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![[185] Published only in 1785.
[186] Philippe Macquer, in his esteemed work, Abrégé Chronologique de
l’Histoire d’Espagne et de Portugal (1759-65), 2 vols. 8vo, says that there
is ground for believing that he was poisoned by his enemies, which we
think is very likely to have been the case.
[187] 18th Sonnet.
[188] One of the most distinguished females of the age, and for love of
letters and literary success ranking next to Vittoria. She was born in 1485;
her father, the Count Gianfrancesco Gambara of Brescia; her mother, Alda
Pia of Carpi; her husband was Ghiberto, Lord of Correggio. She died in
1550.
[189] Writing to Michael Angelo from the convent of St. Catherine at
Viterbo, as late as 1543, she calls the nuns, her companions, “the spouses
of Christ.”](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/25941558-250514104729-29082310/75/Documentary-Filmmaking-A-Contemporary-Field-Guide-John-Hewitt-59-2048.jpg)
![ALLIES’ FORMATION OF CHRISTENDOM[190]
The appearance of the third part of Mr. Allies’ great work offers an
occasion for expressing the interest with which we have regarded it
since the publication of the first volume in 1865. The author is well
known on both sides of the Atlantic, and the present work has been
noticed from time to time in this magazine.
It consists of a series of historical lectures grouping and classifying
the leading features of that wonderful movement which began
shortly after the foundation of the Roman Empire, and has survived
its downfall more than a thousand years.
Mr. Allies proposes to examine minutely and accurately into these
facts. Those who are familiar with his other works will fully
appreciate his ability to cope with his present task, while the need of
a calm and studious presentation of this period of history is
sufficiently evident.
The religious movement of the sixteenth century boasts, and not
without reason, of having been a radical departure from the spirit of
the age which preceded it. It broke with the past; first, in regard to
particular questions, concerning which it took issue with existing
belief. But the separation which ensued in the religious sphere soon
extended to the whole range of man’s spiritual faculties. The
followers of the new prophets were associated together in
communities and nations, and became entirely estranged from the
ancient system.
This isolation was bound to produce in a short time wide divergence
of sentiment, and an ever-increasing estrangement from the past.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/25941558-250514104729-29082310/75/Documentary-Filmmaking-A-Contemporary-Field-Guide-John-Hewitt-60-2048.jpg)
![impression that Christianity was but a natural development out of
the union of Eastern with Western thought. Having endeavored to
reduce it to a myth by denying or questioning history, the process is
reversed, and history is appealed to in order to prove that
Christianity was a purely natural phenomenon which can be readily
explained.
It is, according to these rash theorists, a syncretism of the best
thoughts of Egypt, India, and Greece, produced principally by the
agency of the Alexandrian schools. This explanation is mainly
satisfactory to them because it would explain the rise and
establishment of Christianity without a miracle.[191] The hypothesis
was eagerly embraced for this reason. Just so Strauss leaped for joy
at the hypothesis of Darwin, because it professed to account for the
existence of men without creation. But just as Darwin, while able to
produce both specimens and remains of man and ape, could never
find the intermediate animal, or even any trace of him, so this forged
account of the origin of Christianity breaks down in the very fact
which is necessary to give it even the semblance of value, viz., the
warrant of historical facts. In order still further to misrepresent the
origin of Christianity, it is necessary to observe the testimony of
history as to the moral condition of the pagan world. Tacitus and
Suetonius are pagan authors, therefore it will not do to impeach
their writings in the same manner as the Gospels and the Christian
Fathers. Being heathens, their works are certainly genuine, and they
are to be held as truthful men—a presumption to which the
Evangelists and Fathers are in no way entitled. But we notice the
tendency to overlook the frightful picture presented by these
historians, and the attempt, by a judicious comparison of the best
specimens of paganism with the worst scandals or most austere
characters of church history, to draw conclusions injurious to
Christianity.
This whole process of doubting the records, misstating the origin,
and denying the real nature of early Christianity, is a fraud which will
not bear scrutiny; it is maintained by men who avow their](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/25941558-250514104729-29082310/75/Documentary-Filmmaking-A-Contemporary-Field-Guide-John-Hewitt-65-2048.jpg)
![the relative power of the old order and the new to reconstruct a
society in stable and harmonious proportions.
With this lecture, which seems to foreshadow the contents of a
fourth volume, Mr. Allies’ work stops for the present. Its publication
in parts has placed it at a great disadvantage, inasmuch as ten years
have passed since the first volume appeared. It may seem
premature to review a work not yet complete, but enough has been
published to establish the claim of the author to a most useful and
successful contribution to the needs of the time. He has grown into
his task, and has accumulated both facts and reflections. There is
little reason to fear that the remaining volume will not be equal to
the three which have preceded it.
The style is unpretending, and the whole work extremely modest. In
this respect, it will not meet the approval of those who prefer
rhetoric to exact truthfulness. Historical works must be plentifully
illustrated, either by the engraver or the imagination of the author,
to make them popular nowadays.
But the intelligent reader who will take pains to examine carefully Mr.
Allies’ volumes will be well repaid, and the author himself can rest in
the conviction that he has written a solid and useful book, which
deserves a place in every library.
[190] The Formation of Christendom. By T. W. Allies. Part Third. London:
Longmans, Green, Reader & Dyer. 1875.
[191] It is also necessary on account of its vagueness, and eminently fits in
or rather mixes with the confusion of mind which is so marked a
characteristic in this school of speculators.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/25941558-250514104729-29082310/75/Documentary-Filmmaking-A-Contemporary-Field-Guide-John-Hewitt-72-2048.jpg)
Documentary Filmmaking A Contemporary Field Guide John Hewitt
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- 8. DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKING A CONTEMPORARYFIELD GUIDE John Hewitt San Francisco State University Gustavo Vazquez University of California, Santa Cruz New York Oxford OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 2010
- 9. Oxford University Press,Inc., publishes works that further Oxford University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education. Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Copyright © 2010 by Oxford University Press, Inc. Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 http://www.oup.com Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hewitt, John, 1943– Documentary filmmaking: a contemporary field guide/by John Hewitt, Gustavo Vazquez. p. cm. ISBN 978-0-19-537443-8 1. Documentary films—Production and direction. I. Vazquez, Gustavo. II. Title. PN1995.9.D6H49 2009 070.1′8—dc22 2008026092 Printing number: 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
- 10. To our parents Geraldand Ellen Hewitt and Silvano Vazquez Larios and Rebeca Orozco de Vazquez who gave us wonderful lessons in life
- 11. vi CONTENTS Preface ix Acknowledgments xi Aboutthe Authors xii PART 1 GETTING STARTED 1 Developing the Idea and Doing the Research 3 Role of the Producer 4 Testing the Waters 8 Narrative Structures 12 Doing the Research 14 Gaining Access to Sources 17 Truth and Ethics 21 The Long-Term Project and You 21 2 Critical Needs: Characters and a Visual Story 24 The Interplay of Characters and Sequences 25 Subjects as Personalities 25 Capturing Visual Sequences 29 Visual Style Decisions 35 Ethics and Visuals 38 3 Preparing for Collaboration 42 Friendly Collaboration 43 Participant Collaborators 44 Outside Collaborators 45 Choosing Collaborators 47 Contracts 49 4 Proposals, Budgets, and Fund-Raising 54 Preparing for Fund-Raising 55 Sources of Money 57 Grants 59 Coproductions and Presales 61 Proposals and Budgets 62
- 12. CONTENTS vii PART 2PREPRODUCTION 5 Preparing for the Long Haul 77 Research, Schedules, Legal Matters, and Equipment Needs 77 Office Needs 78 Access Problems 80 Shooting Abroad 81 Scripting in Advance 83 Legal Issues 85 Equipment and Crews 86 6 Planning for Effective Interviews 92 Interviews 93 Priorities 93 The Art of Conversational Inquiry 95 Planning a Visual Style 96 At the Interview Location 101 During the Interview 103 PART 3 PRODUCTION 7 Sound Considerations 107 The Value of Good Audio 108 The Sound Recordist 109 Types of Location Sound 111 The Cinematographer Alone 112 Audio Basics to Review 112 Legal Issues 119 8 Natural and Portable Light 122 Become a Master of Light 122 Light and Cameras 123 Using Available Light 124 Light Basics 126 Portable Lights 132 Safety Issues 135 9 The Art of Cinematography 137 Crucial Personnel 138 The Director and the Cinematographer 139 Production Crews 141 Visual Grammar 143 Framing Shots with Intention 147 Schedules and Preparation 154 Selecting Additional Equipment 157
- 13. viii CONTENTS 10 Internetand Small Screen Video 160 The Promised Land Arrives (Sort of) 161 That Day Is Here Now 161 The Internet’s Promise 162 Trailers and Web Buzz 163 User-Generated Sites 164 Aesthetics of the Small Screen 167 Copyrights and Pirating 170 PART 4 POSTPRODUCTION 11 Using Music in the Documentary 175 Choosing the Music 176 Prerecorded Music and Licenses 177 Original Music 180 12 The Producer’s Quest for Structure 184 Overall Organizing Strategies 185 Finding the Story in the Edit Room 186 Structural Models 188 Paper Edits 192 Scripts 194 Writing for the Ear 195 13 Practicing the Editor’s Art 200 Practicing the Editor’s Art 200 The Relationship of the Producer and Editor 201 Finding Structure 202 Preparation for the Edit Process 205 Beginning Post 207 With or Without Scripts 210 The Timeline of Editing 214 14 Publicity, Distribution, and Festivals 219 Publicity, Exposure, and Deals 220 Exposure, Screeners, and Press Kits 222 Websites 224 Rights 227 Film Festivals and Markets 228 Broadcast and Educational Markets 230 Local Screenings 232 Appendix: Some Docs to See 235 Photo Credits 238 Index 239
- 14. ix PREFACE You don’t needa huge bank account to make a documentary. Or a large crew. Or the latest high-definition cameras. But you do need a story that will involve and challenge your audience, blocks of time to work on it, the guts to ignore friends who tell you this is a crazy idea, and a willingness to launch yourself into a prolonged adventure that transforms your idea into a film. Documentaries are hot commodities. Around the world, theater and broadcast audiences have a renewed enthusiasm for this challenging factual genre. Inexpensive, highly versatile digital camcorders and sophisticated home editing systems have revolutionized and democratized the production process for first-time filmmakers. Festivals touting international documenta- ries have bubbled up in every crossroad around the world. And each week a new, creative YouTube-like Internet website surprises us with a bold avenue for distribution. We believe it is time for an up-to-date reference manual. Although Documentary Filmmaking: A Contemporary Field Guide relies on insights ham- mered out over the authors’ combined 60 years of independent documentary work and 40 years of teaching and has chapters organized chronologically to follow every step of documentary production, it also stresses twenty-first- century challenges—the Internet, new distribution schemes, expanding col- laboration complexities, and the chaos from multiple digital video formats and editing workflows. Chapter 1 on story construction is crucial. Many novice producers shoot first but are then perplexed when trying to cobble together a story. We stress that blending twenty-first-century creativity with previously successful nar- rative models will create a powerful documentary. Because a documentary is a team effort, we have included a chapter on contracts and collaborators (Chapter 3). Producers need to be certain that everyone has agreed to the same ground rules for jobs, credits, and the share of awards and revenue. Documentarians cannot ignore the Internet, which we cover at length in Chapter 10. It is an ever-evolving tool for research, fact-checking, funding opportunities, distribution possibilities, locating prospective subjects, and keeping in touch with everyone who has a hand in the project. It can function
- 15. x PREFACE for one-waydistribution or become interactive when you seek long-distance collaboration, critiques or feedback on rough-cuts and screenings. Throughout several chapters, we encourage staying on top of all emerg- ing distribution possibilities. Documentaries are now flooding the market, and the old tried-and-true distribution channels are often clogged with excel- lent programs. The answer is to stay fluid and use the Internet’s potential for worldwide publicity and distribution. Should you promote home DVD sales? Should you put it on a streaming rental site? Keeping up with these opportu- nities is an important part of this century’s documentary production. There is no substitute for the hard-won experience of long-time documen- tary camerapersons, directors, producers, and editors. We interviewed many whose bookshelves are filled with awards. These pages are laced with their suggestions, observations, and fresh alternatives. We encourage you to select what you need for your particular project. A companion website at www.oup.com/us/hewitt offers sample course syllabi as well as a feature entitled “Conversations with Documentary Filmmakers.” These full-length interviews with the filmmakers quoted within the book provide additional insight into the filmmaking process. We hope Documentary Filmmaking: A Contemporary Field Guide will help you pursue, develop, produce, and distribute your ideas. So, whether you are a penniless, guerilla documentary hopeful wanting to distribute on Internet video and mobile phone screens, a student expecting to make it to Sundance, or a recognized documentary producer with an exclusive PBS contract for the next 16 years, we hope you find this book useful and revealing. Enjoy it.
