but surely does so to make his audience m ore aware of the pretenses')involved. That is, a V. y film -m aker may sense that his subject is "acting" for the cam era (on the basis of observing him constantly for a period of time), but in those cases the forces at work might not be clear to an audience. In these elemental confrontations -- a man in a room with a cam era on him -- there can be little doubt the subject is reacting to being filmed. The question then becomes: what good are such scenes, if the presence of the cam era is clearly a factor? On the surface, this kind of shooting would appear to be antithetical to a cinem a-verite approach. We have noted with approbation many cases where the film -m aker has functioned unobtrusively, as a minimal influence in delicate situations. One might argue that when people are clearly influenced by the cam era, their "performances" are nearly equivalent to those of actors in a fic tion film, that to see people "playing" themselves is scarcely different from seeing people play other people. A disturbed reality, to follow this line, is not a reality at all. Such an approach takes an overly simplistic view of the ques tions involved, even though when presented in the abstract the argument is appealing. There is a counter-argument to be refuted though, one 2 30 , which comes up in regard to other films as well, prior to dealing with this argument directly. A typical film -m aker response to this ques tion is that, yes, the cam era was an influence in a particular instance, but it only served to encourage a "true" (or an even more true) repre-, sentation of the subject’s personality. As Pennebaker tells Alan Rosen thal about the people in this film: "They w ere enacting roles --D ylan *as well as anybody else - -but they were enacting them very accuratef^i kw. 3 ly. " The idea of heightened responses, that the cam era can bring out latent or incipient emotions, has been frequently pressed into service by film -m akers in answer to this charge. This is a dangerous tack, however, in that it implies the film maker is capable of judging which incidents of heightened response are characteristic and which are not. It is one thing to judge that the sub ject is reacting to the cam era's presence, quite another to make a decision in regard to the quality of the response. To say that a given situation affected by the cam era is still representative of the Subject (or again, perhaps even more so) assum es that the nature of a "true" response can be independently decided upon. In other words, if Dylan responds in anger to the presence of the cam era, then Dylan is an "angry person" whose repressed hostilities have been brought into the open. The shortcomings in such logic should be clear. If typical r e s ponses can only be brought out through provocation, then in what way are they typical? 231 A more fruitful approach is to refuse judgement on the typical ity of these moments of cam era influence, but importantly, to insist ■upon clear film -m aker intent in regard to such situations. In this way. the viewer is free to make his own evaluations of the evidence. It is here that Don't Look Back and other Pennebaker films are exemplary; there is little question that the cam era is certainly functioning as a deliberate influence, scarcely any possibility of feeling that the subject ignores the cam era. Don't Look Back, through the very nature of the subject-cam era confrontations, is a film about this interplay. Inter- estingly, although we don't necessarily need verbal support fro m the film -m aker as to his intent, Pennebaker has said that the film is about 4 "A guy acting^out^his life. " And most crucially: "I assum e everyone 5 looking at it can instantly tell as well as I can that it's an act. " Dylan, like Jane Fonda, is a perform er, and the film itself is a performance in the sense that it is clear that Dylan is establishing a persona, react ing to the insistent cam era in deliberate ways. How, then, does Don't Look Back relate to aspects of cinema- verite discussed so far, rather than being a perversion of them? While the cam era is surely an influence, the performance, so to speak, is not determined by the film -m aker. Again, there is the identical r e fusal to direct people, to suggest in any way that one action is more desirable than another. The subject remains free to that considerable extent -- h e 's not told what to do or how to respond. If there is pretense "..232" in this subject-filmmaker relationship, a game being played, it is p re tense agreed upon by the subject and not upset by the film -m aker. In that sense, the film -m aker functions as in any cinema-verite film, de tached through an unwillingness to express any kinds of preference to the people being filmed. As Pennebaker has said, "I don't feel that be cause I'm there with a cam era I have any special privileges, and I don't 6 feel I should exert any. " This attitude, despite questions of cam era influence, is clear in the film and remains a prim ary characteristic of a cinem a-verite approach. These camera-influenced situations are also consistent with a cinem a-verite approach because of the still existing freedom for differ ing viewer evaluation. Dylan is not "explained" to us‘ ?no conclusions 1 about him are expressed. In other words, the film shares the quality of uninterpreted data we have noted previously. Pennebaker again speaks well to this point: "Ilm in no better position to judge Dylan than anybody else. I'm not a psychologist or anything. I don't have any p a r ticular qualifications for /making any judgements of any interest, of any value. " The film supports this stated approach, as does the wide v ar- 8 iety of responses it evokes. Although cam era presence is a factor, the open admission of influence (through the kinds of situations filmed and the manner of shooting) simply makes this another aspect to be considered. The evaluation of cam era influence is eased considerably if our approach allows for the recognition that to some degree it is always a factor in cinema-verite films. To say that Don't Look Back is not a "true portrait" because of Pennebaker's aggressive cam era is to make the unsupportable assumption that this kind of filming can ever be free of such influence. If we say in regard to other films that the cam era was not obtrusive, this means that other factors were present to m ini mize its influence. That is, except in cases of hidden cam eras (which all cinem a-verite film -m akers reject), there is a continuum, rather than a polarity, between relatively influence-free shooting and cases where the cam era's presence is a significant factor. In all cases, then, a triadic relationship exists between film -m aker, subject, and the sub ject's involvement in other activities, each one of the three affecting the others. Pennebaker's filming in many scenes of Don't Look Back is "purer" than many examples of more unobtrusive shooting, only in that the cam era-subject relationship is more directly open to the aud ience. A further necessary distinction has to be established in regard to the relationship between camera-influenced shooting and dramatic structure. We have previously noted the tendency in-the D rew -L ea cock films to use such methods in immediately post-crisis situations, especially in On the Pole and Jan e. (The last scene in the Maysles' Salesman is yet another case. ) Employed in this fashion, cam era- influenced shooting is difficult to evaluate in that dramatic exigencies collide with character revelation. Because Eddie Sachs has just lost the race, is his reaction to the cam era a result of his loss, or simply the first moment he is observed outside a crisis structure? Too many possible motives are present to determine the nature of his response. In Don't Look Back and in the dressing room scene in Jane, while the subject is under considerable pressure, the lack of immediate win-lose alternatives is itself a form of purity in shooting approach, another means to minimize factors outside the subject-filmmaker r e lationship. Dylan is freer to concentrate on his projected persona than is Eddie Sachs. Also, Don't Look Back is unique in being an extended exploration (in a number of scenes) of this relationship, unlike the relatively isolated moments in On the P o le, Jan e, and Salesman. Through a consistent use of camera-influenced situations, especially without a win-lose structure, the nature of the cam era-subject inter action becomes considerably clearer. Original Cast Album: Company ! Original Cast Album: Company ! is an expertly executed work, a natural product of previous Pennebaker concerns and A m erican cin em a-verite tradition. The situation the film covers, an all-night r e cording session to produce the album for a Broadway show, "structures itself" in a-fashion close to the Drew films. The whole album must be recorded in this one evening, so the time unity provides a set fra m e work. As the evening w ears on, a bit of dram atic tension develops. When the lateness of the hour begins to grate against the quality of the perform ances, we are back for a time in the recognizable world of success-or-failure, wondering whether the session can be completed 1 satisfactorily. The brief crisis period, however, is only a small part of the entire process, and Company is prim arily a process-oriented work. ; -In sharp contrast to nearly all the films discussed so far, Com pany does not focus on particular individuals. Instead, Pennebaker chooses to emphasize the complex coordination of contributions nec essary to produce the album. Point of view shifts repeatedly, stopping briefly with the recordm roducer, the w riter, the orchestra, the show's producer, and various combinations of p e rfo rm ers. Company is an educational film as much as a musical entertainment film,- so intent is it upon detailing the range of functions involved in the creation of this single record. Of importance in this approach is the nature of the decisions in volved. Company easily might have centered on a single individual (there are certainly a number of strong personalities to choose from), thus becoming something like Jane or Susan S ta rr. A by-product of audience interest in a main character is a shift away from concern for' the process itself. In Jane, as we have noted previously, the cut-away after the opening perform ance to follow Walter K err as he goes off to write his review is a maddening diversion once we have been oriented to care solely for Jane's outcome. We find this circumstance repeated ly in the Drew films. On the Pole is only tangentially about race car drivers; the emphasis upon an individual's personal struggle makes the precise nature of his endeavor immaterial. It is of scant importance ' that Eddie Sachs is a race car driver. What matters is simply that he is involved in a contest and he risks his life. The process, how race car driving works, is not of great concern. Those Drew films which are most informative about processes, for instance P rim ary and Foot ball, do so in each case through minimizing individuality by way of noting parallel activities of its two main personalities. To the extent that processes are emphasized, be it the working of a prim ary elec tion or the rehearsal of a play, the apparent intention of personality orientation loses some degree of force, although this happens rarely in the Drew films. So strong is the precedence of emphasis upon the individual that an unassuming, straightforward film like Company may look more innovative than it actually is. The "natural" way to cover a recording session would seem to be to detail all aspects of it, but "natural, " like "reality, " is surely a relative term. The preference for personality studies in cinem a-verite, even in films not operating under standard dramatic forms (like the Maysles'), constitute a strong tradition. And while no approach is more "truthful” than any other, differences have to be recognized. Due to the essentially repetitive nature of the recording session, the preparation and performance of a dozen or so songs, Pennebaker varies his means of covering each. Company is a valuable work for comparing a variety of possible shooting and editing methods in a se r-' ies of identical situations. Sometimes, a song is shown in a single long take on the perform ers. In other cases, a song becomes an event’ as complex as the integration crisis in C risis: Behind a Presidential Commitment, with coverage of many individuals throughout the studio. For several of the songs, the preparation period is covered in detail; occasionally, rehearsals and more than one take of the same song are included in order to give a fuller sense of the developmental process. Where Lambert and Co. , ariclearlier Pennebaker film about a reco rd ing session, would randomly intercut background action into the studio performances, Company is methodical in its purposeful integration of complementary functions. Further, its range of filming methods to cover individual songs is itself surely a creative process, a study of the options available in even so limited a situation in time and location. Monterey Pop and Keep On Rockin' Pennebaker's two films of rock music festivals, Monterey Pop 9 and Keep on Rockin', are entertainment films which at first seem to relate only peripherally to cinema-verite questions. Given the staged 2 3 8 nature of the events (even though they are not set up or controlled by the film-maker) and the overriding intention of presenting effective perform ances, the two films might be thought of as Tittle more than newsreel-like records of the shows for the benefit of larger audiences. While the films do have rather specific intentions, a comparison of the two brings out familiar questions. Film -m aker decisions about the nature of the subject m atter, the manner of "fidelity” to the event, and the function of editing continue to be pertinent. Monterey Pop is built up from many short segments; no group does more than a few songs. The approach is im pressionistic, a broad collage of perform ers and onlookers who together express a certain hip California life style. Seen today, only a few years after it was made, the film already looks charmingly dated. Along with the music, there are a few attempts at filling in local color. Pennebaker includes several sequences of postcard-like shooting, providing a gen eral impression of the people in attendance, and also a couple of brief interviews. It's all pleasant to watch, but in term s of cinema-verite rather trivial. Pennebaker feels free to use music as "mood" over non-synch m aterial, and the overall random structure of performances (cut together prim arily out of consideration for musical pacing) bears neither a relation to real time nor any organic development of its own. The two films, because of the sim ilar nature of the material, provide a classic case for once again considering the editing question. 239 The standard defense of Monterey P o p 's fragmented presentation would be to argue that the high degree of selectivity regarding individual p e r formances makes the film more a reflection of the event than a less rigorously structured work might have communicated. In other words, given the varied nature of the whole event, the preferred method for expressing that variety would be to show bits and pieces of as many facets as possible. This is quite a plausible argument, but one which runs counter to several key cinema-verite conceptions‘ J.urking below the surface. The respect for the long take and the attempt to keep cutting at a minimum in most cinem a-verite films stem from combined desires to approximate the feeling of being an actual witness to the event and not to force a specific interpretation through editing upon the filmed m aterial. Taken back a step further, the films on a theoretical level share a faith in the complexity of actual experience which the film m akers attempt to carry over into their finished work. Stated simply, this can be expressed as a desire to IJinterfereJI as little as possible in editing as well as shooting. Monterey Pop contrasts sharply with Keep On Rockin' in regard to editing. The second film is a very able critique ofjthe first. Keep On Rockin' is a clear application of well-defined cinem a-verite prin ciples, and the best way to understand the shortcomings of the earlier film is through this one. Instead of a mosaic structure, Pennebaker '240' here limits himself to only four perform ers, each seen at some length. The independent sequences have a development that only real time, relatively uninterrupted shooting seems able to provide, and conse quently the whole film has a completeness that is inevitably missing ■ from the highly selective editing approach in Monterey Pop. A sense of duration, of lived experience, has always been a crucial aspect of American cinema-verite. Whether it is the slow back-and-forth of windshield wipers on Hubert Humphrey's car as he drives between campaign stops in P rim ary or the repetition of sales pitches in the M aysles1 Showman, cinema-verite has attempted to go beyond the reporting of facts and telling of stories to do nothing less than recreate personal experience. This aim is generally intuitive, but the desire to eliminate b arriers between subject and audience leads to the cam era acting as a human observer would, making viewing sel ections on the spot and not at some later point. The long take or long episode is a reflection of the personalized cam era. Keep On Rockin' does give one a sense of actually being present at the event. This sounds like either a trivial accomplishment or a critical commonplace, but the film's immediacy is a direct reflection of Pennebaker's re-evaluated approach to structure (since Monterey Pop). A truth in non-selection with performances yields a film rich in the kind of spontaneous observation characteristic of good cinema- verite. Keep On Rockin', while loose in structure, is less random 241 than Monterey Pop. The fullness of real time development serves up a continuing succession of internally related, events which is more satisfying both cinematically and musically. An example of the advantages in this approach occurs during the Chuck B erry segment. At the start of his set he does a song called "Johnny B. Goode, " and the performance is quite clumsy. Playing /•U with a group put together especially for the Festival, he is clearly ill at ease. As they continue, there is a gradual coalescing of talent, and at the end of thessegment, they again play the same song. This time the result is definitely more satisfactory. However, we can only tell the difference by having been witness to the progression that led up to it. Traditional editing practices would surely have cut out the first performance of the song as m ere inferior duplication, and any selection of "best songs" from the forty-five minute performance would give no idea of the subtle "drama" inherent in the entire presentation. The surface similarity of the perform ers (all are male rock stars associated with the Fifties) and their equal periods of screen time suggest the same structure of repetition noted in the M aysles1 films. The film builds through comparison, the contrasts beneath the identical situation of a "meeting" between musician and audience. Keep On Rockin' is four musical portraits rather than the series of sketches that make up Monterey Pop. While Keep On Rockin* appears less personal a film because of ' 2 4 2 I the minimal editing, its driving force is the same preoccupation found in many Pennebaker films - -the nature of the creative process and the personality of the artist. David, Jane, Don't Look Back, Lam bert and Co. , Company, and Keep On Rockin' all share this interest. While the artist, especially the musician, has been Pennebaker's prim ary con cern, he has explored this area in diverse ways. Some of the films emphasize the creative process itself, be it of a play or a musical p e r formance, not dealing closely with particular personalities. Others, especially Jane and Don't Look Back, subordinate the creative product to probe fragile, defensive artists --th e films of deliberate cam era influence. Keep On Rockin', while again a special film because of its strict concert format, does evidence concern for both the mystique of the artist and the intricacies of public performance. The Children's Theater of John Donahue The Children's Theater of John Donahue is a w ork-in-progress at the time of this writing, but in a prelim inary version it is ch aracter istic Pennebaker and should be included in the previous list of films about the creative process. The film deals with the preparation for a production by the Minneapolis Children's Theater Company. It is a "rem ake" of Jane, but without excessive concern for either the win- lose aspects of putting on a play or the problems of one star. Instead, the nuts-and-bolts hard work behind a theatrical production is 243" emphasized, broadened somewhat to include m aterial about the city's response to this experimental theater project. Of great interest are the frequent long scenes, sometimes out of all proportion to dram atic or plot necessities. One of the best scenes in the film is a lengthy reading from the play to be performed, where one feels Donahue's (director of the company) enthusiasm being communicated to the kids. • The segment lasts at least ten minutes, propelled by nothing beyond an individual's excitement in creativity, its very length one of its points. More than ten years after David and Jane, Pennebaker's commitment to cinem a-verite rem ains intact. N otes 1. Pennebaker edited some of the m aterial shot with Godard into a film called One P . M. Al Maysles also worked with Godard, as his cam eram an for one episode of the fiction film P aris vu par . . . 