Personal review of Michael Renovs book [610170]

Personal review of Michael Renov’s book
Michael Renov’s book is mainly a key collection of essays that looks at the specific
issues related to the documentary form. He has collected essays by nine scholars(one of
them is also Bill Nichols), essays who approach documentary cinema from
‘historiography, postmodern theory, and philosophy’ perspective s. Postmodernism has
posed a lot of challenges to a number of fundamental assumptions on which
documentary theory has traditionally been based , which includ es the ideas of a single
unified truth, fixed meanings and social democratic vision of some of the earliest theorist
of the documentary mode. The issues that these essays discuss can range widely, from
ethical, to ideological to formal. Renov’s anthology o n documentary takes up a number of
these issues. The questions addressed include 'What is documentary?' and 'How fictional
is nonfiction?' What it is notable about the book it self it is the fact that all these essays ,
except one(‘The totalizing quest for m eaning’ by Trinh T. Minh -ha’s) are published here
for the first time.
The book has a introduction called ‘The Truth About Non -Fiction’, continues with a
chapter about poetics of documentary, then he take a look at the documentary film as
‘scientific inscription’ , next in a new chapter discuss about documenting the
documentary, from an historical point of view, rising few important questions like ‘ What
is a documentary?’, ‘ What does a documentary do?’ , then we face an essay – ‘The
totalizing quest for meaning’ by Trinh T. Minh -ha’s, who appeared in a earlier form in her
own 1991 collection, ‘When the Moon Waxes Red’ . At the outset of his introduction,
because documentary cinema raises the same theoretical question as fiction film ,
Michael Renov bo ldly declares : ‘It may well be that the marginalization of the
documentary film as a subject of serious inquiry is at an end ’, with which I personally
disagree , because a lot of money are still invested in fiction feature movies and this the
fundamental option when it comes to entertainment, and people they are still looking for
entertainment in a unprecedented manner . But, whether or not it is the case, for sure
Renov has in mind the pioneering work of Bill Nichols, particularly his analysis of the
discursive s imilarities between documentary and fiction. So, in this chapter, Renov states

that truth declares its elf in the structure of fiction, that fiction and non -fictional forms are
enmeshed in one another . Particularly in terms of narration and questions of performance ,
so regarding semiotics , the documentary shares characteristics of fictional films and the
term non -fiction signifies that we can discount its fiction elements. It is not that the
documentary consists of the structures of filmic fiction as it is that ‘fictive’ elements insist in
documentary as in all film forms. Indeed, nonfiction contains any number of ‘fictive’
elements, moments at which a presumably objective representation of the world encounter
the necessity of creative intervention. Among these fictive ingredient we may include the
construction of character(with Nanook as a first example), emerging through recourse to
ideal and imagining categories of hero and genius, using poetic language, narration, musical
accompaniment in order to heig hten the emotional impact or creating suspense through
embedded narratives – telling stories by interviewed subjects. Also Renov made use of other
examples whose effects have been conventionalized in fiction film and television, like the
use of high or lo w camera angles, close -ups which trade emotional resonance for special
integrity, use of telephoto or wide -angle lenses which squeeze or distort space, the use of
editing to extend or shorter the time, expand or become rhythmic.
In my opinion, this rais es the questions; are we really constructing character in a
documentary film? Are they not already a character fully formed once the camera registers
the person and the shared experience – of that between the subject and the Director ? From
the book of Joh n Ellis: Documentary : Witness and Self -revelation I read that d ocumentaries
are a negotiation between filmmaker and reality and, at heart, a performance. Is it correct to
assume that the ‘performance’ is also the ‘construction’?
That’s why I choose for my research three documentaries made by fiction feature film
directors. Because I was mainly interested in how three directors of fiction movies, well known
all over the world can direct a documentary feature film, and how they can ‘fictionalize’ the
reality . After the research that I made for Orson Welles Four Men in a Raft, I found a possible
answer. YES!, we really construct the character in a documentary film . Even if Manoel Olímpio
Meira, nicknamed Jacaré (alligator) was alrea dy a character fully formed , in the end the
director f ictionalize the character, because he died during the shooting. First, Welles decided
to re -enact their epic voyage and make it the centerpiece of It’s All True. But then Jacare, the
leader of the craft dies. Welles want to finish the episode as a tribute to Jacaré. So, first Welles

use Jacare as the real character, to re -enact the reality facts. But once Jacare dies, he is forced
to fictionalize the character, in order to follow the reality facts. For continuity, Jacaré's brother
stood in as Jacaré, and the narrative was modified to focus on a young fisherman who dies at
sea shortly after his marriage to a beautiful young girl. His death becomes the catalyst for the
four jangadeiros' voyage of protest. So, this was the fictionalized story and the creative
intervention of the director who followed a sort of mysterious intervention (let’s say Divine or
something else) in the making of his documentary. But also the c entral narrative in Que Viva
Mexico! concerns a young girl named Concepcion and her attempts to raise a dowry for her
future husband Abundio. Even the names of the film’s first couple is largely metaphoric, and
though the episode ends in bliss (two parrots engage in love play on a tree branch above the
couple’s heads) it hardly anticipates the fall of Eden evoked by the film’s central Magey
episode, just like in Welles’s movie.
This is possibly part of my research question I am interested in – the collabora tion
between one that films and subject; as a matter of ‘behind the scenes’ negotiation of how
the character’s character will perform or intends to perform. Would it be correct to suggest
that as soon as a camera registers a character, they are automatically performing? We know
that Welles hired the four fishermen to play themselves and leased their jangada . Then, on a
blustery day in the (southern hemisphere) fall of 1942, he bade them set sail for the open sea.
The conditions that day suited his purposes admirably. He wanted to sh ow how difficult the
voyage would have been, how the decks of a jangada would run awash in heavy weather.
Jacaré demurred, told him it was too dangerous. Welles offered him more money. Again, Jacaré
refused. So Welles offered him still more. The inevitable happened. Welles was blamed. We
may ask: he did the right thing, he had to stop in making the movie? I think that he had a
response to a certain experience, as Trinh T Minh -ha points out: “The films are my response
(as a filmmaker) to a certain experience…films are a fair reflection of the experience of
making them. Subjectivity – I am making it. ”
Once I question the rules of engagement on my own documentary about negotiation
between the director and subject, performance and trust, and, encourage d when I discover a
short statement by Frederick Wiseman; the way I try to make a documentary is that there’s
no separation between the audience and the events in the film. However, I am constantly
reminded of ‘truth’. I think then Orson Welles fictionalize d the story and the main character,

but he did that in order to follow the truth. I really think that he really wanted to present the
things just like they really happened and he wanted to present the truth that he discovered
during making this movie. Beca use he had that feeling.
In chapter 5: ‘ The Totalizing Quest of Meaning ’, by Trinh T Minh -ha we also read that
“truth is produced, induced, and extended according to the regime in power. Truth lies
between all regimes of truth. ”
Renov also makes points a bout the poetics of the documentary – those principles of
construction, function, and effect specific to non – fiction film. T he four tendencies in the
active voice are: to record, reveal, or preserve; to persuade or promote; to analyse or
interrogate; to express.
Renov m entions also Hans Richter’s argument: With the documentary film it gets
back to its fundamentals; by selection, elimination and coordination of natural elements, a
film for evolves which is original and not bound by theatrical or literary t radition. The
documentary film is an original art form. It has come to grips with facts on its own original
level. It covers the rational side of our lives, from the scientific experiment to the poetic
landscape study, but never moves away from the factual .