- 16. xi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Many associates andfriends aided us in forging this book. We especially acknowledge the contributions of our faculty colleagues from the University of California, Santa Cruz: Chip Lord, Larry Andrews, Irene Gustafson, and Eli Hollander; from San Francisco State University: Ron Compesi, Skye Christensen, Scott Patterson, Hamid Khani, Steve Lahey, Rick Houlberg, Robin McLeod, Grace Provenzano, and Alison Victor; and from Dominican University: Melba Beals and John Duvall. We would like to thank the many university and college faculty who took the time to review the manuscript, including Robert Arnett, Old Dominion University; Matthew Irvine, DePaul University; Gabor Kalman, University of Southern California; John Little, University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point; Lisa Mills, University of Central Florida; Lisa Molomot, Yale University; Daniel Nearing, Governors State University; Liam O’Brien, Quinnipiac University; Andy Opel, Florida State University; Mary Jackson Pitts, Arkansas State University; Geoffrey Poister, Boston University; Travis Simpson, San Francisco State University; and Jan Thompson, Southern Illinois University. Industry professionals provided us with real-world knowledge and sto- ries. We are grateful to Kelly Briley, Ellen Bruno, Oxana Chumak, Jon Dann, Vicente Franco, Yvonne Ginsberg, Barbara Grandvoinet, Maureen Gosling, Bill Hewitt, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Micah Peled, Russ Johnson, David Kennard, Emiko Omori, Lourdes Portillo, Joan Saffa, and Ralitsa Stoeva. Our families were patient through the long and difficult hours of prepar- ing the manuscript and gathering the photos. We especially want to recog- nize our spouses Annette Blanchard and Cynthia Luna Vazquez. Finally, at Oxford University Press we received wonderful help from our editor Peter Labella, associate editor Josh Hawkins, senior production editor Barbara Mathieu, and art director Paula Schlosser. We also owe a debt to the team at Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd. Again, to all, our most grateful thanks. John Hewitt and Gustavo Vazquez
- 17. xii ABOUT THE AUTHORS JohnHewitt is professor emeritus in the Broadcast and Electronic Communication Arts department at San Francisco State University. His specialties included documentary production, broadcast journalism, and international broadcast systems. Over the past 40 years, he has been working as an independent documen- tary producer, cinematographer, and editor. He was Director of Photography on America’s Chemical Angels, which explored drug therapy for children with ADHD and was released in summer 2007. Other works include Landmines of the Heart, a probe into political reconciliation in Cambodia; Smokestack Lightnin’: The Music of Howlin’ Wolf; A Passion for Horses; Staying Lost and Found in Bahia; The Summer of the Amigos and Tremors in Guzman. His documentaries have appeared on both commercial and public channels and in film festivals throughout the United States. Gustavo Vazquez is an associate professor in the Film and Digital Media Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where he specializes in video production. His latest documentary Que Viva La Lucha delves into the world of Mexican masked wrestling. It premiered in fall 2007 at the Mill Valley Film Festival. Among his works are El Zocalo (as coproducer with Chip Lord), an observa- tional documentary on Mexico City’s main plaza; Corazón de Seda (Heart of Silk), a biographical documentary on the composer Agustin Lara; The Great Mojado Invasion, an ethnographic mirror/vortex on historic racist fictions; Free from Babylon, a documentary about “Treehouse Joe,” a self-made architect and naturalist; and Comedy of the Underground, a portrait of George Kuchar, one of San Francisco’s best known experimental filmmakers. He won major awards for his achievements in film: The Rockefeller Media Fellowship Award and the Eureka Visual Artist Fellowship from the Fleishhacker Foundation.
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- 20. 3 1 Developing the Ideaand Doing the Research Most successful documentaries tell a good story, have interesting characters, narrative tension and an integrated point of view. Director Lourdes Portillo Documentaries are artful, engaging stories about vital social issues, little- known cultures, curious natural matters, hidden injustices, singular events, or fascinating people. They are impassioned, on-site, fact-filled, entertaining, and truth-seeking films or videos, explorations that transport and inspire their audiences.
- 21. 4 GETTING STARTED EarlyBritish theorist John Grierson wrote that a documentary is “the cre- ative treatment of actuality”—the actuality being the thousands of images and sounds filmmakers capture in the field. We are not, he cautioned, hold- ing up a mirror to nature but are using a creative hammer to mold those filmic images. So, whether the inspiration for a documentary begins with a curious idea from a chance meeting or boils up from a producer’s lifelong concern, it still must be shaped into a message that makes the most of the film medium. This chapter is designed to help you go beyond the first inspiration, test the workability of your idea, and set out on what may be a fascinating but consuming adventure. Glossary B-roll An industry term for film or video that literally illustrates the spoken story narrative. Usually prominent in Issues films. Character Any individual who appears in the documentary. Could be the subject, interviewee, family, expert, or the opponent. Dramatic arc From theater, the rise and fall of tension throughout your program that engages and captivates an audience. One-offs or Standalones Individual doc programs—not part of a series. Scene A major structural segment for longer documentaries. Sequence The basic visual storytelling unit. Centered on a single location, time, event, or process. Made up of wide, medium, close-up, and various other types of shots. Talking head Slang for on-camera segment featuring an interviewee in a medium close-up shot speaking to a person beside the lens. TRT Total Running Time of your program. Vérité A film style in which the camera is observational and generally follows action that happens naturally. Role of the Producer Independent Producers The producer is the key position in a documentary. If it is your idea and you start off to make this film, then you become an independent producer. You will develop the idea, dig through the research, find funding for the project, make contacts and gain access to subjects, resolve questions of truth, man- age the budget, hire and inspire the crew to artistic excellence, overcome the headaches of location work, carve out the story in postproduction, and crea- tively pursue distribution. Depending on skills or budgets, producers often take on other roles. The most common is producer/director, but producers
- 22. Developing the Ideaand Doing the Research 5 also handle cinematography, audio recording, editing, or even on-camera hosting. Independent documentaries are collaborative adventures. They often operate on borderline budgets and use a small crew of a producer/director, cinematographer/sound recordist, editor, and assistant. A director/producer with industry recognition like Spike Lee can secure funding from an important distribution channel like HBO. At that time, the production team inevitably will grow. For his award-winning documentary on the disaster in New Orleans, When the Levees Broke, Lee expanded the crew to include skilled cinematographers, lighting person- nel, sound recordists, editors, graphic artists, a composer, musicians, and sound designers. Substantial budgets can also increase the nonproduction staff with assis- tant producers, unit managers, researchers, archivists, interns, international aides such as fixers or interpreters, publicists, and producer’s reps for distri- bution, festival, and film markets. There is also the role of contract producer, someone commissioned by a continuing documentary program such as Frontline or 60 Minutes to com- plete a project on a deadline. The contract producer takes on the same content responsibilities of research, directing on location, and scripting, but gets a salary and doesn’t have to sign the checks. The contract producer’s final cut will be subject to oversight from an executive producer, who secures funding, manages adjacent series projects, and has input into the script, or a commis- sioning editor, who sets boundaries for length and direction. Figure 1.1 Cinematographer Vicente Franco shooting in Mali with smaller, more traditional documentary crew of camera, sound, and assistant.
- 23. 6 GETTING STARTED TheIdea Is Only a Catalyst The inspiration for a documentary can come from anywhere. Multipart programs like director Martin Scorsese’s seven-part PBS series The Blues or Ken Burns’ historical epics often arise from lifelong fascination with a particular topic. Many others, producers tell us, have started with chance meetings. Gary Weimberg and his producing partner Catherine Ryan began a two- year-long project for Soldiers of Conscience after Weimberg had a health club locker room conversation with an attorney who counseled conscientious objectors. Director Maureen Gosling embarked on the film Del Mero Corazon when she became fascinated with a song left out of another documentary she was editing. Executive producer Yvonne Ginsberg pursued the question of political reconciliation in Cambodia in Landmines of the Heart after hear- ing about the problem during a Buddhist meditation exercise. Coproducers Vicente Franco and Gail Dolgin began their complex Daughter from Danang after a conversation at a party. Taking It Beyond Curiosity Academy award–winning producer Arnold Shapiro said in one of his ten golden rules about documentary: “The idea is not everything.” That original Figure 1.2 Cinematographer Vicente Franco has extensive support while shooting a well-funded documentary on Orozco’s frescos in Guadalajara, Mexico.