2. G. Roy Levin, Documentary Explorations: 15 Interviews with Film -M akers (Garden City, N. Y. : Doubleday, 1971), p. 230. 3. The New Documentary in Action (Berkeley: University of California P r e s s , 1971), p. 192. 4. Levin, Documentary Explorations, p. 240. 5. Ibid. , p. 260. 6. Ibid. 7. Ibid. 8. See, for example, selection of review excerpts in: D. A. Pennebaker, Don't Look Back (New York: Ballantine, 1963), pp. 156- 59. 9. Keep On Rockin' was originally titled Sweet Toronto. The name was changed after the final segment, a performance by John Lennon, was cut from the film because of contractual problems. CHAPTER VI Richard Leacock Happy Mother's Day Happy Mother1 s Day (originally called Quint City, U .S .A .) was Richard Leacock's first film after his separation from Drew Associates. Leacock was hired by The Saturday Evening Post to make a film about the Fisher quintuplets, then two weeks old. Along with Joyce Chopra to take sound, he went to Aberdeen, South Dakota, and shot the film in three weeks. When he showed the completed film to his sponsors, they did not approve of it. After various legal hassles (primarily because of a contract with Drew that Leacock was not to do any network filming for a year), ABC acquired idghts to all the footage he shot and made their own film from the same m aterial that Leacock edited into Happy M other’s Day. These unfortunate difficulties do allow us a unique opportunity to contrast Leacock's approach with a network documentary department's handling of the same footage. This is an ancillary con cern, however, as Leacock's film is of great importance regardless of the ABC film. Happy Mother's Day begins with a brief sequence of TV news footage taken on the day the quintuplets were born. (Leacock was not yet on the scene.) After some aerial shots of the town (the wryly -Z4 5- 246 extraneous narrator: ’’ Aberdeen, South Dakota, is a prairie town, and the land is flat”), we are told it is now two weeks later, and M rs. i Fisher is seen watching a parade in celebration of "Gypsy Day. " Back at the Fisher home, M r. Fisher tends his cows (no longer needed, be cause of a local dairy's gift of a year's milk supply), and the Fisher children play with their cat. In a charming scene shot in a dark barn and in full synch sourft|7) M rs. Fisher and her children examine five( !) kittens that have just been born. The film to this point has the appear ance of being a nice "folksy" portrait of the Fisher family. The near-idyllic tone is short-lived. F irst a reporter from Ladies Home Journal arriv es, then a Saturday Eyening Post photog- rapher. A bevy of cam eras around his neck, the Post man photographs the family driving around in a Model T Ford. M rs. Fisher is taken to buy some clothes by the wife of the local Chamber of Commerce head, and she very briefly and uncomfortably tries on a mink coat. Back to the house, there is a close-up of the photographer giving directions from the top of a ladder; cut to a full shot showing that he is taking pictures of all the gifts the Fishers have received. ("Do you want another row of milk, or is that enough? ") The n arrato r raises the question of invasion of privacy, and apparently in answer to an in ter view question (not shown), M rs. Fisher says that her children "will never be on display. " The film to this point has been directly concerned with the " 247 ' Fishers; they are in every scene (except the gift pictures, taken in front of their house). In the remainder of the film, roughly half of its thirty-minute length, the Fishers become peripheral figures. The rather droll (but slightly annoying) narration of the first part is)drop ped, most scenes now running with no commentary at all. Concern shifts to the impact of the births upon the town, and the town's attitude towards the F ishers. A group of businessmen talk amongst themselves about the potential influx of tourists, the adjustments the Fishers will "have to" make, and the com m ercial benefits the town can expect. Next, a woman's club lady talks to M rs. Fisher about what she will wear to their luncheon in her honor. Commercial questions are even m ore overt in the next scene, a Chamber of Commerce meeting. They discuss the sales of quint souvenir items and whether newspaper ads to push them would be "too commercial. " One man says that if they run aii, ad, it should indicate that the proceeds will go to the Fisher Founda tion, only to be informed by another fellow that there is no "Founda tion. " ! Narration then tersely announces: "Morning of the parade hon oring the one-month birthday of the Fisher quintuplets. " A staged preview of the parade is held for the benefit of newsmen and photog raphers. Fisher family mem bers pose with a congressm an and then an Indian. At the luncheon in their honor, the mayor gets up and de livers an extraordinarily inflated speech, shown entirely in one take, 248 beginning, ’’Never in the history of the United States has a city official had such a great responsibility as I do today. " A woman then sings a horrible song, and it's time for the parade. The Fishers ride to their' place on the reviewing stand, the American Legion band and a few floats go by, while a man hawks Quint City hats for fifty cents. Rain begins, abruptly ending the parade, and the F ishers and everyone else run for cover. Over shots of the event breaking up, narration ironi cally informs us "It was a typical day of celebration in Aberdeen, South Dakota, Quint City, U.S.A. " So, there is a clear shift in the film from being about the F ish er family to a concern for the impact of the births upon the town. That the film could have continued as a personal portrait had Leacock chosen to do so is clear from the ABC film. When broadcast, the ABC film was sponsored by Beech-Nut, and the movie looks like a half-hour baby food commercial. There is a good deal m ore footage of the babies themselves, generally just shots of them in their incubators while voice-over interviews with their doctor and nurses are heard. When Quint souvenirs are shown, the guy selling them is interviewed and says, "I don't want to make a killing; I just want to help the children. " All references to com m ercialism are followed by sim ilar disclaim ers of that motivation from the people involved. The last part of the film appears to have been shot after Leacock's departure, as there is a scene in the hospital when the babies are eight weeks old, with quite a bit of further discussion about their condition. The most interesting thing about the ABC film in comparison with Happy Mother 1 s Day is that whenever identical footage is used, it is always greatly cut down. There are no scenes in the ABC film which are also in Leacock's that run longer. The m ayor's speech, for instance, which leacock shows in its entirety, is just a brief snippet on the ABC films, and leaves one with an entirely different im pression, of it being simply a routine introduction. The parade that ends Happy Mother's Day is no more than a few shots in the ABC film. In the la t ter film, emphasis is altered not solely by throwing in some more footage of the babies and taking out some Leacock m aterial on possible exploitation of the quintuplets, but by extracting particular, singular meanings from brief excerpts of Leacock's longer scenes. The difference is crucial. Leacock, certainly selective (shoot ing ratio for the film was 25 to 1^), still presents scenes of some length. In so doing, he allows the contradictions in the events to come through, especially the possible conflict between the town's genuine concern for the Fishers and the com m ercial potential involved. As 2 Pat Jaffe puts it: "The footage is allowed to take its head. " Louis M arcorelles surely overstates the case by saying, in regard to this film, "At such a point, cinema has disappeared, " but there is a faith in letting scenes run that is entirely absent from the ABC film. This is not to argue that the Leacock film is more "truthful, " but that its 2 5 0 ' selectivity is of an entirely different order. The ABC film, despite the subject, looks didactic; every shot, every interview has one point to press. Happy Mother's Day seems to say: "This is what it felt like to be there and what seemed important from everything that we w itness ed. " As Leacock says, one aim of his approach is to reveal "things 4 that are different from what is expected, " whereas the ABC version seeks to confirm what you probably would have anticipated anyway. This leads back to the question of non-preconception and the film -m aker's relationship to the people and events he witnesses, and what processes of selection are involved in films of this kind. Happy Mother's Day is a useful case in which to consider these questions 1 once again, for their importance, in cinema-verite tcan not be over- emphasiz ed. "The two of us, in three weeks, shot the entire film, and we 5 never asked anybody to do anything; we were simply observers. " ^ ^ re .g a rd t'pf.an incidehti\durTing.i|Hming when Mr. F isher asked Leacock whether he wanted a particular action and Leacock refused to tell him what to do: "You see, once he does that, he will do something else that pleases me. I'm not interested in his pleasing me. I don't care how unhappy I am, I don't want him to please me. And once I start asking him to do things, I'm dead. "One of the things that distorts things the most is that people usually are basically trying to please us. So they tend to do what they 2 5 1 ’ think you want them to do, which is why you have to do a great deal of not filming, because you have to wait until they get that out of their system s. And if you don't film and don't film and don't film, then they finally say, 'Oh screw this idiot. He doesn't know a'f^^^^nts^any- 7 way. 1 And they go back to doing what they have to do. " These statements by Leacock deal with one question- - the atti tude the cinem a-verite film -m aker has in regard to what he is filming. As the last two quotes suggest, being "simply observers" is not simple at all. Leacock's shooting, here and elsewhere, is not "intimate" in the same sense that m aterial shot by A1 Maysles or D. A. Pennebaker often is. It is not a m atter of waiting for people to drop their defenses (as sometimes happens with the other two film -m akers), but of not permitting his being there to be a tool in observation. His is a cinema of self-effacement, of waiting for situations where his presence is not ■ a significant factor. (Only Leacock, of all the film -m akers in this 8 book, could say, "I find filming rather em barrassing at tim es. " ) One feels from many scenes he has shot that a great deal of patience must have been required, that he had to stand around a long time before he felt that what he was shooting was not affected by his own participation. This observation sounds banal, but there are many moments one could cite -- Kennedy on election night in P rim ary, the lawyer breaking down in The C hair, the Venezuelan family in Yanki, No.!, the birth of the kittens in this film. This is another point where cinem a-verite avoids "'2 52" being an impersonal recording process. Few film -m akers are capable of maintaining relationships with their subjects which would enable them to film such m aterial, who could recognize the advantages to being ^sim ply observers. 1 1 Shooting obviously involves selection, but in Leacock's films the decisions are made in the cam era. Sequences are not shot with an idea of how they can be put together in an editing room; his shooting, very frequently long takes, seems almost choreographed. Pat Jaffe, herself an editor, puts it well: "When you have marvelous shooting (like Leacock's in this film), you can edit the film almost as it comes out of the cam era. When the cam eram an is really operating smoothly and moving from one image to another with ease, the footage has the quality and rhythm of a ballet, and whole sequences may be left intact. It is this approach which leads to a feeling like M arcorelles' that "cin ema has disappeared, " and in a sense it has, if one's conception of cinema embraces a notion of directorial control, of planned shots and prearranged effects. "You can't have a director with this kind of film. You even have to edit your film as the event is actually happening. You have to decide it's this and this and this I want to look at; and not this and this and this . . . You have to make the decisions yourself, you can't alter anything afterwards; nothing can be reshot. What is the function, then, of the actual editing process? In Leacock's case, it does very little. Leacock's description of this step > \ supports Jaffe's vifew^jiuoted above: "I start at the beginning and I go 1 all the way through it, making almost no judgements, simply making work everything I can make work. It's fairly simple actually. You 11 look at the first cut, and that's very close to the finished film. n Happy Mother's Day supports this description. The film looks untam pered with; whatever selections have been made are part of the way things are shot, not how they are put together. Again we ought to note the importance of editing being done by the same people who made the first series of selections, i. e. those who shot the footage. The shift in Happy Mother's Day from family portrait to town portrait is very probably a reflection of Leacock's own shifting interest as an actual observer, the film itself thus recreating his own experience. The ABC film looks like what you'd expect to see about the birth of quintuplets, as if editing were perform ed to shape the(ma- terial in conformity to audience notions of such an event. In this case, there's no need for cam eram en to be editors, since fidelity to their own experience (which might even include not distorting what isn't filmed through what is included) is not a criteria. Leacock's film is concerned with human qualities expressed in individual moments, small spontaneous "surprises, " such things as M rs. F ish er's reactions to trying on a mink coat and the m ayor's attitude as he delivers his speech. The ABC film seeks to cover a significant event in a "serious" fashion (meaning in conformity to a standard network documentary 2 54 1 approach) that precludes Leacock's level of close, uninterpreted obser- l vat ion. Sometimes, though, Leacock's ironic sense of humor may get the better of him. This is a delicate question, but there are times in the film when one can possibly believe that people are being laughed at, 12 being made objects of derision. The woman who sings the horrible song at the luncheon borders on the absurd, and the m ayor's well- meaning but pompous speech leaves him looking bad1 . But in selecting such things, is Leacock making jokes at their expense and at the ex pense of presenting m aterial still left open for viewer evaluation? There are several responses to this question. The least satisfactory, I think, is that the people themselves don't find their activities funny, that they would not feel they have been unfairly treated. This view im plies a certain snobbishness then, of a superiority to the subject. (We know it's funny, but they're too dumb to realize it.) A m ore useful response might be that, yes, they're ridiculous, but it is the unique ness of the situation (the birth of the quints) which brings out these ■qualities, and their very absurdity is mor%a comment on the 'crazy') criature'of^w h ath ap p en in g than a judgement .of their personal qualities^ r l don't thinkxthe.eomic1 elem ents■ in suc’b*moments are intended deliber ately to be cruel, but they are admittedly a troublesome aspect. This . kind of accusation of smug superiority comes up too frequently to ignore it (not just with Leacock, but also with the Maysles Brothers and 2 55 F rederick Wiseman), and there's no easy answer for it. When the de- .tachment of a cinem a-verite approach is translated by a viewer as im plying a superiority, especially in cases where people look ridiculous, it is a difficult argume to dispute. Still, as in all cases where "bias" in cinema-verite is charged, the implied assumption that these films do not reflect the values and attitudes of the film -m aker is not a well- considered position. At best, we can say that Leacock sees these a c tivities as ridiculous (just for having selected them), and the manner of presentation does not prevent us from disagreeing.. While Happy Mother's Day seems personal, judgement is not applied to the m aterial in any kind of restrictive fashion. The cam era is just th e re , without any sense of a forced or limiting structure im posed afterwards. Leacock finds a form growing from the events them selves, and there is dram a in Happy Mother's Day of a kind w e're not used to. In part, this comes about through Leacock's willingness to go anywhere, however apparently trivial. Few film -m akers in this situation would even care about shooting the birth of the kittens, fewer still would save it from the cutting-room floor. The film tantalizes, makes you wonder from sequence to sequence what will happen next, but not in the sense of there being any kind of expected dram atic resolu tion. T here's perhaps little we can extract from this in term s of gen- / " 'N eral princijilejS, but that in itself may be the point. Leacock's films, even more than Flaherty's, suggest the real meaning of non-precon- ■ ception. Happy Mother's Day, so innocent and engaging a film, is an advance in cinema-verite and in cinema. A Stravinsky Portrait A Stravinsky P ortrait is a model application of a cinem a-verite