>         "There's a chapter in my book, "Screening Images" called, "The camera

> always lies". That pretty well sums up my read on this topic."

 

>  . . . wouldn't it be better, at least on this list, to

> say instead that "the camera never tells, and in fact cannot tell, the

> whole truth" . . .

>

>  . . . to leave the claim it in its more radical form suggests that

> ALL camera images are equally false, or false in the same way . . . and

> do we really wanna say that?

 

To start with just still photography, pick any major news magazine. Look

at the photos of the people in the news. For example, Al Gore is now

getting a lot of 'presidential' pictures, highly flattering, beautifully

lit and cropped. Other people get dead-on poorly lit b&w prints, usually

while their mouth is in an instant of some letter form that, frozen,

isn't particularly attractive, or in the midst of making some gesture

that at the shutter instant, looks awkward.

 

A new book has been released on the Russian penchant for editing the

photos of political figures from the past to reflect the political

opinions of the present. Of course, technology is much more

sophisticated now.

 

The point being, even in a 'documentary' situation, one can be loved by

the camera or abused by it. How is the subject framed? Are camera

movements fluid or jerky? And from what angle? What about sound quality,

both on location and in post-production?

 

Now, add to that actions and dialogue. Boil down hours of footage to a

selected several minutes. There is no way that the film-maker's biases,

opinions, prejudices, etc. are not going to be reflected in the choice

of material.  Why is one sentence left out, and another left in, if they

both illuminate the subject in somewhat the same way? More important,

what about reaction shots? What about quoting out of context, and maybe

the context requires a couple of paragraphs to get the subject's

meaning, which would be boring on film? What about the juxtaposition of

selected fragments, which, edited together, creates meaning -- the

essential fact of editing itself? Whose meaning is thereby created?

 

When the documentary is finished, the ballyhoo proclaims "This is the

way it *really* is!" -- and since, yes, there it is on the screen, not

rehearsed, not set up, not 'directed,' it _must_ be the TRUTH.

 

Well, it's not. The entire world was the jury for the O. J. Simpson

trial, but *only the jurors heard all the evidence.* From what _I_

heard, I think he was guilty of murder. But I wasn't a juror, so all can

say is, I judged the media version of the trial, not the evidence.

 

And consider THIS IS SPINAL TAP. This fake rock 'n' roll documentary by

Rob Reiner is so true that it has entered the vocabulary of rock

criticism -- not that the writers have been fooled, but that despite

being a work of fiction, it does express *truth*.  While being an

hysterically funny movie about the excesses and inanities of the music

business, it also says something about documentaries in general.

 

Consider JFK, a quasi-documentary that finally got some footage of the

assassins on the grassy knoll.

 

Consider FORREST GUMP's newsreel footage of Forrest with Lyndon B.

Johnson, President of the United States.

 

Not only does the cameral always lie, the camera is incapable of telling

the truth. And even the inviolability of 'camera honesty' has been

demonstrated in popular amusements to be a sham.  But filmmakers can

tell their version of the truth, and that is all that one can ask of an

artist in any medium.

 

Paul E. Clinco

 

----

Screen-L is sponsored by the Telecommunication & Film Dept., the

University of Alabama.