- 24. Developing the Ideaand Doing the Research 7 trigger idea might launch the project, Shapiro cautions, but it is bound to reformulate into a more complex undertaking, changed by internal or outside influences, theoretical questions, production realities, budget shortcomings or access and rights questions. In the end, that initial inspiration may only be a subtopic in the finished documentary. Projects may also grow in scope. Director Lynn Hershman Leeson found this out with her internationally recognized Strange Culture (2007). Hearing that a friend, a noted U.S. artist, had been harassed by the U.S. govern- ment, she “just wanted to do a little $100 DVD to let people know about it.” That simple effort snowballed into an exhaustive fully-involving yearlong unbudgeted film that ended up as a 75-minute feature playing at Sundance, opening the Berlin Film Festival, appearing on U.S. public television and cable channels, getting theatrical release in the United States and the United Kingdom before finally going to DVD. Not bad for a project that began as a short, informal DVD. Do You Have a Passion for the Topic? Any worthwhile long-range documentary project will soak up at least a year’s work in idea development, contacting subjects and solving difficult questions in preproduction, fund-raising, production, and postproduction. We can guarantee that these tasks will be followed by another year or two of inten- sive work gaining exposure and distribution. Therefore, a critical concern is: Are you passionate about the topic? Before undertaking this journey, assess how deeply this topic touches you. Do you enjoy reading up on the subject, doing research, or getting into long phone conversations about the issue? Are you ready to exchange endless e-mails with other interested aficionados obsessed with the topic? Would you consider yourself somewhat of an expert? Do you talk to people at parties about it? Are you willing to probe its philosophical and ethical foundations? Would you attend gatherings of like-minded experts to talk it up? Award-winning editor/director Maureen Gosling says this enthusiasm is a must. She reports becoming fascinated with almost every film she edits or produces. One of her latest is an exploration of a women’s business culture in Africa. “The Mali film was brought to me by a friend. But in terms of the content, it totally clicked with me. It was something I could get behind, and even though she brought the idea to me, it was something I could identify with...was interested in...and the idea of doing something in Africa was amazing...doing something about entrepreneurial women.” For cinematographer Vicente Franco, every film is a revelation. “Documentaries are a lesson in life. It’s an endless learning process about every story you tell and the more profound and more in-depth you get into the story the more you learn.”
- 25. 8 GETTING STARTED Testingthe Waters Will This Idea Turn into a Powerful Documentary? It all might begin with an informal conversation or an exciting news report. Like the moth circling closer to the flame, the intrigued producer does some initial research, makes a few calls, and, along the way, identifies characters and visual sequences that may be enough for a documentary. Is it time to jump in and begin a year or two of hard work? Testing the Scope of the Idea While researching the idea, producers should evaluate the topic’s scope. A documentary idea might be too narrow or too local to intrigue a wider audience. Producers Gary Weimberg and Catherine Ryan faced this issue when they began their film about conscientious objectors. Weimberg said that a simple focus on the conscientious objectors to the Iraq War would limit the film’s audience. He knew they had to dig deeper. In terms of discovering what the film was, the thing we found was that it wasn’t about conscientious objection, it’s about the burden of conscience when one is asked to kill for one’s country. Conscientious objection is one half of that discussion by people who take it seriously and the other half is about the people who say “I’ll do it” and now I have to carry that burden for the rest of my life. One of the huge things that I’m proud of in this film is that the film finds the common ground of all of these soldiers, whether they are killers or conscientious objectors. In that they all suffer the burden of conscience. There are other concerns. The topic might have a geographic narrowness, only relating to a particular neighborhood, city, or region, or might be directed at a select audience familiar with certain music, scientific theories, or ecological questions. Producers need to step back and find the more universal themes that reach out to other audiences. Then again, it’s quite possible that the idea’s scope is too global. Suppose the plan is for an Issues documentary on the elimination of malaria as a worldwide disease. The program would show exciting efforts now under way in a number of countries on two continents. But an idea of this scale demands an experienced producer with a staff and a substantial budget for research, travel, and production. For an independent, that might be produc- tion suicide. Consider narrowing the focus to make it more manageable. Instead of an all-encompassing program, choose a local or regional story chapter that fits with your technical skills and bankbook. Then abstract from that to the larger, more central theme.
- 26. Developing the Ideaand Doing the Research 9 Past Documentaries and Current Ones It has been said: There are no new ideas, only different approaches. In the world of documentary, this usually is the case. Carefully research whether or not the idea has been produced before and how recently it was done. For instance, with the malaria example, there is little chance that PBS will be interested if they’ve just run seven 90-minute NOVA documentaries on the world health problems. You’ll have similar difficulty if well-publicized programs have been in theatrical distribution or have appeared on compet- ing channels. Maybe HBO or the Sundance channel or even a commercial broadcast network has just wrapped up a highly publicized series done by the BBC. Check for documentaries in production that are close to your idea. Review programs in the PBS pipeline by checking their publication www.current.org or look in Hollywood Reporter or Variety for notices of major documentary efforts. It can be distressing when the documentary trail you are following is crowded. While shooting a program on a Mississippi Delta Blues performer, we became aware of a larger crew making the same rounds, talking to the same people, shooting the same performances. At festivals, their nine- person ensemble and abundant budget dwarfed our two-person crew. They had fancy SUVs, advanced format cameras, and production assistants, all fueled by a million-dollar Corporation for Public Broadcasting grant and a noted national billionaire who backed their project. We had the economy rent-a-car and a single mini-DV camera. They shelled out thousands of dollars to get stage access, forcing us to shoot around their cinematographer just to get our pictures. Shelf Life? The Problems of Current Events Topics Shelf life is not just for bakery items. Documentaries based on current events or immediate controversies may not have the longevity needed for distribu- tion. Once a topic has had a short run in the public’s consciousness, audiences are likely to move on to newer and juicier items. In the year it takes to pro- duce the documentary, the topic may fade from the world’s media radar, and unless you can build the film around abstract ideas, you will be left with a very interesting but orphan program. Day-to-day political shifts can affect the work already done. An interview shot yesterday could be outdated before the end of the week. The corruption angle in local government may disappear when the main antagonist abruptly resigns and flees to live in a Maine village. Shelf life is a particular problem for independent documentary produc- ers trying to make a living. As producer Gary Weimberg explained about
- 27. 10 GETTING STARTED theirdocumentary on Iraq war conscientious objectors: “We had a tiger by the tail...that was a great story...that was a topical story...in the news. We are not a network. We are not an institution. We are not deep pockets. We can’t fly around the world. We can’t do what Charles Ferguson did with his No End In Sight, which was to hire a 40,000 dollar-a-day security team. We knew we couldn’t go to Iraq. So we were in a race with current events and we were totally underhanded and under-funded for that.” In another case, changing current events snuffed out a film. A documen- tary colleague began a major project to explore how a proposed hydroelectric dam would destroy a pristine California valley and the culture of local Native American settlements. He secured a generous National Endowment for the Arts grant, moved up to a trailer in the region, and spent hundreds of hours doing preliminary interviews. After three months and halfway through the environmental planning, the government abruptly cancelled the controver- sial dam. My friend was left with a lot of field tape and no story. It happens all the time. Distribution Is a Major Consideration One way to start is to envision the possible places for distribution. A distribu- tion target can play a significant role when developing the idea. It will suggest the projected length, TRT (total running time), and technical requirements for the documentary. Funders, research contacts, commissioning editors, and distributors will want to know how your distribution plans might spread the message. Many subjects will ask where you expect the documentary to play when deciding whether to be in your film. What kind of audiences would you like? Local art house multiplexes? Film festivals? National or international public broadcast? HBO? Cable channels? Internet streaming? Local group showings? Public Access? University class- rooms? Historically, running times range from multiple hours to the two- minute YouTube video. Epic length is anything over two hours and can only be shown in mul- tipart presentations. David Sutherland’s fascinating The Farmer’s Wife was six and a half hours, Spike Lee’s look back at hurricane Katrina When the Levees Broke was four hours, and many of Frederick Wiseman’s institutional observations easily pass two hours (Central Park was just shy of three hours). For something of this length, there are very few outlets except for premium cable or PBS. Any feature-length film (usually between 72 and 110 minutes, and aver- aging 86–90 minutes) could be headed for theatrical distribution or special- ized cable slots. This might kick up the budget by many thousands of dollars and demand higher technical standards and a major production schedule. Feature-length docs, perfect for theaters, are often difficult placements for broadcast distribution. Producer Gary Weimberg warns that planning for a feature length is a “beginner’s mistake.”