approach in regard to a personality study, entirely free of dramatic structure, but not random filming either. As in Happy Mother's Day, Leacock gives the im pression of having absorbed himself in his subject completely, but without making his own presence a factor to be reckon ed with. There is an unusual acceptance of the cam era in situations where one might expect, because few people are present and the only activity is conversation, that it ought to have been a more disturbing influence. Again, the relationship between film -m aker and subject is im portant. Leacock clearly was not a disruptive element, and in talking about the shooting period he makes clear what one feels from watching the film: "We (Leacock and Sarah Hudson, who took sound) became m em bers of the household. We spent a lot of time going swimming and listening to music, eating together and enjoying each other, and to heck with cam eras. We became an accepted part, an enjoyed part, of the scene we were invading. We w ere not people who were aggressively trying to get something out of him. Filming, in a sense, almost be came secondary, which resulted in a very different level of intimacy 2 57 that you normally get. Often this tends to. sound arrogant, but it's terribly important and seldom understood. If you come barging into a room, I don't care what's going on, and you behave like technicians, a lot of people retreat. These technicians like to be festooned with braces and supports and look like sort of a zombie. They really do. A lot of people hide behind this. And I'd rather not have a cam era at 1 1 3 . . all. Just be there. " This kind of nonaggressive attitude to filming would be meaningless without some eventual purpose behind it, but A Stravinsky P ortrait is more than just glimpses into Stravinsky's pri- vate life. In fact, it is not what one would call a private view of him ' ■ ' V at all. It is a film about Stravinsky the artist, a study of his relation to his work. There are no shots of Stravinsky puttering around his garden, taking a swim, or engaging in any activities not relevant to his creative life. For this reason, perhaps, it is even m ore intimate than more cliched "private" moments would have revealed. Much of the film takes place in Stravinsky's Beverly Hills home, where he is seen in conversation with a good many people, in cluding Robert Craft, P ie rre Boulez, and Rolf Lipberman (a musician as well as producer of this film). A typical scene, and the sort of thing one can only imagine Leacock including, is a long discussion between Stravinsky and Boulez (a conductor noted for his interpretations of Stravinsky) over a possible e rro r in the printed score of "Les Noces. " The entire conversation is in French, and the prim ary quality the episode communicates is their intense concentration over this m atter. Such a moment is hardly a crisis situation or even an event of any great significance. It is simply a fascinating, highly revealing glimpse of Stravinsky. While some of the sequences are brief, fully a quarter of the hour film is devoted to an absolutely extraordinary rehearsal session in Hamburg prior to a taping of his conducting his own "Variations Ded icated to the Memory of Aldous Huxley. " The scene at first seems only incidentally about Stravinsky. We see a kind of mini-film about the r e hearsal process - -Stravinsky going over a difficult passage with a vio linist, then another part with two cellists, and eventually the complete, work with the whole orchestra. All conversation is in German and no narration is added, nor is any necessary. The process eloquently speaks for itself. Stravinsky is so determined, so joyous when con ducting, that further comment would be entirely extraneous. Brief shots of him alone conducting without the full context of the rehearsal (as a more traditional TV documentary might present) could not com municate the full meaning of these activities. Leacock, bold enough to let such a lengthy scene run its course, allows us to share in Stravin sky's creative joy. The narration in the film, spoken by Leacock himself, is a model of conciseness. He restricts himself to simple designations of place, identification of people, and a few very brief translations of 2 59’ foreign language conversations. We are never given any information ! about Stravinsky through narration, just enough background to follow what's going on in a particular scene. While th is^ e e m s hardly a rev- , - . - ^ 5 olutionary approach, one is(ha;rd-pressed to think of another instance when narration is so sparsely and properly applied. The cam era movement and cutting in the film are as rigorously minimal as the narration. Every movement carries with it its own motivation; we feel as if the cam era's interest moves the same way we would if present. Many times a shot is quite steady, with Leacock possibly moving in on Stravinsky almost imperceptibly (for instance, when he pours over the "Les Noces" score). This kind of cam era work \ is difficult to describe when done properly; it is only in cases of i r r e l evant panning, excess zooming, and unnecessary cutting that the diffi culty of capturing unobtrusive but interesting footage becomes apparent. The sureness of style in A Stravinsky P ortrait is further dem onstra tion of Leacock's faith in his subject., a faith that the finished film (and the subject himself) fully justifies. Campaign Manager In discussing P rim ary , we noted Leacock's feeling that the film did not achieve what it set out to accomplish: to show the inner w ork ings of a political campaign. Campaign Manager (also called Repub licans: The New Breed) tries to explore that very territory. Instead "260”; of focusing upon a candidate, the film moves to the edge of the spot- l light, dealing with B arry Goldwater's campaign manager during the 1964 presidential election, John Grenier, the Executrye Director of the Republican National Committee. The film consists mostly of Grenier on the telephone and in meetings with his associates, trying to organ- ' ize Goldwater's activities. It is a low-key presentation, without a m bitions as an expose of smoke-filled rooms or a heroic portrait of men under pressu re. Where P rim a ry explored the campaign process through a strug gle between contenders in one specific contest, Campaign Manager is practically a structureless film. Grenier is followed for a brief p e r iod of time, well before the election, and we see nothing of the D em o-Q j cratic opposition. Goldwater himself is hardly seen, just brief shots of the candidate at a couple of rallies. Even without a crisis structure, the film lacks any moments of great pressure or dram a at all. G ren ier is not an intense personality and the film is really nothing but an account of some aspects of behind-the-scenes operations in a political campaign. The conversations are routine and rarely deal with politi cal topics. G renier's time, according to the film, is mostly taken up with arranging schedules for greatest effectiveness without overtaxing the candidate and trying to raise money to support the campaign. It's not quite the complete "inside" story Leacock wanted (on the basis of his comments about Prim ary), but what is there is quite interesting. Audience identification .with the main character and interest through dramatic structure are rigorously suppressed. The film ’s value is in taking us someplace we couldn’t go ourselves, giving us a glimpse into an activity w e’ve never seen before. The film makes no judgements about the process it observes and p resses no arguments about its importance. Leacock has likened the cinem a-verite approach to the deliberate restrictions of the sonnet form , ^ and Campaign Man ager plays it strictly by the rules, almost revelling in its unvarying succession of sim ilar activities and absence of crisis moments. T here's scarcely even a question of cam era Tnfluenc)e in the scenes w e're shown (admitting that the cam era is never privy to any discus sions of a particularly private nature), given the depiction of deliber ately routine tasks. While Campaign Manager is so pure in these regards, its de pendence on certain cinem a-verite conventions is clear. In conception, fA the idea of exploring)behind-the-scenes politics through sticking with one person is still a notion derived from the Drew films, a personality- orientation not found, say, in Happy Mother's Day or in Leacock's later Chiefs. In other words, a social question is explored through following one person. This choice does have some influence on the film, as in the scene where Grenier talks to someone about how he got into poli tics, a discussion telling us more about the man than the political pro cess (although, admittedly, something of both)0 The film is never entirely sure whether it is a portrait of a politician or an exploration 1 of a political process, the sort of problem endemic to this "rep resen tative individual" approach. Campaign Manager is one of a good number of A m erican cinema- verite films where telephone scenes appear. This seemingly trivial connection is far from coincidental. Telephone conversations also occur in the Drew-Leacock films The Chair and Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment (figuring prominently in each, with Leacock filming in both cases); the Maysles' Showman, Salesm an, and Gimme Shelter; Pennebaker's Don't Look Back, and Wiseman's Hospital. The most obvious reason for their frequency is simply as a result of the importance phones have in daily life, particularly in politics. In this film and in C risis, telephone scenes could not have been avoided. More broadly, though, such situations are a way of getting around in- > terviewing or narration, as they often bring out verbal information without the film -m aker's having to intervene directly. They also r e occur because of the simplicity of the situation. The cam eram an has no decisions to make (as he would were the other person present); these scenes are usually straight-on close-ups. The shots of Robert Kennedy in C risis, the two doctors in Hospital, and Grenier here, are unex- plainably strong images --w e somehow feel closer to the subject, more involved in these scenes. If there is any typical Leacock scene in the film, it is surely 263 ' one where a strategy session gets lost when room service arrives and there's confusion about whose lunch is whose, where issues once again' are submerged by human idiosyncrasies. It is a lesser version of the Crisis moment where Robert Kennedy's daughter comes running in on a previously serious discussion. The scene runs on, as Grenier and his associates deliberate at some length who ordered their meat cooked medium and who m edium -rare, and Leacock includes the whole thing. The scene is funny in a droll, Leacockian way, but it’s an acceptable humor in an otherwise serious context because it is so obviously un related to anything else in the film. .There is no wider principle to be formulated from this, but the oblique m ark of film -m aker personality in so unobtrusively detached a film is worth noting (along with L ea cock's willingness to forego ostensible concern in favor of an activity that interests him). Campaign Manager is not a highly significant work, but in its insistence upon a modest goal, it achieves no small m easure of suc cess. Leacock avoids a number of possible pitfalls the subject m atter' easily invites (opportunity for high drama, dependence upon famous names, taking an expose approach), quite content to observe an in ter esting process. Cinema-verite need not attempt to deal with grand subjects and major events, and Campaign Manager is a good example of the potential benefits from limited aspirations. Ku Klux Klan - The Invisible Empire In 1966, Leacock shot a good deal of Ku Klux Klan - The sible E m p ire, shown on CBS Reports. The film was edited and super vised by CBS News in a traditional television documentary fashion, heavily narrated and full of interviews. Still, there is some charac- . r - teristic Leacock footage of Klan activities, especially (of a fascinating, bizarre initiation ceremony. Leacock is again able to film highly con troversial subject m atter in a way that does not appear to impose his own opinions upon the m aterial. His feeling about this kind of filming is revealing: ’’Film can really be a sort of research data. This leads to in teresting problems, like how do I spend eight weeks with the leader ship of the Ku Klux Klan, where obviously I don't agree with them. But I find them very interesting, and this gave us a sufficient ground in common so that they tolerated me and I tolerated them. Now some people think that this is sort of im m oral. You have to have some basis of respect for each other, and with me, I think, it's just that these are fellow human beings, I may disagree with them tremendously, but still I find them extremely interesting. I want to know why they do the things 1 5 they do. I want to know what they're like. " f \ The argument about possible immorality through taking a de tached approach and therefore refusing to comment upon the people be ing filmed is again one-half of a squeeze that some cinem a-verite criticism imposes. This view says that if cinem a-verite does not ex- ' press a point of view, it should. An interesting aspect of this argument is its ready admission that unbiased film-making is possible (though, by this view, undesirable). The other side is m ore common, saying that cinem a-verite should not express a poinfiof view, but inevitably does. The answer to the form er objection is in asking how point-of- view should be expressed, whether, in this case, clear hostility to the. Klan would have produced the necessary "research data" to evaluate their activities. Because the film -m aker remains detached is not to assum e an audience will follow suit. In regard to the latter argument, that cinem a-verite inevitably expresses point of view, one must ask for clear criteria as to how this comes about. If cinema- verite is always so loaded with inevitable interpretation, why is there frequently such widespread disagreement in regard to film -m aker point-of-view in a particular film? Judgements on the people and events themselves in these films are too often translated into judgements about the film m akers. Given the uncontrolled nature of situations in these films, at least some distinction between content and style ought to be possible. Chiefs Chiefs is a tw enty-m inute’ .film,’ of a police chiefs' convention in Honolulu. On the surface, it is practically a straight report of the con vention. Activities shown include speeches, informal conversations, 266 and demonstrations x o i special police equipment (quite a bit of the lat ter). The film seems very typically Leacock in several ways. Like the white colonialist in Kenya, Africa, the KKK m em bers, and some of the Aberdeen townspeople in Happy Mother's Day, the people in Chiefs . could very possibly express opinions that Leacock doesn't agree with, ■ yet they are given an opportunity to voice their opinions without in ter ference. In one conversation, between Police Chief Tom Reddin of Los Angeles and Chief Charles Gain of Oakland, the two speak at some length about the menace of college radicals, the bad influence of p ro fessors, and the attachments of these groups to Communist beliefs. In a relatively lengthy speech to the convention, Reddin speaks of "the increasing tendency towards perm issiveness towards those who would change society through revolution rather than through evolution, " add ing, "We draw the line where the question of freedom arises, and we draw it where anarchy takes place. " Leacock does not take speech excerpts out of context, nor ridicule any statements of political philos ophy. The filming approach does not in any way seek to condemn their' spoken ideas; they are simply allowed to present their views. There are other moments in the film, equally as typical of cock, which have just enough ironic edge to make point-of-view clear. A police choir sings "Battle Hymn of the Republic, " and Leacock's cam era lingers awhile on the face of a completely bald, rather ridicu- lous-looking choir m em ber. A police drill team perform s in close 267 order drill, and the cam era zooms in on the tight-lipped, overly pom- i pous expressions of two m archers facing each other as their pinwheel pattern revolves. Over the opening shot of a policeman on the Capitol steps, a couple of lines from Gilbert and Sullivan's "A Policem an's Lot is Not a Happy One" are heard. During a m inister's speech about the 1968 Chicago Convention riots ("There were terrible provocations"), there is a cut to a long shot from the back of the room to show the m eager size of the audience. None of these moments are what one would call detached, and whether they are m ore than just small bits of, humor in an essentially serious film is surely a m atter of concern. The riot control equipment demonstrations are particularly troublesome in this regard. The factual inform ation- - the nature of the weapons, their specific potentials for killing and wounding, the range of available equipment - - i s hardly a laughing m atter. Yet, there are hu morous moments in these scenes, like a plastic handcuff demonstration where they can't find the release device, or a fellow trying on a bullet proof vest of the wrong size. The tension between the horrific possi bilities in this equipment and the breezy way it is discussed and demon strated surely seems a quality Leacock sought to capture. He prefers this more palatable presentation of a rather grim subject, which itself may be a reaction to more traditional approaches. One can easily im a gine a humorless depiction of the same demonstrations, and whether the scenes would then be more or less credible is open to question. 268 : My feeling is that Leacock's approach in no way damages the serious side of these events, but the main point here is that the personal nature of his approach is not covert, but clear from the very first shot of the film. There is a distinctively Leacock moment during one of these demonstrations which allows for a useful comparison with the ^arlfey" , Drew films. While a man is trying on some special body arm or, there • is a shot of a young child watching him. The shot is brief and not re - 1 peated. This understated point is in marked contrast to the Drew- Leacock The Children Were Watching, where this same visual connec tion was repeatedly made and, in fact, became an organizing principle of the film. In the later Leacock films (those discussed in this chapter), the cam era very rarely makes points through specific visual emphasis, a ploy much more common in the earlier films. Nevertheless, the greater sense of detachment, the refusal to perm it personal interpre- , tation to obtrude visually, does not mean the film lacks a point of view* But we must re-define what "point of view" means in regard to cinema- verite, and whether we would ask, in the interest of "truth, " for com pletely dispassionate filmic responses (assuming these were possible) to an event such as this one. Like Happy Mother's Day, the wry sense of humor spread through Chiefs and the absence of narration leave the viewer a bit un certain what to make of the film. Is Leacock patronizing to his subject 269 ; and inviting the same attitude from viewers? Is he out for laughs at the expense of stimulating interest in the important questions the film raises? I think not, but the issue must be examined, as it is a natural criticism . We can first consider Leacock's rather persuasive response to this question: "We were not being ludicrous. We pickecL/very consciously and carefully the most serious policemen in Am erica, and those are the cream of the crop. We could have just put all our emphasis on the sort of old-fashioned, beer gut, tough cop. We had hilariously funny m a te r ial on some of them, but it wasn't interesting. Tom Reddin was Chief of Los Angeles and Charles Gain from O akland--these were the cream of the crop. These were the leading, modern-type chiefs of police in A m erica. The film really is a warning: ‘ ■'If you're going to go fight the cops, know what you're up against and what they're after you for. ' I know people tend to laugh at it, but if it's a sugar-coated pill, it's still a pill. What they say in there is what they mean and it has a very direct police chiefs' message: 'Our goal is to find the revolutionaries and d es troy them. ' It's deadly serious, in this sense. T here's really very little emphasis on the ludicrous aspects. We could have done miles and miles of them doing those hula dances; there were lots of goofy things going on there. We didn't show them drinking; that goes on at any convention. I like drinking, too. I'm not going to put them down for that. Because just making asses of people is too easy. And Tom Reddin is no ass. He's a very serious guy." One of the main arguments in this statement is especially inter esting, since it is a quite common reply to charges of this sort. To paraphrase, Leacock is saying "If you think the film ridicules its sub ject, you should see some of the footage we didn't use. " (The Maysles Brothers and Frederick Wiseman have responded sim ilarly in particu lar cases to this charge. ) What's interesting in this is Leacock's open recognition of his powers to manipulate the m aterial if he so chooses, his awareness of developing an argument in the film. In other words, less important chiefs could not be taken as seriously, a preponderance of unflattering shots would have strained credibility, and so on, L ea cock is fully aware (as surely an audience is as well) that this is not simply a report on a convention (just as Happy Mother's Day is not a ■CrV .port*.’ on the birth of quintuplets), but a deliberate means to deal with important social issues in somewhat indirect fashion. At this point, because of certain common factors in approach, we might compare Chiefs with Frederick W iseman's Law and Order. Both films are about the police and neither comment directly on issues! raised in their films, but overall attitudes of the respective film m akers seem pretty clear. Leacock warns about the police chief's position in regard to dissent and the technological sophistication of their weapons for response to it. Wiseman does not deal with overt political questions, instead concentrating on the day-to-day activities of the averagelcop. Leacock explores the ideas of the top police in A m erica in a special situationC^^fs e^am deals with more typical police pursuits and few direct statements of police philosophy. Neither film attempts to be "objective," in the sense of p resen t ing "balanced" arguments on two sides of an issue. Both films are personal in a number of ways. F irst, their structure clearly derives from methods employed previously, i. e. we can identify similarities between each film and other films by their respective film -m akers. The selections in regard to subject m atter used to explore the common social question (the role of police), as they affect the nature of the issues raised, are surely personal choices --L eaco ck 's a film of con versations and somewhat humorous situations, Wiseman's dealing with street activities in generally grim fashion. Still, both Leacock and Wiseman respect the nature of their films as evidence. We can disagree with what the chiefs say in Leacock's film, but we cannot, I think, argue that their views are unfairly represented. We can disagree with the way pOlife function in Law and Order, but we cannot say that (police) do not perform the activities Wiseman includes. Because of the refusal in both cases to intervene directly in the activities being filmed, both func tion as a source of information apart from questions of b ias. They raise issues and perhaps lean towards certain opinions in regard to those issues, but neither film reaches conclusions. For this reason, the films can not be said to contradict each other. The issues involved are certainly of sufficient complexity to allow for these investigations of different aspects of the same question. Despite the very different \ appearance of the two films, their common commitment to an uncon trolled approach leaves them entirely open for debate and differences of interpretation. The idea of point-of-view expressed through editing selection and possibly cam era style in regard to events the film -m aker does not control, allows for the events themselves, the subject m atter of the film, to maintain an independent existence. In controlled films, the b a rrie r of direct manipulation generally precludes such possibili ties. Because the police convention was not created to be filmed, our position as viewer of this account of that event, however wryly it is presented, still leaves us free to talk about the police chiefs' ideas rather than just wrangling over Leacock's view of them. The importance of the film -m aker's lack of direct control is crucial. Chiefs is not the truth on the role of the police, but simply because Leacock's taste for irony and humor shows through doqs^not invalidate this approach. What must be guarded against is an attitude which would suggest that because the film -m aker has been selective, that these choices in subject m atter and in editing are equivalent to manipulation at the source, whether through scripting or using actors. As Leacock's films demonstrate, there are pos sibilities in cinema- verite which have only begun to be explored, and large, grey areas of critical questions exist for which we have no final answ ers. Leacock is surely on the frontier of what is still a new kind of film, operating under its own set of rules. 274 N o tes 1. Ulrich Gregor, ’’Leacock Oder Das Kino Der Physiker, " Film (Munich), 4 (January 1966), p. 16. 2. P atricia Jaffe, "Editing Cinema Verite, " Film Comment, 3 (Summer 1965), p. 46. 3. Louis M arcorelles, "Le cinema direct nord americain, " Image et Son, No. 183 (April 196 5), p. 54. 4. Jam es Blue, "One Man's Truth: An Interview with Richard r\ Leacock, " Film Comment, 3f(Spring 1965), p. 18. v l j k ' 5. Louis M arcorelles, "The Deep Well, 1 1 Contrast, 3 (Autumn 1964), p. 246. V, 6. Blue, "One Man's Truth, " p. 17. \Italics in original. 7. Author's interview with Richard Leacock, 8. Ibid. 9. Jaffe, "Editing Cinema Verite, " p. 46. 10. M arcorelles, "The Deep WellQ'Gpp. 246-47. 11. Author's interview with Richard Leacock. 12. See, for example, comments on this film and(C‘ hiefs by Ed Pincus in G. Roy Levin, Documentary Explorations: 15 Interviews with Film -M akers (Garden City, N .Y .: Doubleday, 1971), p. 368. 13. Author's interview with Richard Leacock. 27 5', 14. Blue, "One Man’s Truth, " p. 17. 15. Author's interview with Richard Leacock. 16. Ibid. CHAPTER VII Frederick Wiseman Frederick Wiseman, is not a direct product of the artistic c ro s s breeding that connects all the film -m akers discussed so far. His films do not share the strong personality orientation that characterizes even' .the Maysles films, our previous paradigm of a purified cinema-verite. W iseman's films are free of both extended concern for specific indivi duals and dependence upon familiar dram atic form s. (This is not to argue that Wiseman's films are a higher level of cinem a-verite, again a term he rejects, but that his films are a departure from structural approaches previously considered.) Wiseman has specific intentions , in his films, and his work is so surely of one piece, full of intercon nections to a strong degree, that we shall have to examine the possible conflict between the continued commitment to open, spontaneous shoot ing and purposeful point-making within a tightly controlled structure. Wiseman's background before he began making his own films was prim arily in law but also included some film experience. Hs pro duced The Cool World from W arren M iller’s novel about Harlem, d ir ected by Shirley Clarke. While teaching law at Boston College, he used to take his students to Bridgewater State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, where he was eventually to make his first film, Titicut Follies. -2 7 6 - 211 His reason for the visits was that he knew many of his students would become judges and district attorneys, and he "wanted them to see the inside of the kind of institution they might someday be committing someone to. " This sense of purpose is typical in W iseman’s film work. E x cept for his most recent, all of Wiseman's films have dealt with public, tax-supported institutions: a mental hospital, an urban police depart ment, a high school, a metropolitan hospital, and an Army training camp. In all cases, Wiseman explores the institution through a unique mosaic structure. Each film is a series of unnarrated independent sequences, separate events tied together by their common locale and whatever thematic connections we choose to infer. If a person appears in m ore than one sequence it happens usually by accident rather than dram atic necessity. His films are structured through overall patterns, repetitions of certain kinds of incidents, and a concern for exploring the relationship between the institution and the people it serves. Be- yong that, as Wiseman puts it, "I'm trying to see if you can pick up re- 2 flections of the larger issues of society in the institutions. " A by product of this search for larger issues is a cumulative sense of the common qualities shared by the institutions in term s of both problems and methods of responding to them. As a result, the institutions, and therefore the films, are closely related. To discuss Wiseman is to /H talk about six variations on the same theme - -the qualify of A m erican life as it is expressed by its institutions. Titicut Follies Wiseman's first film (co-directed by John Marshall), Titicut Follies, deals with the most sensational m aterial (in a journalistic sense) of any of his films. Like all of W iseman's-films, its basic structural unit is an encounter between an institution employee and a person he must serve. Patterns of bureaucratic insensitivity estab lished in Titicut continue throughout Wiseman's work, and it is the first where the point comes through that the problems are too large, sen si tive, and complex to be handled by an institutional bureaucracy, that the institution is a friction point. A doctor's attitude to a patient, a guard's response to an inmate, the kinds of supposed insanity, embrace a range of personal, institutional, and social questions. Despite the undoubtedly ghastly nature of the subject m atter, Titicut does more than encourage revulsion for Bridgewater. The film's first apparent quality is its refusal to deal in stereo types. On the basis of prior cinematic experience, one surely expects to see guards as sadists and inmates as victims (or else some other black-and-white definition of roles), but one has to feel an am bival ence in Titicut towards people on both sides. They are caught in an institutional trap. While a hospital for the criminally insane is surely a necessary institution (as in most Wiseman films), it is a place where 279 : pressing problems receive less than satisfactory treatm ent, due to the complexity of the problems the institution is expected to treat and lack of public knowledge or concern about its workings. A scene in Titicut suggests the need for a complex response to seemingly direct m aterial. A man committed for engaging in sexual activities with children, including his daughter, is questioned by a psychiatrist. The man's story clearly indicates that he has serious emotional problems that require medical treatm ent, but implicit in the doctor’s questions is a certain lewd suggestiveness beyond a strictly professional interest. In the middle of the scene, Wiseman cuts to a room where inmates are directed to strip and are then searched. Back to the doctor and patient, where stripping and searching take place on a mental level as the prying investigation delves into the subjects of m a s turbation, the man's relations with his wife, and his homosexual activ ities. The scene ends with the man saying, "I know I need help but I don't know where I can get it. " The doctor's reply: "You get it here, I g u ess." It is the first of many instances in Wiseman's films when one knows that the buck has been passed as far as it will go. The prob lem gets dealt with here and it doesn't get dealt with at all. A scene like this allows the viewer freedom for a number of simultaneous responses. The doctor must ask questions, but he seems to do it with a brutish insensitivity and an undeniable relish for detail. The patient, whom we'd like to feel sympathetic towards, becomes 280 ' difficult to relate to as he details his clearly serious and socially dan gerous sexual problems. There are no "answ ers'1 in such an encounter, and Wiseman does not attempt to supply any. Titicut Follies is neither muckraking nor propagandists in ultimate effect, because the solutions, or even whether any are possible, are by no means apparent. The doctor-sex m olester scene also indicates a structural diffi culty Wiseman was yet to resolve, an interesting problem from a cinem a-verite point of view because its solution has led him towards a more complete refusal to judge his m aterial, thus leading in future films towards structures allowing more openness to audience in terp re tation. When he cuts from the interview to other inmates being search ed and then back again, he implies a comparison which forces a singu lar response. Strictly through editing, we have to consider each scene in term s of the other, that is, to note the doctor’s verbal stripping of his patient. This runs counter to the cinem a-verite notion of attempting not to reduce the complexity of filmed events, instead trusting the pow er of the m aterial to be its own statement (and perhaps not the same statement for each viewer). This problem is again most apparent in a scene of an inmate being force-fed through a long rubber tube inserted into his nose, as a doctor's cigarette ash haphazardly dangles over the opening. Into this scene, Wiseman intercuts several flash-forwards of the same man be ing prepared for burial. While this manipulation may serve to keep our 281. attention on a grisly spectacle we might otherwise avoid and also makes a quite valid point - -that more attention was paid to the man dead than alive - -this is editorial editing of a crude sort. Wiseman's refusal to work in this vein in subsequent films places him more squarely within a cinem a-verite tradition, for he has since replaced such contrived juxtaposition with far from obvious connections between scenes, giving his later work much m ore.a sense of information gather ing rather than point proving. Titicut Follies takes its name from a variety show performed by the inmates and guards. Wiseman uses acts from the Follies as opening and closing sequences, also cutting back to it at other times during the film. The unnatural theatricality of the scenes perm eates the rest of the film. This is again a tendency which Wiseman keeps under control in his later films, although he still leans towards "sum ming up" shots which bring together certain themes of the film. Titicut F o llies, then, is well on the way towards a structure able to deal with the complexity of institutional relationships, but a film still exhibiting tendencies of over-control which Wiseman later reduces considerably. Law and Order W iseman's first film was about an institution few people knew; his second, Law and O rd er, grapples with a widely known controver sial subject --th e police. Wiseman shot the film during a six-week 282 ' period in Kansas City. Many of the scenes involve routine situations: 1 several family disputes, a stolen purse incident, an overcharging cab driver, a lost child. There are no demonstrations or riots, and the most violent moments take place during a couple of a rre sts, one of a prostitute and the other of a juvenile. As with Titicut, the police are an institution expected both to serve people in trouble and to act as an enforcement agency. The encounters between the police and the p ri- m arily ghetto-bound populace they deal with are a means to explore a range of problems on both sides of the institutional relationship. A difference between Titicut Follies and Law and Order, and always a concern in cinem a-verite, is the degree to which an audience implies a generalized examination of a subject, as opposed to consid- f ~ \ ering the film as a report of specific conditions at a particular point in time. Every cinem a-verite film establishes certain strong limitations in time and/or space which affect possibilities for generalization. In most films discussed so far, the limitations have been a function of the decision to focus on an individual, in which case the film is structured by time; that is, someone is followed during a dem arcated period, whe ther it is Dylan during one concert tour, Jane Fonda from the beginning of rehearsal until the close of a show, or Paul Brennan during a sales trip to Florida. In films about events, space expands through editing; . many places are covered, as in the integration crisjep in The Children Were Watching and C risis: Behind a Presidential Commitment, or the Altamont events in Gimme Shelter. In either case, however, stru c tural limitations lead to restrictions for generalization. Most cinema-? verite films, through the very way they are constructed, do not in themselves argue large questions. That is, we may see an event such /> - \ as Altamont or a personality like Dylan as being representative of lar-' ge© social forces or cultural phenomena, but nothing in the film leads in this direction. To this extent, then, cinem a-verite has been a m ed ium for reporting; the films are presentations, we could say, of un analyzed data. Law and Order, and all subsequent Wiseman films, do seek through structure to lead an audience to less specific evaluations. While Wiseman's films do have a structure, its limitations are of space and not of time. All scenes in a film are, of course, connected to the institution, but there are rarely sequential time connections. Some times one incident may be referred to at a later point (this happens with an a rre s t in Law and O rder), but not often. Instead, each sequence, by being out of time, relates to others ^cmly through the accumulation of information about the event itself, through thematic rather than d ram a tic connections. Taken out of time, the films become less journalistic. While one could argue, for instance, the relative m erits of the Kansas City Police Department and those of other cities, the non-chronologi- cal structure argues for Law and Order,,being a film about the police U and not a film about the Kansas City Police. 