- 28. Developing the Ideaand Doing the Research 11 At the 2007 MIPDOC market in Cannes, France, most of the world’s produc- tion companies were pitching docs in the 52- to 57-minute hour-length range. If television is the goal, this is a useful working limit. It permits using less expen- sive formats for production. However, there is no guarantee that the hour-length range will get the doc on the air. Public service broadcasters and U.S. public tele- vision are more receptive to one-hour programs that are part of a series. They know that publicizing a standalone production, also called a one-off, is difficult. If the proposed doc ends up with an irregular TRT, that is less than 52 minutes, then broadcasters must slot it into programs under an umbrella branded title such as “POV.” Premium cable channels like IFC, Sundance, HBO, or Showtime will program TRTs that are feature length or irregular. However, they are attracted to edgy or political themes. Commercial broadcasters or niche cable channels like The History Channel or The Learning Channel vary in what they acquire, but they like to be pro- duction partners. Talk with their acquisition people before beginning any film. Projects under way might also be found in Variety or the Hollywood Reporter. Some channels also may insert commercials, so the program design must take this into account. This is not a simple task. Festivals and the Education Market For festivals or local screenings, irregular running times will not be a problem. While this type of distribution can be a pleasant experience (there is usually applause), the audiences might be small and the process can be demanding or expensive in terms of festival entry fees, press kits, or travel. Some distributors claim that the educational market provides the surest monetary return. For classroom use, the TRT could be much shorter, often as little as 12 minutes. This allows a postscreen discussion among students. Producer Ellen Bruno, who self-distributes her films, appreciates the support from universities. “If I can sell one DVD to a university I get 100 percent of the money and there are times when I am really broke and I get on the phone to university media buyers and I say: Hey, are you interested? And my friends call it dialing for dollars but it is exciting that young people are seeing these and it helps me make my next film.” Remember, the destination for the documentary will provide a guide for the TRT and technical level of the film. Test the Idea by Pitching It Informally As the idea matures from a simple interest to a long-running obsession, the topic can be tested on colleagues, friends, family, and others. This gambit helps to develop a standardized statement—sometimes called a pitch—that will help you refine your thoughts. Not to be confused with a more elaborate formal pitch made later to funders and film markets, working and reworking this short statement will give it consistency. A producer needs to deliver the
- 29. 12 GETTING STARTED informalpitch with confidence, something that will be obvious to every con- tact, including prospective crew or possible subjects. Although your idea may be complex, posing it in a short form is effective. The crew should learn it too, because all of you may repeat this many times during the production. It could be something as simple as: I am doing a documentary on zookeepers who try to provide humane settings for animals in our central city zoo. We are following a local dance troupe on a foreign tour to explore the social interactions based upon the universality of the arts. This documentary is about a small group of artists who are fighting to retain the community feeling of a small Pittsburg neighborhood. I am exploring the attraction and effects of a unique music-based after-school workshop for students from troubled neighborhoods. Narrative Structures Successful documentaries have been presented in various storytelling scenar- ios. We have listed a few of these, breaking them into topics and approaches. We’ve added comments on the special needs involved in certain approaches. Screening previous documentaries in each category may be helpful; it will provide inspiration on how other producers have turned their ideas into memorable films. Examples of documentaries in each area are available in the appendix. Documentary Themes The Journey (Hidden City) documentary takes the audience to a place or 1. introduces them to a culture they would never encounter. This usually demands a looser vérité style, careful cultural/ethnographic sensibilities and a skilled artistic crew who can endure exhausting location shoots and travel. A producer would need up-front funding for travel and loca- tion costs and be adept at improvising with newly discovered characters and visual sequences encountered at the location. Unless the travel costs are low, this type of doc is the realm of experienced producer/directors. The Process documentary follows a singular project from beginning to 2. end, such as the building of a massive bridge or setting up a regional music concert or health care program. It may be less time consuming than the Journey but still needs extensive location work. An on-camera host would make it more complex. The Biography documentary explores the life and works of a single 3. contemporary or historical personality or group. It may involve some
- 30. Developing the Ideaand Doing the Research 13 location sequences, but will rely heavily on testimonial interviews with colleagues or family, archival research, re-creation docudrama, or pos- sibly foreign shoots. A novice producer will receive memorable lessons from demanding managers, fearful family, and archival owners who want to drive difficult bargains for the rights and editorial control. The Current Events or Issue documentary makes a rhetorical argument 4. or a deductive journalistic investigation into contemporary topics or concerns. This will demand extensive research, an elaborate interview schedule, and an exhausting and sometimes dangerous effort to gather sequence visuals. There will be ethical and social concerns to discuss. Travel and location costs will be expensive, and quickly changing cur- rent events might suddenly erase months of effort. The Event documentary is based on the coverage of a significant 5. meeting, concert, convention, or gathering that happens within a short time period. This requires complex planning for an intensive multiple camera/large crew shoot. It’s an all or nothing field produc- tion exercise. The Historical compilation looks at past events or issues. The producer 6. creates a story without rich contemporary sequences but must under- take a challenging and expensive effort to collect every significant his- torical visual scrap in whatever form it exists. Archival research can be grueling and legally baffling. As with the Biography and Issues docs, it requires ongoing creativity. The Natural History documentary expands the viewer’s knowledge 7. about science or environment. It requires a significant up-front budget, extensive travel and location costs, prescripting, and a long-term crew commitment during filming. Hosts are often brought in as a storytelling device and to add credibility. Storytelling Approaches Producers often mix and match styles while pursuing their documentary inspiration. These are some traditional methods that help deliver the power. The Sequence-driven documentary relies on powerful scenes captured 1. in exciting or action-filled moments and using no interviews. Often referred to as vérité, it simulates the observational or fly-on-the-wall point of view. Sequence-driven documentaries are more likely to be what are called open text, allowing the viewers to draw their own conclusions. The Character-driven documentary relies on the powerful presence 2. of one individual or several personalities to carry the story. It presents serious ethical questions through depictions of sympathetic characters and is usually a mix of formal interviews and sequences.
- 31. 14 GETTING STARTED TheNarrated documentary relies on an authoritative voice to make 3. connections and explain complexities of the topic. This is particularly effective in the areas of Current Events and Issues, where sequences may not be readily available but interviews and b-roll can be assembled to illustrate the narration. The Hosted documentary has an on-camera personality who acts either 4. as an expert or as a surrogate traveler for the viewer. Although a recog- nizable host such as Michael Moore will lend it a certain credibility, its success relies on the engaging qualities of the host. This type of pro- gram needs a large crew, a more experienced producer, and a script. The Inductive documentary structure begins with intriguing sequences 5. and unfolds a story without a thesis statement. More often than not it is non-narrated and the viewers are left to form their own conclusions. The Deductive documentary opens with a thesis statement and follows 6. with supporting testimony, sequences, or archival. It has a rhetorical structure when presenting cause-and-effect reasoning. The Personal Reflexive documentary explores the issue or topic by turn- 7. ing the camera back on the filmmaker. As with the hosted documentary, it often lives or dies on whether the filmmaker has an engaging per- sonality. Undertaking this requires a comfort level on your part to let yourself, your family, friends, and associates be exposed in exhaustive, sometimes intimate ways. The Experimental or Hybrid documentary combines almost any docu- 8. mentary approach with many narrative styles, including performance (Tongues Untied), actors and docudrama (Strange Culture), dramatic re-creations (The Thin Blue Line), poetic images (The Man with a Movie Camera), or any combination of categories. Often called essay docu- mentaries, these can be enormously successful and memorable while baffling critics who reject them as outside the genre. Doing the Research Begin with the Internet While research will have to continue throughout preproduction and produc- tion, the initial digging should start immediately. This can test the program scope while alerting the producer to events that might need filming. Internet surfing is a good beginning, working every combination of key- words that represents your topic. Award-winning investigative documentary producer Jon Dann says the Internet has radically changed research. “Right now it’s almost spooky how transparent our society has become. What hap- pens when everybody knows everything? I mean, you can Google anything.
- 32. Developing the Ideaand Doing the Research 15 Which does not mean that certain elements of our investigations are not going to involve human sources or shoe leather, gaining people’s trust, talking to whistle blowers, and everything that goes with that but Google has become a lubricant in that process that is really phenomenal.” As Dann warns, Internet data-mining will need to be augmented by old-fashioned exploration. Start with major books and research articles on the topics. 1. Explore newspaper archives for articles around major issues in the 2. field. Look in trade journals and popular periodicals. 3. Look for university dissertations. 4. Investigate other films or documentaries about the topic. 5. Start a filing cabinet with copies of comprehensive articles. Read the best sell- ers and specialized scholarly research and make a list of the most quoted and respected authorities whose names are salted throughout these publications. While they may not become on-screen personalities for the doc, the list will provide leads to contacts and locations. Human Sources Once a list of prominent names is assembled, get on the phone. The telephone may be ancient technology, but it is the backbone of documentary research. Talk to as many of the sources as possible. Find a common ground in your interests when becoming acquainted. The old adage to “stay on the line until you know everything there is to know” still works. You are going to have to get them to trust you. Again, producer Jon Dann: There is no computer assisted way you can get another human being on the other side of the phone or face-to-face who is going to trust you enough to say “Look, I am going to take a risk either for myself or for people I believe in and hold some trust in me.” That only comes with the down time and the getting to know you time during which you have to reveal some of your humanity and to let people know why you should be trusted and to be as transparent as possible. You know, in 30 years, I feel more greatly that kind of responsibility when people put that kind of faith in you. You can wind up having people’s livelihoods and lives affected by what you do...that means taking things too far or not protecting their identity or whatever. Record or take extensive notes of phone or in-person interviews with prom- inent sources. These transcripts can provide crucial ideas and feedback. Dann also suggests that you go back to these sources again and again. You may not get enough information the first time, and they may reveal more in subsequent talks.
- 33. 16 GETTING STARTED SympatheticOrganizations and Whistle Blowers Often, organizations in the proposed topic area have done extensive research. These could be political groups, religious, health, nongovernmental organi- zations, or institutes affiliated with universities. Find those organizations. When Jon Dann was looking into the problems of labor practices in overseas outsourced products: “...through enough phone calls I finally met a guy on the ground here in the United States who was an expert on refugees who worked for a big church group who explained to me that he was in touch with networks of workers in Southeast Asia and would be willing to take me to these people who might be willing to talk to me despite the fact that this is a totalitarian society wherein people were at some risk if I would agree to protect their identities.” Sources at a Location Don’t ignore the information a producer can uncover during an initial research visit to a possible shooting location. This kind of a trip can estab- lish a familiarity with the culture, the geography, and residents. While there, contact local historical societies, local newspapers, and neighborhood leaders. Librarians usually know who are the local history buffs, historical societies, or people who hoard treasures of archival photos and materials. While this trip might not be planned as a production venture, it doesn’t hurt to shoot some footage that can be used for trailers and fundraising. Often, the location research will be time consuming. Producer Ai Omaki did a film on chess players who habituate rented game tables on an impos- sibly busy and socially messy street corner in San Francisco. She had to spend weeks hanging out at the location, getting to know the street deni- zens. Her complex work The Slab was a portrait of a diverse, rough-edged underclass of chess players who spend an hour or two each day at the game tables. Producer Catherine DeSantis needed to find a trove of couples planning marriages. She made the contacts by spending many hours at the county reg- istrar’s office where the marriage licenses are filed. She interviewed appli- cants and agreed to videotape wedding ceremonies if the couples would agree to appear in her documentary. This personal contact provided a long list of potential characters for the film. Breakthroughs Look for a Rosetta stone in the research, something that makes a quantum leap in your efforts. For one documentary, I had been searching in a slow, painstaking way to locate people who had worked on a community project 30 years earlier. The names were dribbling out one by one with old or discon- nected numbers. Then one source, while discussing the topic, offhandedly
- 34. Developing the Ideaand Doing the Research 17 remarked that she had a current phone list of nearly 80 persons involved in the project. This was a miracle. In another, producer Gary Weimberg was digging through the CNN data- base looking for significant archival Iraq war footage. The search was going slowly until he realized that three words were being repeated over and over, and that this phrase would lead to the footage he wanted. “...you look at the keywords in the database section...and I discovered this keyword ‘Unfit for Air.’ And suddenly a goldmine of material appeared. Now, to give credit to CNN, I think they were right. This was not political censorship. And a lot of that stuff was unfit for my film as well. But my film can go to places that regular television cannot.” Gaining Access to Sources The Battle to Reach Subjects for the Documentary No documentary can be successful without access. Contacting and convinc- ing intended participants to appear on camera is a daunting task. It seems that 95 percent of documentary preproduction is pleading with someone to be a subject in the documentary. If the major focus of the documentary is a famous person, especially one in the political or entertainment field, getting access could be a mine- field. Managers and handlers will demand preconditions and even money. Attorneys will stymie archival resources. One well-known but frustrated producer said the secret to independent documentaries is: “Don’t do films on famous persons.” Even without notoriety, documentary subjects are skittish. Everyday people are reluctant to appear in video or to say anything of substance for a variety of reasons. They fear for their jobs, their relationships, or even their own personal safety. They’ve had bad experiences with authors, journalists, and other filmmakers. It takes repeated phone calls, cajoling, wheedling, or support from allies to convince some to be on camera. Spouses or partners often hold a yes/no option over their mate’s consent, even when the involve- ment is noncontroversial. Investigative producer Jon Dann says you’ve got to deliver what you promise: The truth is a powerful thing and people often want to get the word out and I’m always struck by how much morality there is in people in the sense that if there’s a bad situation or something that is unethical or someone is taking advantage of people how much people don’t like that to happen...you know...people will go out on a limb if they feel that their story will be told. But you have to be very mindful of your responsibility in that situation...your ability to deliver. It’s really important. If they are going to take risks...you have to hold up your end of the bargain, which means telling the story.