284 Another element involved in the way Wiseman's films are stru c tured as general arguments is a factor which distinguishes Law and O r der (and films following) from Titicut F ollies, This has simply to do with the nature of the institution under investigation. It is quite pos~ sible to see Titicut as an indictment of this one specific mental hospital, although one could guess that perhaps |jor even probably) these condi tions are common. In the case of police, people do have certain p re existing views which must be considered in connection with the film. (A small point, but a meaningless one if the films did not provide sup port, are Wiseman's generalized titles.) In other words, Wiseman concerns himself with subject m atter already in the public conscious- . nes s . Finally, in this regard, and perhaps most importantly, the ab- sense of personality orientation is a major element in extending the level of argument. A film about one policeman, crisis period or not, would remain a film about one policeman. This is not to argue that such a film would lack possibilities for generalization, but only to say that through withholding audience identification, Wiseman makes clear the broader nature of his concerns. It should also be noted that so far we have only discussed a first level of generalization, from individuals to the institution, as later we will consider reflection of issues beyond . the institution itself. In Law and Order, more than in any other Wiseman film, one on initial consideration that the presence of the cam era and tape recorder affected what was being filmed. This makes it a simple m atter to believe that events shown are too distorted to be evaluated. How could(anyone^expecHpolice to behave as they "really" are, one might ask, when their every move is under close scrutiny? In'W ise- rnan's case, the question is complicated by his not concentrating on certain people, so that the possibility of a subject's growing accep tance of the cam era in intimate situations is not a potential argum eS? Once again, however, the question of cam era\aw areness is not this simple. All activities in Wiseman's films suggest a tacit acceptance of the cam era because the people being filmed believe themselves to be behaving within their proper role. It is natural to assum e that no one in a film, especially a public employee on the job, wants to commit acts that he feels will put himself in a bad light. If we see a police officer choking a prostitute or strongly subduing a boy being arrested (both occur in Law and Order), then it is able to happen in front of the cam era only because the policeman thinks he is fulfilling the req u ire ments of his job. To expect^^fflmjto show a scene of a policeman har as sing someone out of personal hatred or just for fun is naive. An in dividual's complicity in the act of being filmed precludes such activitie W iseman's films show people living within their normal routine One can imagine the possible excesses that surely occur in unfilmed 286 situations, but this adds another dimension to our evaluation of the issues rather than detracting from the validity of what is th,0re. Also, when we begin to realize that what looks very strange to us is, in fact, perfectly commonplace for the people involved, we begin to pass beyond i third-person observation to become emphathetic participants, no mean feat given the lack of sustained character identification in Wiseman's films. There are occasional lapses of sensibility in Law and Q rd e r, but they serve to underscore the characteristic tension of mixed feel ings the rest of the film creates. When Wiseman shows a policeman buying candy for a lost child, he comes closest to a deliberate attempt, to upset preconceived notions about the police. Although it may be true that police frequently buy candy for children (just as they also rough up prostitutes), the scene is one-dimensional, a play for a specific re a c tion. The expected ambiguity of possible responses typical in W ise man's work is lost, along with contextual complexity. As happens only rarely in his films, experience looks over-simplified. A scene of two policemen talking about their salaries and the lure of better jobs in California presents further problems. It looks uncomfortably staged and awkwardly attempts to fill in facts in a n a r rative fashion. Verbal information, people talking about specific prob lems rather than living in them, has little place in Wiseman's films or in A m erican cinema-verite generally. In a scene like this, our 287 thoughts jump to a different and inferior level; we know we are hearing one side of a debate. Anyone wishing to find out about police pay or other general issues can go read about them, but one could never get in print the participation in complex events^provided by nearly all of Law and O rd er. High School High School, if it were to follow the pattern, would deal with a ghetto school in a terrible state of disrepair. Instead, Wiseman's third film is an examination of a Philadelphia high school whose student body is typically upper middle class and predominantly white. High School, unlike the first two, is about a "successful" institution, and the question shifts from whether the institution is equipped for the responsibilities society places upon it to whether the institution is do ing the job we want it to. Goals and policies are to be questioned, rather than the efficiency of their execution.- The film is a series of interactions between students and their parents, teachers, and adm inistrators. It is not a general study of educational methods or the attitudes of youth. Its prim ary concern is for those activities in the schools that have nothing to do with c la ss room learning or the development of intellectual capacities --questions like sexual roles, competitiveness, dress habits, relationships with authority figures. High School is a rigorously selective work whose '■ " 288 fragmented structure is a result of Wiseman's sensing the parts of the high school experience which are relevant to his argument and his willingness to sacrifice dram atic continuity for a unity which is not apparent until the film's conclusion. He sees the logical connections within his m aterial and vests the film with the mathematical elegance of a neatly executed proof. High School is a film of frustrating confrontations. A student is scolded by a vice principal for talking back to a teacher, another for being in a hall during lunch without a pass, yet another for suggest ing at a meeting that tuxedos might not be necessary for the school dance. The viewer begins to notice how rarely he hears the kids talk ing, and what the students are told in scene after scene is startlingly sim ilar. "We're out to establish that you're a man and can take orders. " "We're going to do in this school what the majority wants. " "It's nice to be individualistic but there are certain places to be individualistic. " Wiseman constantly locates and selects situations which express insti tutional philosophies. Hr ~ r” . _.Aiolag'‘wT^h>]t^e verbal expressions of repression, High School has frequent scenes of students being forced to enact a variety of sub servient, competitive roles. Girls hang from rings in a gym class as their teacher yells out "Tarzan" and "Super-Tarzan" when they reach appropriate levels of endurance, and in another gym class they p e r form exercises to a series of commands in a song called "Simon Says. " In one of the film's longer and more spectacular scenes, three boys emerge from a mock-capsule in full astronaut regalia after having spent 193 hours in simulated space flight, part of a handsomely funded space project. There are also many scenes dealing with sexual atti tudes, including separate lectures to segregated groups of boys and girls, and a number of curious instances of role reversals --am ong them one where football players in wigs and dresses perform as cheer leaders and girls in the band m arch with mock-rifles (in a scene strong ly reminiscent of the variety show in Titicut Follies). The high school clearly has more than education on its mind, or rather, the educational process includes the inculcation of a broad spectrum of attitudes. Classroom experiences do play a part, but not a promising one. A teacher subjects her class to a reading of "Casey at the Bat. " Later, another teacher attempts to explore poetic devices through discussion of a Simon and Garfunkel song, "Sounds of Silence. ” The second scene (and its relationship to the first) is again evidence of the possibilities Q for multiple interpretation in cinem a-verite. Some see the second teacher as a junior version of the first, noting her awareness even of the irony behind the m essage of the song she has selected. An a lte r native but not totally contradictory view sees this teacher as a hopeful sign of progress within the school, someone who tries to select re le vant and involving subject m atter, but the students are so deadened in to bored responses to the educational process that they can't distinguish 290“ ■between the two. In either case, it is important to note that Wiseman's mosaic structure allows for the comparison (that is, provides the evi dence), but refuses to supply direct interpretation. When one feels that meaning in a cinem a-verite work is clear, it becomes a simple m atter to speak of film -m aker intentions. How ever, because the events in cinem a-verite are uncontrolled and editing generally attempts to avoid the imposition of value judgements, the question is not so easily answered. Wiseman is not saying that high schools are good or bad, and although one can guess what his answer might be, such a consideration is not germane. It is entirely possible to look approvingly upon the goals of the school, seeing its values as ones which should be passed on to students. Indeed, some audiences 4 do respond in such a manner. While Wiseman's film is certainly sub jective, this is not to say that he imposes a strict viewpoint upon the m aterial. Once more, he explores conditions rather than proposing solutions, and the investigation is not so restrictive as even to imply that problems exist for which solutions must be sought. The film's opening, however, is perhaps a bit overly sugges- ■ tive. While we approach the school by car, very likely noting the factory-like appearance of its exterior, Wiseman has added a song called "Dock of the Bay. " The song, as described by Wiseman in an interview, is about "the black experience in Am erica . . . (and) the difference between the prom ise and what actually happened. " Wiseman 291 adds, "That seemed to me to be very relevant to the subject I was film ing, so I put it in at the beginning of the film. Wfinle very possibly V v ■ * Y , relevant, music (and the verbal content within the song) employe®in this fashion is akin to narration, and the direct expression of film maker attitude regarding his m aterial by these means goes against the filming method. Above all, although the song may be thematically r e l evant (in W iseman's opinion), it is structurally irrelevant. If one agrees that the song relates to other elements of the film, then one a l ready sees "what actually happened" in this case and there is no need to press it further through use of the song. If one does not see High School in these term s, then the song is not a means of persuasion. The general absence in cinem a-verite of music employed for point-making is in keeping with the intention of leaving the m aterial sufficiently open for many shades of interpretation. When it is used, the film -m a^er in essence is rejecting the complexity of his own m aterial. The beginning sequence j.njHigh School can be usefully contras-' ted to the last scene, which does indeed make a general statement (as . the music attempts to do), but only by nature of the event itself. The principal of the school addresses a teacher assembly, and with tears in her eyes reads a letter written to her from a form er student now in Vietnam. He is about to parachute into action and he writes to thank his teachers and his school for all they have done for him. He expres ses the wish that in the event of his death, his insurance money should 292 go towards setting up a scholarship for a student at the school. "I know I am only a body doing a job, " he w rites. Almost emotionally over come, the principal finished the letter and says, '’Now, when you get a' letter like this, to me it means that we are very successful at North east High School. I think you will agree with me. " F rom this state ment, we can easily go backward and fit lots of things into place. The school's factory-like appearance, its repression of individuality, the m ilitary-like emphasis on authority, even the space program , lead to this a im - - th e production of "bodies" to "do a job, " No external aids like music or narration are necessary to put the pieces together. The high school is doing the job it intends. Hospital From Titicut Follies to Hospital, we can see a development in W iseman's shifting use of the institution to explore larger social issues. Titicut Follies is most specifically concerned (of the four) with the specific problems within the institution itself. The major im plied issue is simply the question of why society perm its Bridgewater to exist. In Law and O rder, issues are broadened to the extent that we ask questions about the role of police in society, but Wiseman to a large extent remains rooted in a close examination of the institution it self (as in discussion of police salaries, evidence of verbal abuse police must suffer, etc. ). High School explores attitudes society ' 293 values through examining the cultural indoctrination within the educa- > tional process. Once on this broader plane, Wiseman has stayed there, and Hospital might be described as a return to L^w and Order territory but with the added sophistication of argument found in High School. The hospital is a battleground for a wealth of social problems, to the point, where the institution itself is prim arily a m irro r for other, larger concerns. Hospital is nearly free of enclosed information; that is, most sequences have overt external ramifications. An added element is the frequency of cases where people within the institution try to deal with other institutions, always unsuccessfully. In Law and O rd er, there are some comments about the inefficiency of legal procedures and problems with juvenile courts, but Hospital provides a running c rit ique on the inadequacy of other institutions. By extension we come to realize that the problems of other institutions and their resources to meet them are probably little different from Metropolitan's, though this is not explicitly stated. Two telephone calls by doctors to other agencies neglecting their responsibilities point up the interdependency of the institutions and the way people can be caught between bureaucracies. The first complains about a patient who was tran sferred from a private hospital to a public one without benefit of anyone notifying a doctor at the}re ceiving end of the seriousness of her condition. The doctor's combined 294 1 (tone of anger and resignation is echoed subsequently by an ambulance , 'driver who had to drive a patient around for several hours before find ing a hospital that would admit her. The second call, later in the film, is made by a psychiatrist on behalf of a young homosexual, as he tries to extract a commitment from a social w orker with the improbable name of Miss Hightower that her agency will help the boy. The cam era stays on the doctor in unwavering close-up for nearly four minutes while his pleas are evaded by buck-passing and instructions to put his request in writing. The conclusion of the scene is the only moment in a Wiseman film when someone acknowledges the presence of a cam era, as the doctor looks up unbelievingly and says that she hung up on him. Throughout Hospital there are frequent indications of institutions ex erting pressures on each other, compounding inefficiencies and in c re as ing the likelihood that stopgap means will be employed to combat long term problem s. Both doctors, and all the staff people in Hospital, do show a good deal of concern for the patients. In contrast to Titicut, the aud- :ience is not perm itted the easy escape of seeing a solution in the hiring of better personnel. In fact, Wiseman's later films frequently resolve situations in a manner that suggests his advancing sensibility in regard to the nature off institutional problems. One particularly sensitive scene (which again includes unsatisfactory contact with a social worker) involves a young boy brought to the hospital who, while left alone with his alcoholic grandmother, has fallen out a fifteen foot high window. Somehow he has not been injured and should be released. A nurse hears the facts in the case and struggles to find a way to keep the boy for a day so that neglect forms can be filled out. Calling to another ward ("I know the old goat is listening, so just answer yes or no . . . Do you have a bed for a little boy? . . . I'll do anything"), talking to a social w orker (who asks, "Are there any other siblings in the home? ")^ she is finally ready to take the boy to her own hous'e^ In te a rs, not knowing what to do and warned about over-involvement, she asks if she can get the boy something to eat before his release, resigned to not be ing able to do any more than this. Wiseman knows when to stop, for the next part of the episode could have lapsed into the sentimentality of the Law and Order candy scene. This incident is of the sort that has been so debased by women's magazine fiction and television soap opera that no small part of Hospital's impact derives from being brought back to direct experience, coming to realize again that these d esp er ate struggles involve real people. Hospital re-echoes Titicut Follies in a scene that again demon strates the degree of refinement in Wiseman's later work. Recalling the interview between the psychiatrist and the sex offender in Titicut, a woman doctor has to examine an old man and ask him about sores on his genitals and the condition of his urine. He is em barrassed to talk to a woman, but at the same time near crying in fear that he's dying of 296 : cancer. She gently prods the information from him as she assures him, "You shouldn't be ashamed . . . We want to fix you up. I have to know all these things. " We feel closer to them both than to the two in Titicut, where the doctor was obnoxious and the patient far from sym pathetic. In Hospital, both the necessity for people dealing with insti-: tutions to sacrifice a degree of privacy and the accompanying respect ; required towards those who seek assistance are evident. The film has many such scenes, doctor-patient encounters that depict one person trying to make another's life a little more bearable. W iseman's films usually contain som e'm aterial whose sole purj pose is "atmosphere. 1 1 Especially in High School and Hospital, one feels an attempt to communicate the oppressiveness of the institutional environment. Hong travelling shots down halls and frequent views of people waiting compensate for the tight close-up shooting in most scenes. A by-product of Wiseman's concern for one-to-one encoun ters is that a sense of place is secondary. This is useful in im part ing a generality to the conditions exam ined- - his institutions could be , anywhere --b u t the buildings themselves express the institution's phil osophy. Therefore, we get the factory-like shots at the beginning of High School or views of crowded, noisy waiting rooms in Hospital. Even a trivial activity like janitors walking down halls cleaning up are repeated in both films (and similarly in his later Essene), again to supply a feeling for the physical plant. This visual shorthand becomes 297 something of a convention, so that in Hospital transitions between scenes are facilitated by returns to the waiting room. As a conven tion, a simple means to put sequences together, such shots are p e r haps useful. In them selves, however, they are not too convincing, in that their intent is obvious* Atmosphere is not a factor that can be manipulated. Wiseman uses his preference for close shooting to his own ad vantage at the end of Hospital, when he finally pulls back. As a group of patients in a church service sing nAve M aria1 1 {after the collection plate is passed before these people who deserve to be its recipients), Wiseman cuts to outside the hospital. The sound of the singing begins to decrease while the cam era slowly zooms out. The hospital recedes until it is far in the background as the shot becomes filled with the sight and sound of cars speeding along a freeway. When last seen, the hospital is an indistinguishable building behind a steady stream of peo- pie travellings by, oblivious to what's going on inside, , • A V . • Basic JTrraining ■ Basic Training is the first Wiseman film to follow at least a slight chronological framework. Recruits are seen alighting from busses and undergoing the initial battery of regulatory procedures: uniform issuing, haircuts, fingerprinting. Drilling scenes at several points in the film are a progressive reference fram e to the soldiers* 2 9 8 growing proficiency at following orders. While there are occasional moments of personality and discipline problem s, the general force of the film asserts the overall efficiency of the training process in de veloping soldiers with a sense of Army pride. The film ends with - \ J "Graduation, " as the now polished troops pass in review before offi cers and an admiring civilian crowd. While the film is open to individual analysis apart from his other work, an argument can be developed in term s of W iseman’s sel ection of m aterial with clear affinities to concerns in his pother films. The most certain connections in this case are between Basic Training and High School, although a more complex web of connections between all the films can be explored (dealing with such things as the function of the church services in both Basic Training and Hospital). Wiseman is not only sensitive to the similarities between institutions, but also to the neat m atrix of inverse influences --th e ways institutions take on the functions and appearances of each other. In High School, Wiseman repeatedly points up m ilitaristic aspects of the high school experience; in Basic Training, he emphasizes the high school-like aspects of the training process. To repeat the distinction: He is not only implicitly arguing that high school and basic training are alike in some respects; he shows how the two institutions draw on the techniques of each other to the point where neither has an independent identity. Instead they come to be seen as two steps in much broader processes of molding and regulating of citizens in non-voluntary situations. In High School, the military connection is made explicit in the final scene, the reading of the letter from the form er student now in Vietnam, thus suggesting the easy, practically inevitable transition from high school student to soldier. The connections in the film to the m ilitary also include previously mentioned scenes of Arm y-like endur ance tests and the exercises in unison to recorded commands in girls' gym classes, as well as the astronaut sequence, again pointing up high school encouragement of yet another prim arily m ilitary function. (A corresponding endurance test in Basic Training is a gruelling forced exposure to tear gas.) There is an official military rhetoric in High School which has precise counterparts in Basic Training, lines like "We're out to establish you're a man and can take orders. " There are even marching bands in both films. And, of course, the overall p e r vading atmosphere of boredom in High School is not without a m ilitary analogue. The sum total of this evidence (still, though, only one(dTj : mension of the film) is sufficient to conclude that the^s election process is deliberate, that the evidence constitutes a conscious argument about m ilitary aspects of the high school experience. In Basic Training, to go in the other direction, the high school connections are equally pronounced. The graduation, already m en tioned, has a ceremony complete with valedictorian's speech. Just as High School out-Armies Basic Training in some respects, this film 300 goes beyond High School, as no graduation scene appeared in W ise m an's earlier film. avoids the typical, the expected (like showing a graduation ceremony in High School), when those exper iences are part of common knowledge. (It is only in Law and Order and Hospital that the typical is AtrVssed, presumably because W ise man feels the public loses sight of the daily activities of these institu tions.) He prefers to seek out defining moments, situations which either reveal institutional philosophy or those which (by their possibly seeming out of place) make the kind of institutional cross-connections , we are talking about possible. Basic training is, after all, a kind of educational process, and perhaps a m ore efficient, concentrated learn ing experience than the high school years., The film is full of assembly lectures, not the doctors1 sex talks in High School, but now indoctrin ation lessons about Why We Are inkyhetnam and the importance of the "winning" tradition in the Army. Where High School1 s teachers d rill ed bored students on literature, Basic Training's instructions "teach" about rifles, bayonets, land mines and the like, to a far more rapt audience. (There are many scenes of "classes. ") Combat practice, pairs of men hitting each other with clubs, looks like part of a high school physical education program . The Arm y even employs audio visual aids in its instruction, as shown in a humorous scene of recruits being taught how to brush their teeth properly by asking them to follow an animated musical demonstration on TV sets. The inevitable discipline problems (like a soldier failing to make reveille formation) certainly recall the vice principal scenes in High School, with the same kinds of rem arks about not getting out of line by the same sort of petty Ibuneaucrat, although punishment now is a lot stiffer than an hour's detention. Again, the accumulation of evidence is too strong to avoid the m ilitary-high school connections. A curious connection between the two films, strange because the scenes in question do not seem immediately relevant to either case, are the repeated situations involving parents of the students and sol diers. Their use suggests, in part, Wiseman's attempts to demon strate that the institutions function not only in loco parentis, but in accordance with their wishes, that is, society's wishes. In both films., the parents cooperate fully with the institution, either acquiescing to its philosophy or expressly favoring it. In High School, parental com plicity is clear in scenes such as the castigation of a student for failing to respect authority, or in another when apparent comes to complain about a student's grade and ends by agreeing with the philosophy behind it. The instances in Basic Training are even more blatant. A mother present at her son's promotion beams admiringly as she says, "I think he's found his niche in the world. " During a family visit, one recruit proudly shows off his rifle. His father advises him "to do what you're supposed to at all tim es, " while his mother w arns, "If you don't come out of here a true man, you'll never be a man. " Such scenes are points of contact with the outside world, emphasizing the institution as an extension and reflection of broader social desires. Basic Training complements High School in the nature of its argument. The Army is a more distinct sub-culture, so Wiseman asserts its 1 points of commonality. "It turns out there is nothing that puts professional soldiers at a distance from the rest of us. That's infinitely more depressing than showing that drill sergeants are a bunch of animals. Wiseman's feeling is evident throughout the film;, there are no instances of truly unusual or shocking behavior. During a rifle demonstration, a recruit innocently inquires whether the speci fic weapon being exhibited has been used to kill people. The instruc tor's answer is a measured, rational discussion defending the use of weapons as a means of self-preservation in war; it is not the gung-ho, le t' s-kill-jem sort of harangue we might expect. Basic training is presented as a survival course, instruction to keep these nice, normal kids from getting killed. A difference between the two films is evident in their resp ec tive final sequences. High School's last scene reaches out by im plica tion, in a sense deliberately moving beyond itself. Basic Training has no such transcendant moment, nor is one necessary. When one of the recruits at "Graduation" says, "We came here from different places with different backgrounds . . . we are now emerging as trained fight ing men in the United States Army, " he only states what is already ' 303' evident. The institutional philosophy is apparent; Arm y ideology is on view for all to see. The question, and one common to all of Wiseman's films, is whether the institution is one we believe f u nctions in our best interest. His studies of public, tax-supported institutions take us into places we might never venture for ourselves (or where we never con sidered their function as an institution while a part of them), and has us ask whether they indeed represent our values and priorities. Es sene Essene is the first Wiseman film to deal with an institution that is neither public nor tax-supported, a monastery. Instead of institu tional cross-connections and issues of public concern, Wiseman seems to be exploring personal, human qualities, so0hat Essene is both his most specific and most universal work. Essene is not so much about an institution as a community, The absence of personality orientation in Wiseman's previous films, the tendency to see people in term s of their function within the institution and as vehicles to express institutional philosophy, encour age a detached, analytical attitude. To quote him (in an interview af te r Hospital); "I think the star of each film is the institution. I don't want you to come out feeling, for instance, that Dr. Schwartz in Hos pital is a charming, personable fellow. I want you to come out with a feeling of what a big city hospital is like, or a high school, a prison, a 304' police department. I want you to switch your level of identification from a person . . . to Metropolitan Hospital. That's really what I'm after. ” In E ssen e, Wiseman does give a sense of the institution, but he does so through emphasis upon individuals to a far greater extent. For the first time in a Wiseman film, we identify people by name and have at least some sense of individuals apart from their in- stitutional identities. Even those in authority appear to bespeaking as much for themselves as for the position they hold. While strata within the community exist, there is a good deal more communication at the same level than in previous Wiseman films. In E ssen e, this leads to more frequent questioning of the role of the institution itself. Again, this is part of an evolution in Wiseman's work. High School has one scene of students speaking out, the only time in that film where they seem to be m ore than just bodies being moved around. Hospital has a number of instances where people go beyond their cus- . tom ary roles, such as the scene where a nurse tries to defy authority in hope of helping a m istreated boy. In Basic Training, there is a greater proportion of discussions questioning the institution's validity, usually by groups of recruits debating Army policies. Essene is about an institution constantly examining itself. Wiseman's films show an increasing tendency towards situations where people within the insti tution criticize it; as a consequence, people within the institution be come m ore than just functionaries or victims. Essene is a long way : ' ’’ ' ' 30 5 ' from the marked, unquestioned division of institutional roles in Titicut Follies, Law and O rder, arid even High School. A characteristic situation in Wiseman films, and most marked in the last two, is the case of a "misfit, 1 1 someone who does not adjust to the discipline of the institution. The connection between reoccur ences is in the basic condition that any institution exercising authority must develop means to respond to those who will not (dr- mit willingly. In the process, the nature of authority is revealed, in regard both to what the institution deems an infraction and to the m an ner of its response. In High School, there are three separate instances of boys brought before the vice principal for discipline. In one, a boy is accus ed of disrespect for his teacher, and he is punished despite his p ro te s tations of innocence. (This is where the institutional philosophy of "we're out to establish you're a man and can take orders" comes out. ) Another case involves a hefty student who has slugged a m ore frail col- league, andyhe's?dealt with harshly. While we might be m ore sympa- thetic to discipline in this case, one point of the repeated episodes in volving infractions of rules is the uniformity of response by authority, with little regard for nuances ,between offenses. Anyone out of line for' whatever reason gets put back on by whatever means necessary. The assem bly line keeps rolling. While there are minor discipline problems of the same order in 3 0 6 ’ Basic Training, a more interesting and well developed case involves a' recruit who is literally and figuratively "out of step, " who just can't do anything right. After repeated problems, he attempts suicide, and his first sergeant asks the base chaplain to see him. Their meeting has the customary Wiseman ambiguity; the boy needs help, though maybe not the kind he gets, and all he might really need is just to be released from the institution. The chaplain lectures him with linesTlike "All of life is really about ups and downs, " and does not appear to be of much assistance. At one point in their talk he catches a furtive glance at his watch; he seems to consider the "problem" rather routine. But the recruit is treated kindly, and the institution is prepared to bend to an > extent to accommodate him. Ironically, the boy is later seen during a demonstration of strangling and other killing techniques as the volun teer "victim, " a strange role for someone who had earlier tried to kill himself. Despite a certain institutional insensitivity and occasional harshness of language, the Army seems an even more benign institu tion than the high school. Their reasons for disciplinary action are ; at least explained, though we can still question the need for it. These issues are most fully explored in E ssen e. The opening scene is a discussion of the question^^\authprity;^and the point i s ^ ) O r ~ ■ made that "everything is done with the approval of The Abbot. " The tension throughout is established by the next scene, where "egocentric habits" are talked about. The constant conflict in Essene is between 307"' individuality (usually called ’'ego1 ') and the need for submission to the group. A revealing scene in this regard is a discussion where one monk asks for "a theological rationale for discipline, " and is answ er ed by an argument for the tradition of asceticism in the Church. "If you don't have discipline you have(ehaos, " he is told, and is further instructed to consider the monastery discipline as a form of p re p a ra tion to receive God's graces. The next scene continues on this point, . a classroom lecture by The Abbot about.the need for law and "the ten sion between the spirit and the law. " That Wiseman considers these questions paramount is evident in his final "summing up" scene, a long serm on by The Abbot about "Martha and Mary complexes, " the possessive and contemplative qualities of the human personality. Essene is structured upon this duality. The possessive quality is most apparent in the film's "misfit" case, which constitutes practically a sub-plot in an otherwise typically non-narrative structure. Brother Wilfred is first seen talking to The Abbot, and his stubborn individuality is quite apparent from their d is cussion. He talks about his dislike for the use of first names, feeling that the custom is unnecessarily familiar. The Abbot's reply is expec ted, a defense of their use as a result of living together in a commun ity, familiarity out of shared experience. Wilfred wants none of it, believing that he has the right to decide who can be familiar and who can't. In the only scene |hot outside the monastery, Wilfred is followed into town on a shopping trip. The clerk at one of the stores, apparently aware of Wilfred's idiosyncrasies, kids him about whether he m issed role call this morning and if they line up in formation stand ing at attention (a slight but helpful link to Basic Training). comes to a head^n a meeting led by The Abbot, who states his conclu sion that Wilfred indicates no desire to reform, to give himself to the group. The monastery, the most humanistic of institutions, seems ultimately the most inflexible towards those who are out of step. The contemplative quality, the willingness to submerge oneself within the spirit of the institution, is explored through scenes of re li gious observance and communal expressions of faith that are close to group therapy. The connection is acknowledged during one discussion when a monk talks about the "extremely therapeutic" nature of their meetings and the "emphasis on healing" in their life. In a long, re - markable Scene, one monk tells^an extended pax-able about finding God. At the end, he kneels on the floor, while the whole group gathers a- round him and sings "Heal Him, Jesus. " They all embrace, just as they do after one of their services. In that scene, Wiseman follows the procession of hugs through at least a dozen people in a single shot, thus emphasizing the sense of community. E ssen e, like all of Wiseman's films, is generally shot in tight ' ^ ------ V close-up. This, stylistic tendency has been frequently criticized, e s pecially in High School, where the use of close-ups has been(seen as 309 g ; " ■"grotesque" and a mfe^is of "ridicule. " Discussion of this issue has been deferred until now because Essene shows the weakness in that position. A shooting preference for close-ups, when constantly em ployed (and it is in W iseman's films), is a strictly neutral device. There is no one made ridiculous in Essene through staying close; if anything, the continual expressions of emotion are that much more moving as a result. A distinction must be made between the content of a shot and possible intention expressed by framing and cam era movement. If a teacher in High School looks grotesque (though even that judgement is certainly open to dispute), this is a viewer decision rather than a film m aker's. Otherwise, why are some close-ups seen as grotesque and others as sympathetic? A more rigorous rationale is necessary to a sse rt film -m aker intention behind a framing decision. W iseman's close-ups are for us to see what's going on, and no m ore. This is not to argue that cam era style cannot express a film m aker's response to what he films. The point is obvious. But there are more varieties of intention than a film -m aker communicating "good" or "bad" reactions through framing. Consistent use of close- ups does say something about W iseman's level of involvement, just as ' long shots would say something else. Intention can also be expressed through stylistic shifts, such as choosing to shoot one person close and another at a distance. If Wiseman zooms in on the vice principal in 310 ' High School when he glares at a student, intention is expressed, but it is the movement which is expressive and not the close-up itself. The point then becomes whether the