- 35. 18 GETTING STARTED FilmmakerLourdes Portillo believes that the defining factor in getting access is truthfulness, trust, and your method of acclimating yourself to the locale. “I never go in with cameras. First we meet and we talk. I tell them what I am doing, what kind of things I am planning. I ask: Would they allow me to do this? It will take time. This could take them away from their things. This will be very intrusive. Do they want me to do that? And they say ‘Yes’ or ‘No.’ If they say yes, then I say ‘Let’s go have dinner first because that would develop, that builds up trust.’” Ethics of Access Ethics is the study of morality and its effect on decisions. Documentary mak- ers succeed or fail by convincing people to go in front of a camera. If a sub- ject is wavering about participating, then there may be a temptation to bend the truth to get that interview. This could involve hiding the extent of the producer’s advocacy for a particular thesis in the documentary, lying about what questions might be asked on camera or not being truthful about the plans to distribute the final program. Filmmaker Portillo described an encounter she had with another docu- mentary producer during a panel discussion at a conference. “They asked her (the other producer): Would you lie to get what she needed? And she said ‘of course I would lie.’ And I thought...well, if you would lie, what’s to stop them from lying to you.” It’s also increasingly hard to hide your identity. Producer Jon Dann says that’s the downside of how the Internet works. “They can gather information about you. I mean, people have seen what I have done before I go interview them. They’ve watched it on the Internet. I’m no mystery to them either. Transparency goes both ways.” Other producers say academic discussions of ethics are helpful but some- times unrealistic. One told us that 9 times out of 10 he would never lie and that this policy has worked. But he cautioned that there are extreme forces out there, well funded and powerful, who will come after you if you cross them. He said going undercover was a last resort, and if discovered, be ready to clean up the mess. Theorists who study ethics have evolved many ways to view ethical deci- sions. Some break the decisions into whether you focus on the end results “consequential ethics” or on personal standards “morality ethics.” Professor Louis Day, whose work focused on journalists, suggests you pri- oritize your list of considerations. For instance, you might ask (in descending order) whether the information you provide or withhold when gaining access to a situation violates the following: Your own moral standards The well-being of the subjects involved The truthful objectives of your documentary
- 36. Developing the Ideaand Doing the Research 19 The concept of documentary work itself The professional standards of your colleagues Creating conflict in ethical areas always means you must be ready to explain your moral stance later. The improper information you provide may even get you into legal hot water. Investigative crews have been sued for fraud and trespassing. A federal jury once awarded more than five million dollars of ABC’s money to a supermarket chain as damages because undercover report- ers from Primetime Live had entered the store’s food processing area work- ing as employees and used hidden cameras to photograph questionable food storage. Disclosure follows these commonly accepted guidelines: The interviewee must be competent to consent. The producer is straightforward about the thesis and advocacy of the documentary. The producer is truthful about the possible distribution of the video (i.e., it will be broadcast). Credibility A primary consideration in gaining access is credibility. Possible documen- tary subjects want to know if this film project is managed by someone they can trust. Does the filmmaker have a recognizable reputation like Ken Burns? A respected company like PBS or HBO? Is the call from the BBC? These names may open doors. Credibility also might be borrowed from your funder. “I’m working on a National Endowment for the Arts documentary on zoos.” “I’m working with a department at the university for a documentary on gender image.” Producers who are beginners without a body of work and few connec- tions have the toughest time. For them, gaining trust and access is more com- plicated. Beyond simple persistence, one method is to find common ground in initial phone conversations. People may open up if they become comfort- able with your personal knowledge or outlook. Multiple conversations with sources help to break down reluctance. If contacts still are reticent to appear, perhaps there’s a problem with their perception of your advocacy for this issue. Review your website, your treat- ment, and your synopsis. Are they laced with provocative statements about the idea? Toning it down may help; after all, the goal is information and a dialog. Connections Not everyone can be Alexandra Pelosi, the daughter of the U.S. Congressional Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, whose familiarity with political figures
- 37. 20 GETTING STARTED gaveher an edge in making a campaign trail insider doc with President Bush called Journeys with George (it is to her credit that the work stands on her own unique style). Access might also be granted on the basis of recommendations from the A-list people already on your side. If you can insert a recognizable name into the initial phone call and say that person suggested you call, then you may succeed. Access might very well depend upon a low profile with a suspicious polit- ical body. When San Francisco–based producer Micah X. Peled made his award-winning doc China Blue about conditions in the denim sweatshops of China, he and his crew spent months gaining access to a factory. Finally, one owner, imagining a salutary program, allowed Peled inside. Peled managed to shoot for months before the owner became suspi- cious. The police later detained Peled’s crew but finally released them. This emphasizes that working on a controversial issue can be risky. Doc teams worldwide have been attacked, arrested, jailed, and had their field materials confiscated. Producers often succeed or fail on the erratic way suspicious persons grant or withdraw access. A key subject’s abrupt denial of access imperils the entire doc. A producer documenting the history of a freewheeling communal living group had been warmly received during initial conversations; their leaders had repeatedly agreed to participate. Halfway through the project, after extensive interviews with former commune residents, the producer and her crew arrived at the controversial cult home base for their key three-day on-site shoot. It was to be the heart of the program. They were turned away Figure 1.3 Producer Micah X. Peled behind the camera in a Chinese jeans factory shooting tired workers. His access was unusual and dangerous.
- 38. Developing the Ideaand Doing the Research 21 at the gate by residents who said: No dice—not now, not ever. The key subjects had changed their mind. This flip-flop was crushing but not fatal; the producer refocused the program on the disappointed members. Truth and Ethics Standing Behind the Truth in Your Film Many scholars and theorists have written extensively about the questions of truth (verifiable fact, conformity to reality) and what documentarians do—represent reality with pictures. The discussion is rich enough to fill books and yearlong seminars. Suffice it to say, the opportunity for outright deception is readily available and getting easier every moment of our digital, manipulative world. In 2009, we can flip frames, change speeds, Photoshop out embarrassing elements, crop unwanted backgrounds, lose awkward audio, and easily ignore visual images that change our story. Fakery in filmmaking is as old as the industry itself. Shortly after the French Lumiere brothers projected movie film for an audience in 1894, film- makers were caught using battlefield films shot in New Jersey as newsreel accounts of the Spanish American war in Cuba. Robert Flaherty’s seminal doc- umentary Nanook of the North, released in the 1920s, was the crowd-pleasing story of the bitterly hard life in northern Canadian villages. It was exten- sively staged. Do the audiences look upon documentaries as true? We believe so. Do pro- ducers have an imperative ethical responsibility to strive for truthfulness and avoid fakery, deceitful staging, or intentional omission of fact? Yes, it would seem so. Whatever the producer’s personal moral standards, fudging facts, slipping in bogus b-roll, leaving out uncomfortable information, and tinkering with the truth will inflame the critics when they discover the subterfuge. They’ll take apart any documentary, scene by scene, question everything, and attempt to rip the producer’s reputation to shreds. Michael Moore’s first foray into the- atrical distribution Roger and Me had some transpositions of events along a chronological timeline. Critics pounced. Moore responded by saying: It’s not a documentary—it’s a film. The Long-Term Project and You Now that you’ve explored a few crucial questions about the topic, we have one last area to examine. It’s time to turn the spotlight on you, the producer. Can you maintain the focus? Do you have the skills? Can your family and friends put up with this? Can you afford it?
- 39. 22 GETTING STARTED MaintainingFocus Maintaining focus is easier when the producer is obsessed with the topic. We’ve mentioned that earlier. But your own personal work-history on long- term projects could be a key. If you have a habit of concentrating on one topic for a short period and then losing interest, do not begin a documentary. It will only come to grief. A familiarity with the technical side of production or willingness to learn is crucial to your project. You’ll be around cameras and sound recording equip- ment, shooting and interview locations, editing rooms, and the disquieting world of distribution. Making poor production decisions can fatally damage crew morale and make postproduction incredibly difficult. The Life Outside Production Personal relationships often suffer during documentary production. Long periods of travel, expensive equipment and crew needs, artistic differences, and a single-minded focus on the project can take their tolls on family and friends. If you have any fragile social situations that require a considerable time commitment (old relatives, sick family members, unstable partners, unusual child care arrangements), you might want to reconsider the demands of a documentary. Bailing out in the middle of the production creates animos- ity with collaborators and crew who have worked extremely hard. Money and Bank Accounts Don’t lie to yourself; this project is going to cost someone hard dollars. Draining your own personal resources, such as savings, credit cards, or IRA retirement accounts, causes grief and takes years to pay off. The economic life of the independent filmmaker can be a rocky one. Some documentary makers set off on the project and find money as they go and others won’t make a move until the grant check is in the bank. Independent filmmakers cannot make mistakes by spending a year on a film that begs for an audience and misses out on distribution. Getting financial backing is an onerous enterprise, one that most filmmak- ers despise. Check our Chapter 4 for possibilities. A Side Note on Using the Terms Film or Video In this book, we will often refer to a documentary as a film. We use this term for historical continuity and because it’s valuable to have an alternative to the word documentary. However, this is not an endorsement of any particular side in the continuing battle over which medium provides better pictures. Both authors of this book have made documentaries using film or video. We believe, for the most part, that techniques for documentaries are more or
- 40. Developing the Ideaand Doing the Research 23 less the same in either medium. What you record on in the field depends on experience, available equipment, or economic forces. Summary This chapter discusses why undertaking a major documentary project should depend on the quality of the idea, distribution goals, access to subjects, shelf life of the theme, and an evaluation of your own personal situation and funds. If the answers here encourage you to proceed, then go on to Chapter 2 for a discussion of what you’ll need to make your documentary an engaging and interesting program. Shaping Your Skills Write out the elements of your pitch. Compose a 25-word sentence, a 1-page 1. handout and a log line. Investigate current and upcoming documentaries on your topic. Use 2. industry and trade resources as well as the PBS website. See if it is an overworked topic. Look at the principal characters for your doc. How will you approach the 3. difficult access problems? Will they be put off by your aggressive stance on the issue? What common ground might you look for? Will there be ethical questions as you approach them? Further Reading Aufderheide, Patricia, Documentary Film: A Very Short Introduction, New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. Nichols, Bill, Introduction to Documentary, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2001.
- 41. 24 2 Critical Needs: Characters anda Visual Story The making of sequences is, for me, at the heart of filmmaking. Cinematographer Richard Leacock Every documentary project should begin with a realistic assessment of two vital elements: the principal personalities and the possible sequences. Can you find and develop visual sequences to reveal the rich interior of your character’s motives, dreams, energy, spirit, morality, or creative exploits? Will your storytelling sequences be intimate, revealing, and engaging for an audience? This chapter advises you to probe carefully for qualities needed in each of these areas and to expand your planning if early assessments indicate that the film might come up short. Glossary Beauty shots Landscape and other shots with striking aesthetic qualities—might be sunrises, sunsets, or moody golden light shots. Cover Generally applied to interview subjects, these are sequences of every- day activity used to introduce the interviewee’s personality.
- 42. Critical Needs 25 Fairuse Copyright law provisions allowing unlicensed use of visuals. “Golden” moments or sequences Startling, disproportionately powerful sequences that are fresh, revealing, and memorable. Orphan works Copyrighted film or photos whose owners are difficult to find. Public domain Visual or audio material for which the copyright has expired. Reflexivity Video or audio revealing the production process. Mild reflexiv- ity could be an interviewer’s voice asking a question or a portable light stand in the background; strong reflexivity could be an on-camera host or the inter- viewee directly addressing the camera during sequences. Self-directed reflex- ivity focuses the story on the documentary maker, who becomes the chief protagonist in the story. Scene A substantial portion of a documentary that could contain sequences, interviews, and narration. Treatment A written narrative of the visual sequences expected in the documentary. See Chapter 4 for an example. The Interplay of Characters and Sequences The Vital Need for Both Except for Current Events, Science, or Natural History documentaries, which generally are built around a rhetorical presentation, memorable documen- taries succeed on the visceral nature of unique characters and jewel-like sequences. For certain storytelling narratives, the needs are obvious. Biographies and Hosted programs concentrate on personalities and are character-driven; the Journey, Event, or Observational documentaries rely more on powerful narrative moments and are sequence-driven; and Journalistic or Issues docs rely on both while using more interviews and b-roll. It is the interplay of fascinating characters and powerful sequences, told with an intimacy on film that intrigues and holds the audiences. Subjects as Personalities Cinematic Characters A documentary’s principal characters should be energetic or interesting personalities. If the filmed images can convey their energy, the program will hold the audience’s attention. A lively film depends on the producer’s ability to reveal this in an intimate manner.
- 43. 26 GETTING STARTED Earlyon, a producer must decide if the cinematic presence of each character comes across on the screen. There are plenty of wonderful, socially impor- tant, intelligent human beings who lack energy when the camera is on them. Countless docs have fallen flat when the producers have struggled to tell the story with very normal but lifeless-on-screen personalities. Enduring stories come from choosing carefully. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Robert Flaherty wanted to bring audiences the story of the difficult life in the Canadian North. His film, Nanook of the North, was a char- acter-driven doc that still intrigues viewers. Flaherty smartly focused on one fascinating protagonist character with a charming smile, Nanook, and filmed him in a controversial series of re-created hunting and fishing sequences. It portrayed the struggle of an individual against the harshness of the cruel bitter climate. Audiences loved the film but critics ripped it for its inaccurate representation of contemporary conditions. Although many documentaries are built around a parade of personalities, some characters usually stand out. Producer Catherine De Santis’s documen- tary on nuptial commitment, I Do, presented numerous interesting couples and their musings on marriage; however, the last pair was a charming duo in their late 80s who had met on a bus platform, carried on at his house, and then were married to the amazement of their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. In their first dance at the wedding, with the camera lingering on them, he repeatedly stepped on her feet as they wobbled around the floor. Their on-camera wisecracks were delightful and audiences found them to be the stars in the film. In Gypsy Caravan: When the Road Bends...producer/director Jasmine Dellal followed more than 30 performers in gypsy bands from five different coun- tries who traveled together on a six-week tour of the United States. From each band, she singled out personalities to accompany back to their home cultures, providing absorbing mini-stories that enriched what otherwise could have been a familiar “bands-on-tour” documentary. Her character selections were right on target. The Audience Needs to See the Characters in Action The producer’s challenge is to find situations in which the video images will reveal a character’s motives, social interactions, dreams, nasty habits, or wealth of human kindness. In most cases, the audiences enjoy discovering these elements in storytelling sequences rather than a parade of talking head testimonials. The producer’s goal is to get a camera crew to any occasion that shows the character’s mindset and interactions. Director Terry Zwigoff had to do this in the six years it took to make Crumb, the portrait of counterculture cartoonist Robert Crumb. Zwigoff’s camera seemingly dogged Crumb everywhere, ending up with myriad sequences involving Crumb’s relationship with his brothers Charles and Maxon, partner Aline, other family, and associates.
- 44. Critical Needs 27 Sometimes,in distant locations, documentary crews have a tougher time. Les Blank’s intriguing and masterful portrait of the enigmatic German film director Werner Herzog, Burden of Dreams, required immense effort for him- self and sound recordist Maureen Gosling to follow Herzog for months while in production on a feature film in the Peruvian Amazon jungle. Film director Woody Allen’s public image had taken a hit when director Barbara Kopple followed him with his musician buddies on a tour of European cities for the doc Wild Man Blues. The cameras shadowed him everywhere, taping many personal moments. The result: remarkable sequences letting us peer behind the public persona of a whiney, brilliant filmmaker while he traveled with band members, his wife, and the tour managers. Tender moments emerged when Allen and his wife shared a room service breakfast in their hotel room. When director Jonathan Demme was shooting A Man from Plains about former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, he knew he had only two weeks of access during a book tour. Each day, Demme dispatched multiple crews, sometimes as many as four, to follow Carter’s every movement. “He was so much in my life, always there with his little cameras, that after a while I got used to him Figure 2.1 Sound recordist Maureen Gosling with Burden of Dreams subject Werner Herzog.