altered framing choice contradicts the activity shown, but that is another m atter entirely. Selection, the choice of what to film is not automatically equivalent to a point of view. A close-up is a close-up, and not a philosophy of life. Wiseman's visual style does not vary from film to film, but one can not conclude that he considers each institution and the people in them as equivalent.. However much his point of view is disputed, the overriding issues con tinue to revolve around content. While film -m aker personality is not entirely hidden, there are other things to talk about than who might look grotesque and who doesn't. E ssen e, through its apparent differences in subject matter, clarifies our understanding of institutions. Where Wiseman's institu- tions are themselves m icrocosm s of society, the monastery can be seen as a m icrocosm of the other institutions. We can divide the insti tutions in his earlier films into two groups: those which deal with peo ple society judges in need of assistance (Titicut Follies, Law and O r- d e r, Hospital) and those which service society by asserting its values through "education" (High School, Basic Training). Essene bridges these two functions. The monastery seeks to help people (recall the emphasis on "healing") and also enforces institutional values (and therefore must maintain discipline). A monastery, seemingly the most ’ ' 311: specialized and superfluous of the Wiseman institutions, is the most basic. Considering all of Wiseman’s institutions, some generaliza tions can be made. Institutions are conservative in both philosophy and approach. They reflect the status quo and do not sponsor innovation. Those dealing with the poor are not equipped to handle the complex problems placed on their doorstep and tend to blame other institutions for the needs of the poor not being met. The institutions can effective ly realize their intentions when they have a specific job to do and a . r e ( j properly funded. P a rt of the point in drawing these "m essages” from the films is to show that these are not really "message films" at all. They are a bridge to experience; while arguments can be inferred through structure, it is exposure to the events themselves in all their complexity that makes this possible. Wiseman's films do not "illus trate" specific problems; they present m aterial from which a variety of inferences on a number of levels can be drawn. Wiseman's films might not appear to meet certain necessary conditions of a cinem a-verite approach, especially regarding structure. The way the films are put together, not in a continuous chronology and in a manner establishing some degree of intellectual distance, would suggest that he is closer perhaps to more propagandistic documentary form s, or at least to documentary traditions more concerned with persuasion and social reform.. While Wiseman's relationship to cinem a-verite is irrelevant in teyms)of the films,' importance, he is not a serious distance from the m ainstream . Wiseman's films show identical commitments to the key cinem a-verite notions of uncontrolled shooting and "open" editing. While Wiseman's films are not personality oriented, his units of con struction, or "scenes," still show complete, spontaneous situations. Scenes play themselves out with all the ambiguity characteristic of good cinem a-verite; while the films are mosaic in structure, the pieces are independently complete. Episodes are often quite long, as long as any in the films discussed previously. Wiseman never seems to take sit uations "out of context, " that is, the structural position of an episode does not in itself press a certain argument. Unlike films structured more closely to fictional form s, the precise order of scenes (except for final "summing up" shots) look as if they could be switched around1 in a variety of permutations without altering possible meanings. As we have noted, in a film like On the Pole or Salesman, the meaning of a shot is often dependent upon our trust in "honest" editing, our faith that film chronology approximates actual chronology. Wiseman's films make no such demands. Wiseman's structure can be seen as a development from the structure of repetition noted in the M aysles1 films. (Once m ore, this is not to argue relative superiority.) If Salesman were played out, 313 theoretically, within, a defined area and with a variety of people instead of a few main characters, the result could be very close to a Wiseman film in structure. Structure develops in W iseman’s films from them a tic repetitions, variations (for the most part) of his basic situation, the institutional employee and his "client. " Like most Maysles films a greater number of scenes in a Wiseman film would not "tell us more"; there is no story that could be continued. One could carry over the argument that we learn no m ore from High School by the end than after the first ten minutes, but again that's part of the point. The institution is constantly defining itself. Also, we learn a great deal from the v a r ieties of repetition, arguably more than if situations were m ore diverse. Wiseman even extends the possibilities in structural repetition by the cumulative effect of all the films and the variations one to another. Wiseman's "summing up" scenes are an important structural element, but while they give cause for re-evaluating all we've seen to that point, they do not argue for a perception of the institution at v a r iance with the rest of the film (in the way that a dramatic climax might change our view of the characters). When a man at the end of Law and O rder runs off out of frustration at the policeman's inability to solve his complex family problem, we do not think differently of the police. We may see a final manifestation of conditions noted previously, but the non-sequential ordering of scenes prevents us drawing tighter re tro spective connections. 314 Wiseman demonstrates a faith in the complexity of uncontrolled events that his editing serves only to magnify rather than restrict. His highly personal, subjective view of the world is committed to com municating that complexity., The subt.exture of sophisticated argument does not obscure, the film s' sense of spontaneity and immediacy. He shows that cinem a-verite film-making, with its refusal to intervene directly in the events under observation, does not imply social i r r e sponsibility. A distanced film -m aker can still be a committed film maker. 315 N otes 1. Beatrice Berg, !"I Was Fed Up With Hollywood Fantasies, New York T im es, February 1, 1970, II, p. 25, 2. Author's interview with Frederick Wiseman. 3,, For a scene of the variety of responses to this one scene, ' see: Harvey G. Cox, "High School, " Tem po, 1 (June. 15, 1969), p. 12; Charles E, Fager, "Sweet Revenge: High School, " Christian Century, 86 (September 3, 1969), p. 1142; Joseph Featherstone, "High School, " New Republic, 160 (June 21, 1969), p. 30; Pauline Kael, "High School,," New Y orker, 45 (October 18, 1969), pp. 202-203. 4. F red M. Hechinger, "A Look at Irrelevant Values, " New York T im es, "March 23, 1969, V, p. 11; Jam es Cass, "Don’t You Talk - Just Listen!" Saturday Review, 52 (April 19, 1969), p. 57. 5. Alan Rosenthal, The New Documentary in Action: A C ase book in Film Making (Berkeley: University of California P re s s , 1971), p. 73. 6. "Public Documents, " Newsweek, 78 (October 4, 1971), p. 99. 7. Stephen Mamber, "The New Documentaries of Frederick Wiseman, " Cinema (Beverly Hills), 6 (TjoJ^Jl), p. 39. 8. William Paul, "Documentary Follies, " Village Voice, '316' October 8, 1970, p. 65; G. Roy Levin, Documentary Explorations: 15 I Interviews with Film -M akers (Garden City, N. Y, : Doubleday, 1971),- p. 322* CHAPTER VIII ConclusiorO The prim ary cinem a-verite issues relate to the question of con trolled forms for uncontrolled shooting. Given that no film can ever break down completely the b arrier between the real world and thee ^ screen world, cinem a-verite knowingly reaches for unattainable goals. It is the necessary awareness of the relationship between uncontrolled shooting and its possible structures that makes cinema-verite so d is ciplined and difficult an approach. Cinema-verite is not random film ing. If all that m attered in cinem a-verite was capturing "life as it is, " there would be no&Jason to distinguish between Richard Leacock and any news cam eram an, just as in photography C artier-B resson would be equivalent to most am ateurs. Cinem a-verite, like all film form s, communicates meaning through selection. Therefore, we can not justify uncontrolled documentaries by saying they appear more "real" and pretending that these films just happen. If there has been one underlying desire in this study, it is in the attempt to explore the tension within cinem a-verite regarding personal style. While the(se film -m akers rarely invest meaning in controlled images (through specific cam era placement, cuts within sequences for 318 emphasis, and the like), their respective films do display certain m easures of control which have to be considered as elements of style. Cinema-verite of the kind discussed here is a personal cinema in a very literal sense, and we do not respond out of instant recognition of untampered truth. Instead, we react to seeing events which, while still presented within a meaningful structure, have a force of their own, a force beyond questions of style. Uncontrolled documentaries carry with them a sense of life going on beyond the cam era, of the film -m aker as only one aspect of a larger reality. This is not a sense expressed through visual metaphor or expressive cam era technique, but a result of refusing to make events subordinate to filming by means of direct control. Out of its commitment to uncontrolled shooting, cinem a-verite tends to personalities and events which in themselves are visibly com plex. There are few cinem a-verite films about passive, introspective people, or events free of ambiguity or at least multiple components. Cinema-verite reflects a film -m aker's position regardint the nature of reality, a world view leading to a filming approach. The challenge seen in dealing with complex, uncontrolled events without reduction is a m ajor element behind this approach, so that simple events and un complicated people are generally avoided. Uncontrolled documentary does not seek to provide the "key" to an event, to break a situation down into essential parts. Instead, it risks structural irrelevancy by ' 3 1 9 ’ allowing events to develop of their own accord. Cinema-verite extends its lack of control from events filmed to its relationship with an audience. The belief in the complexity of reality (while granting that selection of events is a crucial aspect) has led to more than the seeking out of fresh m aterial. Subjectivity does not express itself|.in term s of the film -m aker passing judgement on his subject. It is impossible to know, and quite irrelevant, whether L ea cock likes John Kennedy or the Ku Klux Klan, how the Maysles feel about Marlon Brando, or if Wiseman approves of m onasteries. We should not be so burdened with a sense of inevitable expression of film maker point-of-view that we lost sight of the essentially open nature of the events in these films. Subjectivity expressed through subject m at ter preferences and structural tendencies is not equivalent to providing direct interpretation for an audience. If there are fundamental differences between the film -m akers discussed here, they are expressed most strongly in structure,, and through structure to content. The development of American cinema- verite can best be seen as a search for new structures (which, for the last time, is not to imply an evolution to higher forms). The first films were strongly dependent upon fictional devices, although the p r i m ary commitment to uncontrolled shooting was evident even then, as soon as the equipment made the realization of that goal possible. The preference for drama as expressed through crisis structures travelled 3'ZD 1 hand-in-hand with a strong personality orientation, and personalities of particular types. When that type was missing (Nehru, Petey and Johnny), faults in structure were most evident. As cinem a-verite moved away from recognizable dramatic structure, subject m atter changes appeared as well. While Joe Levine might have been the subject of a Living Camera film, it is difficult to imagine later Maysles personalities treated within that form. But the ‘ Maysles films are still very much about specific people, even more rigorously than the Drew films, which did on occasion seek to explore events of a complex nature, if always in personal term s. The later Leacock and Pennebaker films represent further explorations in pos sible forms and varieties of subject m atter. Happy M other's Day seems to glory (and rightly so) in the challenge of its m aterial and the approach taken to it, just as Don't 1 .nnk Rack purposefully avoids ex pected kinds of information. But in all these cases, structural and subject choices can be seen as growing out of prior concerns. While Frederick Wiseman's films are markedly different, in an overview some sim ilarities are just as apparent. F rom Meet M ar lon Brando and Salesman to Wiseman's films is not a grand structural leap so much as a difference of interests; in both cases, there is some common interest in structures dependent to an extent upon repetition. Wiseman is not as free of influence from earlier A m erican cinema- verite as might be thought. Football is a clear percursor to High School, just as Essene is in the tradition of David. The increasing tendency in Wiseman's films to scenes of longer duration and the lean ing in Essene towards a greater degree of personality orientation (al though neither is a pronounced development) at least indicate shared concerns with regard to possible structural approaches. The film -m akers discussed here are too few in number and the time since their first films too brief to attempt any general assessm ent of cinem a-verite possibilities. At this point, we can only hope in the most tentativeTashion to get a sense of the questions involved in un controlled documentaries and some idea of purpose behind the approach. As further explorations in uncontrolled documentary continue, we o:u/ght to be as free of preconception as, ideally, the films are. Filmography Drew Associates: P rim ary , I960. Produced by Time-Life Broadcast. Executive Producer: Rob ert Drew. Film -m akers: Richard Leacock, D. A. Pennebaker, Terence M ccartney-Filgate, Albert Maysles. Correspondent: Robert Drew. Editor: Robert F arren. On the P o le, I960. Co-produced by Time, Inc./D rew Associates. Executive P r o ducer: Robert Drew. Film -m akers: Richard Leacock, D. A. Pennebaker, William Ray, Abbot Mills, Albert Maysles. C or respondents: Jam es Lipscomb, Gregory Shuker. Editors: L arry Moyer, Robert F arren, Anita Posner. Close-Up (Films shown as part of ABC series of that name): Yanki, N o!, I960. Produced by Tim e-Life Broadcast. Executive Producer: Robert Drew. Film -m aker: Richard Leacock, with film makers Albert Maysles, D. A. Pennebaker. N arrator: Joseph Julian. Translator: P atricia Powell. Reporters: William Worthy, Quinera King. Editors: Robert F arren, Stephen Schmidt, Zina Voynow, X -Pilot, I960. Co-produced by Time, Inc. / ABC-TV/Drew Associates. Executive Producer: Robert Drew. Associate Producer: Howard Sochurek. Film -m akers: Terence Mccartney- Filgate, Albert Maysles. Reporter: Gregory Shuker. N arrator: Joseph Julian. The Children Were Watching, I960. Co-produced by Time, Inc. /ABC-TV/Drew Associates. - 3 2 2 - Executive Producer: Robert Drew. Film -m aker P ro d u cer: Richard Leacock. Photographer: Kenneth Snelson., Correspondents: Lee Hall, Gregory S h u k e r^ E d ito rs: Zina Yoynow, Stephen Schmidt. N arrator: Joseph Julian. Adventures on the New F ro n tie r, 1961. Co-produced by Time, Inc./D rew A ssociates. Executive Producer: Robert Drew. F ilm -m akers: Richard L ea cock, D. A. Pennebaker, Albert Maysles, Kenneth Snel son. Correspondents: Lee Hall, Gregory Shuker, David Maysles. Reporters: Gerald Feil, Jean Snow. N a rra tor: Joseph Julian. Editors: Robert F arren, Anita P o s- ner, Stephen Schmidt, Peggy Lawson, L arry Moyer, George Johnson, Irwin Denis. Inaugural Music courtesy of U. S. Marine Band. Kenya, Africa, 1961 (ABC Special). Co-produced by Time, Inc./ABC News/Drew Associates. E x ecutive Producer: Robert Drew. F ilm -m aker Producer: Richard Leacock. Film -m aker: Albert Maysles. C orrespon dent: Gregory Shuker. T eehnical Supervisor; Gerald Feil. N arrator: Joseph Julian. Editors: Robert F arren , Larry Moyer, Robert Guenette. On the Road to Button Bay, 1962 (CBS Special). Co-produced by Time-Life Broadcast/•'Drew A ssociates. E xec utive Producer: Robert Drew. Film '^m akers: Stanley Flink, Abbot Mills, Hope Ryden, Jam es Lipscomb, Richard Leacock, D. A. Pennebaker. Assistants: P e te f /E c ^ Alfred YVerthei- m er. Editors: Leon Prochnik, Saul Lanoa, Mike Jackson, Nancy Sen. Assistant Editors: Mara Janson, Tom Bywaters. N arrator: G arry Moore. Living Camera Eddie, 1961. Co-produced by Time-Life Broadcast/Drew Associates. Executive Producer: Robert Drew. Film -m akers: Richard Leacock, D. A. Pennebaker. Photographers: Albert Maysles, Abbot Mills, William Ray. C orrespon dents: Robert Drew, Gregory Shuker, Jam es Lipscomb. Editors: Anita Posner, Robert F arren . N arrator: Joseph Julian. David, 1961. Co-produced by Time-Life Broadcast^Drew Associates. Executive Producer: Robert Drew* F ilm -m akers: Gregory Shuker, D. A. Pennebaker, William Ray. C o r respondent: Nell Cox. Editors: Hope Ryden, Betsy Taylor, Mike Jackson. N arrator: Joseph Julian. Petey and Johnny, 1961. Co-produced by Time-Life Broadcast/Drew Associates. Executive Producer: Robert Drew. Producer: Richard Leacock. F ilm -m akers: James Lipscomb, Abbot Mills, William Ray. A ssistants: P atricia Isaacs, P e te r P owell^ E dito rs; JPatricia Jaffe^P aJricia P o w e l l , '^ ^ r a t o r : !P i i ,ihTLom as;;F? ' : " ' Football (Mooney vs. Fowle), I 9 6 I. Co-produced by Time-Life Broadcast/Ji>new Associates. Executive Producer: Robert Drew. F ilm -m aker: Jam es Lipscomb. Photography of Coach Fowle: William Ray. Photography of Coach Mooney: Abbot Mills. Photogra phy of Acgfyities: Richard Leacock, D. A. Pennebaker, Claude Fournier. Correspondents: Hope Ryden, P eter Powell. Editors: Leon Prochnik, Rosem ary Hickson, Mike Jackson, J e rry Gold, Sol Landa, Bruce Torbet. N arrator: Joseph Julian. Susan S ta r r , 1962. Co-produced by Tim e-Life Broadcast/Drew Associates. Executive Producer: Robert Drew. Producers; Hope Ryden, Gregory Shuker. Film -m akers: Hope Ryden, D. A. Pennebaker. Photographers: D. A. Pennebaker, Claude Fournier, P eter Eco, Jam es Eco, Jam es L ips comb, Abbot Mills, Richard Leacock. Correspondents: Hope Ryden, P atricia Isaacs, Jam es Lencina, Sam Adams, N arrator: Joseph Julian. B la c k ie , 1962. 