- 45. 28 GETTING STARTED beingthere,” the former president said. Carter was amused when they even filmed his early morning laps in a backyard swimming pool. “One morning, I came out and there was a guy with an underwater camera.” That’s planning. Evaluating Their Personalities and a Warning About Talking Heads Conduct a series of phone or in-person preinterviews. By posing provoca- tive questions and listening with great care, producers should begin to sense the subjects’ lively conversational nature. It is then you can begin making choices. In an ideal world, the next step would be for producers to exclude all the less exciting subjects; however, for many reasons, producers often are stuck with nonsparkling speakers. This is particularly the case if the film is an Issues, Science, or Historical topic and requires a mosaic of recognized experts and advocates to support the thesis. An audience for these types of documentaries may be subject to a repetitive parade of talking heads. Producers must take creative steps to avoid this. Too many talking head inter- viewees means there will be no time for the energy of natural sound sequences. Even if the segments with the different talking head experts are kept short, the similar framing required for the shots makes them repetitive—30 seconds of a medium close-up talking to someone off camera. For the audience, that visual duplication can make the documentary seem like one long static shot. These interviews need additional energy to break up this visual tedium. Director Spike Lee faced this problem in his four-hour documentary on the destruction in New Orleans When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts. Any viewer could imagine that it would be filled with interviews featuring devastated residents. However, by emphasizing certain hurricane victims with stronger personalities and repeatedly following them outside the formal interview, the film avoided the stigma of talking heads. Options When the Main Characters Are Not Cinematic If a key or top echelon character lacks on-camera charisma but still must appear in the film, there are options for the producer. In these cases, it will be necessary to de-emphasize the long, sit-down formal interview and replace it with a series of conversations done while the interviewee is engaged in an activity. More sequences can be built around the character’s daily professional life, all the while looking for colorful locations and candid social situations. Another possibility is to expand a backstory within the film to add inter- est. When producer Anne Makepeace turned the camera on herself for a self- directed reflexive documentary Baby It’s You about the medical difficulties involved in pregnancy, she also gave a detailed account of her family and her
- 46. Critical Needs 29 brothers,one who talked freely about becoming a polygamist. And while her story was gripping, the shots of her brother standing out in the Utah desert extolling the virtues of attracting and housing multiple wives was so unique that he was unforgettable. Character-Driven Docs and Dramatic Tension In many cases, documentary films will have an appealing protagonist character—the person who is the central focus. Not necessarily the most adventurous, cinematic, or well-known individual, he or she must be a pivotal presence that embodies the traits or actions examined in the film. Protagonist characters will have a point-of-view and will confront obstacles, usually pre- sented by a single antagonist adversary, groups of antagonists, or associations and businesses. Defining exactly who fills each role could help the documen- tary producer plan the program and define the underlying conflicts. Often, these adversarial roles are exaggerated for dramatic impact. In his 1988 documentary Roger and Me, director Michael Moore portrays him- self as a naïve truth-seeking protagonist trying to meet with his antagonist Roger Smith, the CEO of General Motors (GM). The film’s thesis is that the corporation’s lack of a benevolent role in the community led to a decline in the economy of Flint, Michigan. To depict this, Moore serves up a series of confrontations with bizarre characters or low-level company security guards and bureaucrats. Their unwillingness to debate him was portrayed as an example of GM’s alleged neglect. The Roger and Me confrontational model is a neat package that Moore reprises in his later documentaries: Bowling for Columbine, Fahrenheit 9/11, and Sicko. Moore’s directorial style is not the norm for documentarians. Although many Issue documentaries adopt a modified confrontational style, the roles are less obvious. There may be two protagonists as well as many supporters and any number of antagonists may challenge them. Capturing Visual Sequences The Visual Material Comes in Many Styles Documentary producers have an array of visual possibilities for their films. The most powerful usually is the strong natural sound sequence, in which the cinematographer captures the essence of the event. The sequence raw mate- rial is shot in wide, medium, close-up, reverse, point of view and following shots that allow the editor, who wasn’t an observer at the scene, to cobble together a representation of that moment. One or many sequences will com- prise a scene, which is a major segment of the film. For Journalistic or Issues docs, the producer might have the crew shoot nonsequence footage called b-roll, which is named after a traditional film lab
- 47. 30 GETTING STARTED processthat merged film with illustration (the b-roll) to a film that included sound (the a-roll). B-roll in documentary is a film or video shot to illustrate literally what a character or personality has mentioned in an interview or voice under segment. The interviewee talks about ducks; the producer assigns the crew to shoot b-roll of ducks. In this case, although sequences are nice, they are not expected. Any well-crafted duck shots will do. Producers like Ellen Bruno are critical of the use of mundane b-roll. “There’s always the tendency to use b-roll material like wallpaper. People think it is to illustrate and further support a point that’s being made. But often what happens is that you are not taking the viewer anywhere except to where they already are.” Bruno says she follows another tack. “I think, to me, what can deepen this experience or bring some surprise or bring together a juxtaposition of a particular thought and image that creates an equation that leads to a different kind of experience that’s not a literal experience. And so I don’t look for something that’s matching...I look for something that’s a bit of a stretch in some way or that gives the audience space to have an experi- ence that’s prompted by either what they are hearing or in a voice-over inter- view bit.” There is also footage called cover, which refers to everyday shots of a character, host or interviewee, and is used for setup intros and cutaways for on-camera interview segments. Many producer/directors request some cover for a backup to formal interviews. It usually shows the subject walking by the camera or talking on the phone, something Producer Jon Dann says looks inauthentic. He says there are other ways to get cover: “I would usually find a way to do it...to get the pictures we need...without directly telling some- body to do something. And the way I would handle it would be to say...do what you would be doing now, normally, so we can get pictures of it.” Beauty shots are valuable. They convey a sense of time or place, event re-creations that illustrate events for which there was no field video and poetic images that convey a sense of abstract ideas. From outside sources, producers seek out and gather archival film to docu- ment historical situations. These are used with archival stills and graphic art, computer-generated animation, and computer-generated text for the screen’s inter-titles. There Is No Storytelling Substitute for Choice Sequence Footage Most documentary producers know that film or video shot during an event at its location will be the heart of the project. Skillfully selected and edited into a story arc, the sequence is the pinnacle of documentary. It can be profoundly revealing and along with its natural ambient sound, it can successfully pull the audience into the story without commentary. This happened in director Wim Wenders’ Buena Vista Social Club. The opening sequences begin the documentary because they are intriguing rather
- 48. Critical Needs 31 thaninformational. Only later does the film get to the profiles on the unique Cuban musicians. Sequences have carried documentaries from Nanook through the vérité movement in the 1960s and 1970s. In recent times, extraordinary and chilling video has come from the U.S.-led Iraq war. A standout documentary, shot on a simple handheld camcorder, is Baghdad Hospital: Inside the Red Zone. It is the work of Doctor Omer Madhi, who obtained permission to film the daily chaos and sorrow that flowed into the Al-Yarmouk hospital where he worked in a hazardous, violent Iraqi neighborhood. Produced by BBC and shown in the United States by HBO, the thoughtful but terrifying scenes of ambulances, hospital wards, and trauma areas opened to viewers an alternative social por- trait missed by the mainstream media teams from that devastated country. Each Sequence Needs Energy Producers should consider that it will always take a string of sequences to maintain story tension. This is the nature of extended storytelling and oddly, it relates to natural phenomena. A weatherman at a West Coast television station once explained to me his theories about weather energy. “The storm hitting us today,” he said, “is really part of a continuum, a lineup of energy bursts that stretches thousands of miles back across the Pacific Ocean, each storm shoving and pushing and banging into the other as they slowly move in the sky across the top of us.” A documentary’s lineup of sequences has a kinship with the forecaster’s explanation. Each sequence will come before the viewer’s eyes as if it were a singular storm, parading by while it engages and involves the audience. The producer must consider, however, that each sequence is affected by the one before it and the one after it, strengthening or weakening in relation to the power and engaging qualities of neighboring sequences. This serialized presentation structure also has a lot in common with the- ater, dance, symphonic music, concerts, or dramatic films. The audience is waiting and the producer’s job is to perfect each sequence in this series until it maintains the pace and interest in the topic. Two or three clunker sequences in a row and the audience becomes uneasy. The Topic Needs to Be Rich in Sequence Possibilities Hundreds of meaningful documentary ideas turn into forgettable films because the producers did not reach beyond mediocre visuals. A 90-minute feature planned for theatrical release will need a warehouse full of rich sequences to make it successful. Gathering these could call for a significant amount of location shoots over extended periods of months and years. Even for a half-hour doc, the rich visual tapestry must be there, considering that a 30-minute film might require at least 300 edits and use 300 different shots and 40–60 sequences.
- 49. 32 GETTING STARTED Makea List of Sequence Possibilities As the idea matures and expands, compile a list of strong visual sequence ideas that will carry the story. If there are only 10 ideas on that list, the film will be thin. Be diligent. The topic might not lend itself easily to visuals. Programs that involve current events, investigative works, historical compilations, or explor- ing abstract ideas usually suggest more b-roll opportunities than sequences. These need the most work. Brainstormwithcolleaguesabouttheadditionalopportunities.Continually add to the sequence list, writing down even the most outlandish ideas. Imagine following principal characters to every interesting location and to every interaction that relates to the topic. If the character meets at an annual gathering with others in her profession, go to that convention with her. If the character mentions a barbecue for her extended family, there’s another opportunity. Even seemingly routine events can result in usable sequences. A producer colleague was talking about her documentary on a native Hawaiian group coming to the mainland U.S. to retrieve bones stolen from graves years before. She remarked that she had been working with the group and had volunteered to pick up the visitors at the airport. We suggested she shoot the arrival. She did and it became a great opening sequence. Learn to shoot so there will be five sequences from a single event. If a crew is documenting a charitable food distribution network, think of separating the different actions at the location into different individual sequences. One sequence might involve a key character interacting with workers. Another might be the different produce and foodstuffs available. A third might be the loading and unloading of trucks. A fourth might be exterior wide shots. A fifth might be office personnel on the phone with suppliers. All of these might be combined later into one sequence or they might be split up and used at dif- ferent points. Versatility results from shooting extensively at each location. Avoid Building Repetitive Sequences How many times, for instance, have viewers seen someone working at a keyboard in front of a monitor, students sitting in a classroom, or musicians rehearsing? The sequences on your proposed list could be overused and stale, and if you plan to rely on these to carry the program, you’ll need to make an impressive artistic effort to create a fresh look. This lack of variety may ham- string the editor in post. A filmmaker I worked with was trying to chronicle the story of a club with eight remarkable individuals. The documentary pieced together eight strong profile segments, but all were similar in rhythm and length. By the fifth remarkable individual, some in the audience were sensing they had seen this structure before.
- 50. Critical Needs 33 Writea Treatment To crystallize which sequences are the most powerful, try writing out a treat- ment. This is a prose description of what the audience might see. (There’s an example in Chapter 4.) It can be one page or sixteen and it will help develop your ideas. The treatment’s early visual ideas will change as production continues. That’s natural. Following your key character to a festival might turn out to be only mildly productive, but sitting down at dinner with his or her family or housemates could yield a more intimate sequence. As the shooting plays out, continually fine-tune and adapt your treatment, knowing that this revised document will strengthen your proposal. Serendipitous “Golden” Moments and Necessary Beauty Shots Even though it took a great effort to position the crew at the scene, unfor- gettable “golden” moment sequences often are surprises. When cosmic luck is on the producer’s side, the crew can return with sequences that reveal human emotions, struggles, strife, joy, anger, or happiness. The more of these that stack up, the more unique is the program. The key to finding these is simple—a producer has to put a capable crew in place. Figure 2.2 Beauty shots step back from action to set time, place, or mood.