325 Co-produced by Tim e-Life Broadcast/Drew Associates. ’ Executive Producer: Robert Drew. Film -m akers: William Ray, D. A. Pennebaker. Correspondents: Gregory Shuker, Peter Powell. Editors: Luke Bennett, Joyce Chopra. N arrator: Joseph Julian. Nehru, 1962. Co-produced by Tim e-Life Broadcast/Drew Associates, t Executive Producer: Robert Drew. F ilm -m akers: Gregory Shuker, Richard Leacock., Editors: Joyce Chopra, Morten Lund, Gary Youngman. The Aga Khan, 1962. Co-produced by Time-Life Broadcast/D rew Associates. Executive Producer: Robert D rew ., F ilm -m akers: Gregory Shuker, D. A. Pennebaker, Jam es Lipscomb. Editors: Ellen Huxley, Patricia Powell, Leon Prochnik, Nicholas P roferes, H arry Chapin. Jan e, 1 9 6 2. Co-produced by Time-Life Broadcast/D rew Associates. Executive Producer: Robert Drew. Producer: Hope Ryden. F ilm -m akers: D. A. Pennebaker, Richard L ea cock, Hope Ryden, Gregory Shuker, Abbot Mills. E di tors: Nell Cox, Nancy Sen, Eileen Nosworthy. Addi tional Photography: Jam es Lipscomb, Alfred W erthei m er. The C hair, 1962. Co-produced by Tim e-Life Broadcast/Drew Associates. Executive Producer: Robert Drew. Film -m aker: G reg ory Shuker. (I’ ilm -m a k e rs: Richard Leacock, D. A. Pennebaker. Correspondents: Gregory Shuker, Robert' Drew, John MacDonald, Sam Adams. Editors: Ellen Huxley, Joyce Chopra, P atricia Powell, Richard Lea- J J ) cock. A ssistants: Gary Youngman, Sylvia Gilmour, Nick P roferes. N arrator: Jam es Lipscomb. C risis: Behind a Presidential Commitment, 1963 (ABC Special). Produced by ABC News. Executive Producer: Robert Drew. 326 Producer: Gregory Shuker. F ilm -m akers: Richard Leacock, Jam es Lipscomb, D. A. Pennebaker, Hope Ryden. N arrator: Jam es Lipscomb. Editing A ssistants; Nicholas P roferes, Eileen Nosworthy. The Maysles Brothers: ^Showman, 1962. Produced by Albert and Davi‘ d)M aysles. F ilm -m akers: Albert and David Maysles. Film Editors: Daniel Williams with Tom Bywaters, Nancy Powell. Narration: Norman Rosten, What's Happening i The Beatles in the U.S.A. , 1964. A film by Albert and David Maysles. Meet Marlon Brando, 196 5. Produced by Maysles Film s, Inc. A film by Albert and David Maysles. Edited by Charlotte Zwerin. Salesm an, 1969. A Maysles Film s, Inc. Production. A film by the Maysles Brothers and Charlotte Zwerin. Contributing Film Editor: Ellen Giffard. . Assistant Editor: B arbara Jarvis. Sound Mixer: Dick Vorisek. Gimme Shelter, 1970. A Cinema V Release. Directed by David Maysles, Albert Maysles, and Charlotte Zwerin. Camera: Albert Maysles and 22 others. Sound: David Maysles and 14 others. Film E di tors: Ellen Giffard, Robert F arren , Joanne Burke, Kent McKinney. D. A. Pennebaker: Elizabeth and;Ma-ry, 1965. 327 A film by Arthur E. Gillman, M .D ., and D. A. Pennebaker. Don't Look Back, 1966. Produced by Albert Grossman, John Cort, and Leacock Penne baker, Inc. A film by D. A. Pennebaker, with Howard and Jones Aik. Monterey Pop, 1968. A Foundation Leacock Pennebaker Production. Directed and Conceived by D. A. Pennebaker. Photography: Jam es Des mond, B arry Feinstein, Richard Leacock, Albert Maysles, Roger Murphy, D. A. Pennebaker, Nick P ro feres. Editor: Nina Schulman. Original Cast Album: Company!, 1970. Produced by Talent Associates. A film by D. A. Pennebaker. Photography: Jam es Desmond, Richard Leacock, D. A. Penne baker. Keep On Rockin', 1970. A film by D. A. Pennebaker. Photography: D. A. Pennebaker, Jam es Desmond, Richard Leiterman, Richard Leacock, Roger Murphy, B arry Bergthors en, Randy Franklin, Bob Neuwirth, D. A. Pennebaker. The Children's Theater of John Donahue, 1972. A film by D. A. Pennebaker. Photography: D. A. Pennebaker, Jam es Desmond. Sound: Kate Desmond. Richard Leacock: Happy Mother's Day, 19,63. Made by Richard Leacock and Joyce Chopra, with Nancy Sen. Narration: Ed McCurdy. A Stravinsky P o rtrait, 1964. Photographer and Editor: Richard Leacock. Sound: Sarah Hudson. Producer: Rolf Liebermann for Norddeutscher Rundfunk. F ilm -m akers: Noel Parm entel, Richard Leacock, Nick Prc feres. CBS Reports. Producer and W riter: David Lower. Photogra- ■ * phy: Richard Leacock. Sound: Noel Parm entel. Chiefs, 1969. A film by Richard Leacock with Noel Parm entel, Jr. Titicut F ollies, 1967. Produced, Directed, and Edited by Frederick Wiseman. Co directed and Photographed by John Marshall. Law and O rd er, 1969. Produced, Directed and Edited by Frederick Wiseman. Photo graphed by William Brayne. High School, 1969. Produced, Directed, and Edited by Frederick Wiseman. Photo graphed by Richard Le iter man. Hospital, 1970. ------ - Produced, Directed, and Edited by Frederick Wiseman. Photo graphed by William Brayne. Basic Training, 1971. Campaign Manager (Republicans - The New Breed), 1964. Ku Klux Klan - The Invisible Em pire, 1965. F rederick Wiseman: Produced, Directed, and Edited by Frederick Wiseman. 3 2 9 Photographed by William Brayne. E ssen e, 1972. Produced, Directed, and.Edited by Frederick Wiseman. Photo graphed by William Brayne. 330 N o te s on F il m o g r a p h y Drew Associates! j This listing is based upon information supplied by Robert Drew, verified for the most part (with some additions and corrections) against credits as they appear in the films. Credits were written, according to Drew, on the basis of the group's "own code of m eanings." To help, clarify that code, these are explanations of the key credit term s, adapted from m aterial supplied to the author by Robert Drew. Executive Producer: Editor-in-chief, assigning film ideas, overseeing the shooting and managing the editing. Film -m aker: Photographer or correspondent who also p artici pated in planning and editing of the film. Correspondent: Journalist, organizer, sound man during shoot ing; often also planned and participated in the editing of the film. The breakdown of films by series refers to the initial A m erican television showings, but the indicated date for each film is the year of completion (since some films were not publicly screened until much later). While discussed in the text, no films prior to P rim a ry are included, in the absence of detailed information. The Maysles Brothers 331 ’ Information based upon m aterial provided the author by David : Maysles, but covers only those films discussed at length. For fuller listing, see: Albert and David Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin, Sales man, pp. 127-128. D. A. Pennebaker and Richard Leacock For filmographies of their own work compiled by the film m akers, see their contributions to G. Roy Levin, Documentary E x plorations, pp. 225-233 and 195-199 respectively. Bibliography Abramov, N. P. Dziga Vertov., Lyon: 'p rem ier Plan, 196 5. I Adams,/Val. "TV Filmed Kennedys in Alabama C risis, " New York T im es, July 2 5, 1963. p. 1. Agee, Jam es. Agee on Film: Reviews and Comments. Boston: Beacon P re s s , 1964., Alcan, Gerard. "Experimental Film -m akers Who Make News, 1 1 Film World, 2 (1965-66, pp. 167-70. Atkins, Thomas R. "Frederick Wiseman Documents the Dilemmas of Our Institutions, 1 1 Film News, 28 (October 1971), p. 14. Bachmann, Gideon. "The Frontiers of Realist Cinema: The Work of Ricky Leacock, " Film Culture, No. 22-23 (Summer 1961), pp. 12-23. Barnouw, Erik. A History of Broadcasting in the United States: The Image E m p ire, vol. Ill (1953-70. New York: Oxford Univer sity P re s s , 1970. Barron, Arthur. "Network Television and the Personal Documentary, " Film Comment, 6 (Spring 1970), pp. 16-19. "Towards New Goals in Documentaries, " Film Library Quarterly, 2 (Winter 1968-69), pp., 19-24. Bazin, Andre. "Cinema and T ele vis ion: Interview'vwSh Jean Renoir and Roberto Rossellini, " Sight and Sound, 28 (Winter 1958-59), pp. 26-30. Benayoun, Robert. "Ou commence le temoignage? " Positif, No. 49 (December 1962), pp. 23-28, Berg, Beatrice. '"I Was Fed Up With Hollywood Fantasies, New York Times, February 1, 1970, II, pp. 25-26. 333" Blue, Jam es. "Direct Cinema, " Film Comment, 4 (Fall/Winter 1967), pp. 80-81. "One Man’s Truth: An Interview with Richard Leacock, " Film Comment, III (Spring 196 5), pp. 15-23. "Thoughts on Cinema Verite and a Discussion with the Maysles B rothers, 1 1 Film Comment, 2 (Fall 1964), pp. 22-30. Bluem, A. William. Documentary in A m erican Television. New York: Hastings House, 196 5, i f 4 '*' Bluestone, George. "The Intimate Documentary, 1 1 Television Q uarter- ly, 4 (Spring 196 5), pp. 49-54. Borov, Abbe. "Shooting Cinema Yerite, " Film m aker's New sletter, 3 (January 1970), p. 4. Bradlow, Paul. "Two . .. But Not o£ a Kind: A Comparison of Two Controversial Documentaries about Mental Illness, W arren- dale and Titicut F ollies, " Film Comment, 5 (Fall 196.9), pp. 6 0 - 6 1 . B reitrose, Henry. "On the Search for the Real Nitty-Gritty: P ro b lems and Possibilities in Cinem a-Y erite, " Film Quarterly, 17 (Summer 1964), pp. 36-40. Bringuier, Jean-Claude. "Libres propos sur le cinem a-verite, " Cahiers du Cinema, 25 (July 1963), pp. 14-17. Calder-M arshall, Arthur. The Innocent Eye: The Life of Robert J. Flaherty. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1963. Callenbach, Ernest. "Acting, Being, and the Death of the Movie Aesthetic, " New Am erican Review, No. 8 (1970), pp. 94-112. . "Going Out to the Subject: II, " Film Quarterly, 14 (Spring 1961), pp. 38-40. Cameron, Ian and Shivas, Mark. "Cinem a-Y erite: A Survey Includ ing Interviews with Richard Leacock, Albert and David Mays les, William Klein, Jean Rouch, and Jacques Rozier, " Movie, No. 8 (April 1963), pp. 12-27. Cass, Jam es. "Don't You Talk - Just Listen!" Saturday Review, 52 334 (April 19, 1969), p. 57. "The Chair, " Show, 4 (April 1964), pp. 51-55. Christgau, Robert. "Leacock Pennebaker: The MGM of the Under ground? " Show, n. s ., 1 (January 1970), p. 34. Coles, Robert. "Stripped Bare at the F ollies," New Republic, 158 (January 20, 1968), p. 18. Cox, Harvey G. "High School, " Tempo, 1 (June 15, 1969), p. 12. Craddock, John. "If . . . High School, " Film Society Review, 5 (Sept- , em ber 1969), pp. 30-38. ' -------. "Salesman, " Film Library Quarterly, 2 (Summer 1969), pp. 8 - 12. Crowdus, G ary.; "BeatleMANIA . . . and Cinema Yerite, " The Seventh A rt, 2 (Summer 1964), p. 15. Y'Debat atjpjf.opo.s d.e laipuhitiorr.;etiB how m ahy?sept,. No.; 2 (April/June 1963), ppj 101-104. V----- Denby, David. "Documenting A m erica, " Atlantic, 225 (March 1970), pp. 139-42. Dowdy Nancy Ellen. "Popular Conventions, " Film Quarterly, 22 (Spring 1969), pp. 26-31. Fager, Charles E. "Sweet Revenge: High School, " Christian Century, 86 (September 3, 1969), pp. 1141-42. Featherstone, Joseph. "High School, " New Republic, 160 (June 21, 1969), pp. 28-30. Flaherty, Frances. "La Methode de Robert Flaherty, " Image et Son, No. 183 (April 1969), pp. 25-32. . The Odyssey of a F ilm -M aker. Urbana: Beta Phi Mu, I960. Flaherty, Robert. "Robert Flaherty Talking" in The Cinema 1950.' ^ ed. Roger Manvell. London: Penguin, 1950, pp. 11-29. Fonda, Jane. "Jane, " Cahiers du Cinema, 25 (December 1963 - 33 5 : January 1964), pp. 182-90. Friedenberg, Edgar Z. "Ship of Fools: The Films of Frederick Wise- 5 man, " New York Review of Books, 17 (October 21, 1971), pp. 19-22. Gardner, Paul. "TV Series Joins Search for Truth, " New York T im es, October 5, 1964. Gelmis, Joseph. "Camera is Candid, as is the Result, " Newhaay, May 8 , 1969, p. 24A, "A Drama Unfolds on the Road, " Newsday, May 9, 1969, p. 48A. G erard, Edmund Bert. "The Truth About Cinema Verite, " Am erican Cinematographer, 50 (May 1969), p. 474. Gobeil, Charlotte, ed. Terence Mccartney-Filgate: The Candid E ye. Ottawa: Canadian Filmography Series, 1966. Godard, Jean-Luc. "Richard Leacock" in "Dictionnaire de 121 Met- teurs en Scene," Cahiers du Cinema, 25 (December 196v3f% . January 1964), pp. 139-40. Gould, Jack. "Behind Closed D oors," New York T im es, October 27, 1963, II, p. 3. - - - - . "TV: A. B. C. Goes to Latin Am erica, " New York Times, December 8, I960. "TV: Too Many Cam eras, " New York T im es, October 22, 1963, p. 75. ("Goveimment joijtQaaeqraQ4.GNe w . ;ToVk\Times ,* j© ct©ber 2 3; , 19 6 3 , J ' 'if \ T • ' V _ . ____ Graham, John. "There Are No Simple Answers: Frederick Wiseman on Viewing Film, " The Film Journal, 1 (Spring 1971), pp. 38-47. Graham, P eter. "Cinema-Verite in France, " Film Quarterly, 17 (Summer 1964), pp. 30-36. Gregor, Ulrich. "Leacock Oder Das Kino Der Physiker, " Film (Munich), 4 (January 1966), pp. 13-19. ... 336 ; Griffith, Richard. The World of Robert Flaherty. New York: Du ell, • Sloan, and P earce, 1953. Haleff, Maxine. ''The Maysles Brothers and 'Direct Cinema, 1 1 1 Film Comment, 2 (Spring 1964), pp. 19-22. Handleman, Janet. "An Interview with Frederick Wiseman, " Film Library Quarterly, 3 (Summer 1970), p. 5. Hechinger, F red M. "A Look at Irrelevant Values, " New York T im es, March 23, 1969, V, p. 11. Hitchens, Gordon. "Half a Dozen Avant-Gardes, " Film Society R e view, May 1968, p. 3 5. Horny^Jlbhn, "A Criticism of 'C risis' P ro g ram 's Critics, " New York '"-yu-,.,^,p[eraid Tribune, October 25, 1963. "Documentaries Score, " New York Herald Tribune, October 22, 1963. . '"The Living C am era 1 Turns Out a Disappointment," New York Herald Tribune, October 8 , 1964.; > F C«»5^J .d?yiIow do teachers react to 'High School'? " Am erican T each er, 54 (February 1970), p. 13. Jacobs, Lewis. The Documentary Traditl/on: From Nanook to Wood- stock. New York: Hopkinson and Blake, 1971. Jaffe, Patricia. "Editing Cinema Verite, " Film Comment, 3 (Summer 1965), pp. 43-47. Jay, Antony. "Actuality, " The Journal of the Society of Film and Tele- vision A rts , No. 15 (Spring 1964), pp. 5-7. Jersey, William. "Some Observations on Cinema Verite, " Motive, 27 (November 1966), pp. 11-12. "Some Thoughts on Film Technique, " Film Comment, 2 (Winter 1964), pp. 15-|T6. Julien, Claude. "Un homme dans le foule," Artsept, No. 2 (April/ June 1963), pp. 45-48. . . . . r ... 3 3 7 Kael, Pauline. "High School, 1 1 New Yorker, 45 (October 18, 1969)» pp. 199-204. Kolker, Robert P. "Circumstantial Evidence: An Interview with Albert and David Maysles, " Sight anrPSound, 40 (Autumn 1971), pp. 183-91. K racauer, Siegfried. Theory of Film: The Redemption of Physical Reality. New York: Oxford University P re s s , 1965. ~~ Leacock, Richard. "La Camera P asse-P arto u r, " Cahiers du Cinema, 16 (April 1959), pp. 37-38. "For an Uncontrolled Cinema, " Film Culture, No. 22-23 (Sum m er 1961), pp. 23-25. "Mixed Media, Film , and Opera, " Theatre Crafts, 2 (March/ April 1968), pp. 29-35. "Ricky Leacock on 'Stravinsky' Film, " Film Culture, No. 42 (Fall 1966), p. 113. "To F ar Places With Camera and Sound-track, " Films in Re- view, 1 (March 1950), pp. 3-7. Levin, G. Roy. Documentary Explorations: 15 Interviews with Film - M akers. Garden City, N. Y. i l Doubleday, 1971. Lipscomb, Jam es C. "Cinema-Verite, " Film Quarterly, 17 (Winter 1964), pp. 62-63. Mamber, Stephen. "High School, " Film Quarterly, 23 (Spring 1970), pp. 48-51. "The New Documentaries of Frederick Wiseman, " Cinema (Beverly Hills), 6 (No. 1), pp. 33-40. M arcorelles, Louis. "American Diary, " Sight and Sound, 32 (Winter 1962-63), pp. 4-8. "Le cinema direct nord am ericain, " Image et Son, No, 183 (April 1965), pp. 47-54. "The Deep Well, " Contrast, 3 (Autumn 1964), pp. 246-49. 338 • Direct Cinema, Aesthetic of Reality. P aris: Unesco, 1964. . Elements pour un nouveau cinema. P aris: Unesco, 1970. L'Experience Leacock, 1 1 Cahiers du Cinema, 24 (February 1963), pp. 11-17., "La foire aux verites, 1 1 Cahiers du Cinema, 24 (May 1963), pp. 26-34. "Nothing But the Truth, 1 1 Sight and Sound, 32 (Summer 1963), pp. 114-117. , and Labarthe, Andre S. "Entretien avec Robert Drew et Rich ard Leacock, " Cahiers du Cinema, 24 (Februa'ry 1963), pp. 18-27. Maysles, Albert and David. "Gimme Shelter: Production Notes, " Film m aker's Newsletter, 5 (December 1971), pp. 28-31. f and Zwerin, Charlotte. Salesman. New York: Signet, 1969. "Maysles B ro th ers," Film Culture, No, 42 (Fall 1966), p. 114. McLean, Deckle. "The Man Who Made Titicut Follies, " Boston Sun day Globe, July 27, 1969» p. 10. McWilliams, Donald E. "Frederick Wiseman, " Film Quarterly, 24 (Fall 1970), pp. 17-30. . Mekas, Jonas. "Movie Journal: Short Conversation with Ricky L ea cock, " Village Voice, 17 (February 10, 1972), p. 59. "Notes on the New American Cinema, " Film Culture, No. 24 (Spring 1962), pp. 6-16., "No Business in Show Business, " New York Herald Tribune, October 24, 1963. "Not Macy's Window, " New York T im es, July 27, 1963, pf~^l6. "Open P ro g ram at N. Y. Fest Draws Acclaim; Wiseman's Views on F ilm s," Variety, 256 (October 8'^jf 1969), p. 6. • , Paul, William. "Documentary Follies, " Village Voice, October 8, " 3 3 9 1970, p. 54. Pennebaker,"D. A. Don't Look Back. New York: Ballantine, 1969. "Public D ocum ents,1 1 Newsweek, 78 (October 4, 1971), p. 99. Reisz, Karel and Millar, Gavin., The Technique of Film Editing. 2nd ed. New York: Hastings House, 1968. Rhode, E ric. "Why N eo-realism Failed, " Sight and Sound, 30 (Winter 1960/61), pp. 26-32. Rosenthal, Alan. The New Documentary in Action: A Casebook in Film Making. Berkeley: University of California P re s s , 1971. Rotha, Paul. Documentary Film . London: Faber and Faber, 19 52. Ruspoli, Mario. The Light-Weight Synchronized Cinematographic Unit. P aris: Unesco, 1964. Sadoul, Georges. "Actualite de Dziga Vertov, " Cahiers du Cinema, 24 (June 1963), pp. 23-31. "Dziga Vertov, " A rtsept, No. 2 (April/June 1963), pp. 18-19. "Dziga Vertov, " Image et Son, No. 183 (April 1965), pp. 8-18.; . WDziga Vertov. P aris: Editions Champs Libre, 1971. S arris, Andrew. "Digging Dylan" in Filn%67/68, ed. Richard Schick el and John Simon. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1968, pp. 248-53. "Film: The Illusion of Naturalism, " TDR: The Drama Review, 13 (Winter 1968), pp. 108-112. "The Independent Cinema, " Motive, 27 (November 1966), pp. 28-31. Seldes, Hal. "DvVLv.‘ Pennebaker: The Truth at 24 F ram es per Sec- ond, " Avant-Garde, No. 7 (March 1969), pp. 46-49. Shayon, Robert Lewis. "The Fuse in the Documentary, " Saturday Review, 43 (December 17, I960), p. 29. Sitton, Bob. "An Interview with Albert and David Maysles, 1 1 Film Library Quarterly, 2 (Summer 1969), pp. 13-19. Steele, Robert. "Meet Marlon Brando, " Film Heritage, 2 (Fall 1966) pp. 2-5. Swallow, Norman. Factual Television. New York: Hastings House, 1966. "Television's School of Storm and Stress, " Broadcasting, 60 (Main.fch 6, 1961), pp. 82-84. "Tempest in a Snakepit, " Newsweek, 70 (December 4, 1967), p. 109. Thirard, Paul-Louis. "Drew, Leacock, and Co. , " A rtsept, No. 2 (April/June 1963), pp. 41-44. Thomson, David. Movie Man. New York: Stein and Day, 1967. Yas, Robert. "Meditation at 24 F. P .S . , " Sight and Sound, 35 (Sum m er 1966), pp. 119-24. Vertov, Dziga. "Kinoks-Revolution, " Cahiers du Cinema, 24 (June 1963), pp. ••32-34; 2 5 (August 1963), pp. 18-20. "Textes et Manifestes, " Cahiers du Cinema, No. 220-221 (May/June 1970), pp. 7-16. "The Writings of Dziga Vertov, " Film Culture, No. 25 (Sum m er 1962), p. 50. Waddell, Mike. "Cinema Verite and the Documentary Filmy" A m er- ican Cinematographer, 49 (October 1968), p. 7 54. Wakefield, Dan. "American Close-ups, " Atlantic, 223 (May 1969), pp. 107-108. Weyergans, Francis. "Le fins et le moyen, " Cahiers du Cinema, 22 (June 1962), pp. 34-40. Yglesias, Jose. "Whose Truth"? The Nation, October 23, 1967, pp. 410-12. Young, Colin. "Cinema of Common Sense, " Film Quarterly, 17 (Summer 1964), p. 26. 34 r "Film and Social Change, " The Journal of Aesthetic Education, 3 (July 1969), pp. 21-27. Zavattini, C esare. "Some Ideas on the Cinema, " Sight and Sound, 23 (July-September 1953), pp. 64-70. Zim m erm an, Paul D. "Shooting 4t) Like It I s ," Newsweek, 73 (March 17, 1969), pp. 134-35.

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Creator Mamber, Stephen (author)

Core Title Cinema-verite in America

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Communications-Cinema

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag Cinema,OAI-PMH Harvest

Language English

Contributor Digitized by ProQuest (provenance)

Advisor Knight, Arthur (committee chair), [illegible] (committee member), McGregor, R. (committee member)

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c17-684150

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Identifier DP22233.pdf (filename),usctheses-c17-684150 (legacy record id)

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