- 51. 34 GETTING STARTED InBill Moyers’ Amazing Grace, the crew followed a group of singers to a rural picnic. At the gathering, a shy 11-year-old girl was encouraged to sing the film’s topic song solo and a cappella. All activity ceased and she gave a haunting rendition. The moment was splendid and the photographer and sound recordist did a masterful job. It was unforgettable. Equally important are those “beauty shots,” the stunning sunrises, sun- sets, pastoral landscapes, or frantic urban chaos that add texture or chro- nology. But these don’t involve cosmic luck; instead, they involve effort. It might require two weeks of climbing out of bed before dawn to get a striking sunrise. Director Ken Burns is noted for his constant use of these shots. During one interview, his crew joked that they are always prepared to rise before dawn to get the sublime golden lighting for a stunning sunrise. For his historical style, the beauty shots often fill in for years and times when no film or video was available. Archival Is Not a Sure Thing Dreaming of fleshing out the story with segments of archival or found foot- age? Unless a source is hoarding a trove of newly discovered historical foot- age, the visual power of commonly used archival may be diminished in the eyes of an audience. In short, they have seen it before. For a documentary that referred back to an event three decades earlier, I searched until I found the original material at a local television station. Its film librarian graciously gave me a free license to a one-minute sequence, but the images he provided were identical to those already used in another rather well-known documentary. I had no choice but to use those same shots, and some of my associates assumed I lifted them from the first film. For the heavy users of archival, the Issues, Historical, or Biography documentaries, the price can be shocking. Producers Gary Weimberg and Catherine Ryan estimated the total cost of archival for their 90-minute feature was $60,000 plus another $20,000 in search costs. At the start, they struggled along by only buying selected rights, but later had to make additional pay- ments to secure broadcast licenses. When archival is vital but controversial, certain producers took risks. For her 2007 feature-length doc War Made Easy, producer Loretta Alper needed more than an hour of archival, almost 90 percent of the program. Because the doc’s topic was criticism of politics and media, she used 60 percent of the archival without license, mostly news clips, under “fair use,” a provision of the copyright law allowing criticism. She acknowledged that her effort could end up in court. The Opportunity for “Free” Archival There’s a good deal of free archival available. Go to www.archive.org and you’ll find many sources including the Prelinger archives, which allow you to
- 52. Critical Needs 35 useany download for programs in any market. On other sites, “free” archival is often a teaser or a come-on to buy other archival. U.S. government his- torical film archives are often free to license but you must pay for screeners, transfer, and media costs. When the Documentary’s Visual List Is Meager After completing the visual and sequence list, a producer must face reality. If the possibilities for visuals are sparse, then perhaps it is time to find another way to communicate this story. If the subject leans toward the world of abstract concepts, taking it in another direction could bolster possible sequence situ- ations. Poetic images, beauty shots, docudrama segments, animation, and clever graphics might help. Another search might turn up the hidden and for- gotten archival material. Artists, designers, and creative computer graphics artists could begin b-roll animation. A documentary idea based on borderline visuals demands substantial creative imagination and effort. Visual Style Decisions When contemplating an individual look for the proposed documentary, it is necessary to consider the distribution venues, the audience, and the type of presentation. The major release market may suggest some aesthetic decisions. For instance, for the theater screens or festivals, a director may plan more wide shots and be wary of off-tripod shaky video or minor focus problems. For television screens, the close-up shot is singularly effective. On mobile or iPod screens, primary colors, larger graphics, less lens motion, and shorter run- ning times will provide a better viewing atmosphere. Audience makeup is another concern. Will a more mature audience prefer a relaxed pace with longer narrative sequences? For this audience, a classic collection of traditional shots over a music bed of older pop tunes would suf- fice for the sequences. Then again, an MTV generation audience is used to quick cuts, tilted horizons, multiple camera shots in a single interview, and a heavy music beat throughout. If so, you have to shoot those in addition to the basic wide, medium, close-up shots. The presentation format is also a consideration. Is it a single, standalone program? Multipart? Or could it be cut into chapters for release over a longer stretch of time? For Internet video, producers have experimented with new documentary mini-episodes created and transmitted once a week in serial fashion. The Director Aims for a Unique Aesthetic Style Many documentarians are comfortable with classic doc styles: cinema vérité sequences, sit-down interview support for issues, voice over narration, or
- 53. 36 GETTING STARTED poeticimages. Occasionally directors have unique requests. They want the colors oversaturated. They like the distortion of wide-angle lenses. They demand long-running shots in sequences, shots that allow the action to hap- pen within the frame. They forbid any portable lights and specify all natural lighting. They ignore tripods and advocate steadicams. Sometimes overdoing a style element such as using only handheld video will force a struggle in the editing room. Experienced producer/cinematog- rapher Emiko Omori shot the majority of interviews for her coproduced film Passion and Power on a tilted horizon or “Dutch” angle as it is called. Later she had to backtrack. “... So the Dutching irritated plenty of people and it still irritates a lot of people. We get a lot of comments...why did you do that...but the first time we showed it...we noticed that people were a little leaned over when they watched it...so I did what I called a double Dutch in the edit room...and undutched it...and the lines were no longer rectangular...and so I kind of liked that and in the (frame’s) black spaces I put other images.” Producers and directors should settle the question of style elements before production. The more agreement reached about a coherent and consistent style, the fewer problems will arise during postproduction. Changing your style in mid-project can be a disaster. Multiple shooting styles are more trouble if several different cinematogra- phers shoot over the course of a multiyear project or multiple cameras record a single event. When I was editing a piece that included a Las Vegas convention segment shot by three different cameramen, a good portion of one shooter’s field tape was useless because half his medium shots used the tilted Dutch horizon and Figure 2.3 Dutch-angled interview from the film Passion and Power.
- 54. Critical Needs 37 theother shooters didn’t do this. In post, the tilted images wouldn’t cut into sequences. The Subject Often Suggests a Unique Visual Style It’s critical for the producer/director to consider how closely he or she will mirror the specific visual culture of the subject. Ideally you want to have an interactive relationship between the producer and the documentary subject. For instance, if the subject is a comic book illustrator, there is an opportunity to emulate the inner universe of the creator with specialized lighting and composition, camera angles, and specific color hue to mirror the illustrator’s unique sensibility and vision. Cinematographer Vicente Franco says it is never too early to study this: I think each story requires a different treatment so that is why it is necessary to have that conversation to decide what the story is all about to decide what the cinematographic style might be. There are an endless amount of styles...but to cite an example...The Fight in the Fields...about Cesar Chavez and the farm worker’s movement...that I shot for Ray Telles and Rick Tejada-Flores. We decided that because of the nature of the subject...which was the farm work- ers, we wanted to interview our subjects outdoors...just to represent a little bit about the connection of the subjects to the land so we made it important to do the interviews outdoors. Consider contemporary hybrid cultures in our urban centers. A documen- tary might seek to reveal what’s happening in a three-generation Vietnamese Figure 2.4 Cinematographer Vicente Franco’s crew while filming The Fight in the Fields.
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- 56. “Deaf would Ibe to earthly sounds, to greet, With thoughts intent and fixed on things above, The high, angelic strains, the accents sweet, In which true peace accords with perfect love; Each living instrument the breath that plays Upon its strings from chord to chord conveys, And to one end so perfectly they move That nothing jars the eternal harmony Love melts each voice, Love lifts its accents high, Love beats the time, presides o’er ev’ry string; Th’ angelic orchestra one signal sways. The sound becomes more sweet the more it strays Through varying changes, in harmonious maze; He who the song inspired prompts all who sing.” As an impartial critic we must confess that, however refined the language, beautiful the sentiments, and learned the imagery, there is too much classical grandiloquence in her love-songs to permit us to forget the head that composed, and allow us to think only of the heart that inspired, them. When Pescara went forth on his first military expedition, she described her grief in a long rhymed letter of thirty-seven stanzas, in which all that is heroic in ancient Greece and Rome is summoned to witness her disconsolate state. The opening address—Eccelso Mio Signore! (My high-engendered Lord!)—while it shows the reverential homage which the wife in those days was expected to offer to her husband, and which, with all its formalism, was better than the disrespectful familiarity of a later age, is the prelude to a style altogether too much like that of the eccentric Margaret, Duchess of Newcastle, whose biography of her husband— her Julius Cæsar, her thrice noble, high, and puissant Prince, as she used to call him—is the acme of connubial admiration. After the death of Pescara, Vittoria depicted her own grief and his great, good qualities in a flow of verses full of beauty, dignity, and pathos. Upwards of one hundred sonnets are devoted to his memory. Trollope, with the conceit of his class, calls these touching expressions of sorrow “the tuneful wailings of a young widow as lovely as inconsolable, as irreproachable as noble”; but the more generous feelings and, doubtless, the Catholic instincts of her French
- 57. biographer discover inthis exquisite threnody a form of prayer to God for peace to the living and eternal rest to the dead. After seven years of widowhood a great change took place in her nature. She gave herself up entirely to higher influences; and the difference of style is remarkable between her worldly and her religious poems. The first are, as we have said, devoted to the love of a mortal object; the second to a divine dilection. This series is entitled Rime Spirituali. She begins it: “Since a chaste love my soul has long detained In fond idolatry of earthly fame, Now to the Lord, who only can supply The remedy, I turn …”—Sonnet 1. And again we observe in the following production her resolve to abandon pagan allusions and confine her poetry to sublimer subjects: “Me it becomes not henceforth to invoke Or Delos or Parnassus; other springs, Far other mountain-tops, I now frequent, Where human steps, unaided, cannot mount.” All writers on Italian poetry are agreed that for delicacy and grace of style Vittoria ranks next to Petrarch. Several medals and portraits have perpetuated her features at different periods of life. Of the former, two were made while her husband was living—both heads being represented—and two during her widowhood. A most beautiful medal was struck at Rome in 1840 on occasion of the marriage of Prince Torlonia to Donna Teresa Colonna, but the face is more or less ideal. Several portraits were painted during her lifetime, but it is difficult to trace them all. Some are lost, and others are doubtful originals. The thoroughly genuine one (say the Romans) is that in the Colonna Gallery. It is a fine type of chaste and patrician beauty. It was taken when she was about eighteen; although how it can in this case (and it certainly represents her still in her teens) be ascribed to Muziano, as it is by Mrs. Roscoe, we cannot understand, because this artist was born
- 58. only in 1528,when Vittoria was already thirty-eight years old. The fact is that the artist is unknown; but there should be some acuteness even in conjecture. Although it would be highly flattering to the vanity of her race, and of the Romans in general, to believe that her portrait was sketched by Michael Angelo and painted by Sebastiano del Piombo, they reject with horror the celebrated picture by their hands in the Tribune at Florence in which others see her face and figure. The best judges, however, call it simply “A Lady, 1512”; and our ideal of Vittoria revolts from the voluptuous features and disgusting pectoral development of this portrait; but if it were possible to determine it in her favor (?) we should have to exclaim: “Appena si può dir, questà furosa.” All writers on Italian literature mention our heroine at considerable length; but of separate biographies the principal ones are the following: Gio. Batt. Rota, Rime e Vita di D. Vittoria Colonna, Marchesana di Pescara, 1 vol. 8vo, 1760; Isabella Teotochi Albizzi, Ritratti, etc., Pisa, 1826 (4th ed., copy in Astor Library); John S. Harford, Life of Michael Angelo Buonarotti … with Memoirs of … Vittoria Colonna, 2 vols., London, 1857 (Astor Library); Cav. P. E. Visconti, Vita di Vittoria Colonna, Rome, 1840; Le Fèvre Deumier published a memoir of her in French in 1856; T. A. Trollope, A Decade of Italian Women; Mrs. Henry Roscoe, Vittoria Colonna, 1 vol., London, 1868. In 1844 the Accademia degli Arcadi at Rome decreed to have a bust of Vittoria made and placed in the museum of the Capitol. It was inaugurated with great pomp on May 12, 1845; and thirty-two poems in Latin and Italian were written to celebrate the event, and afterwards collected into a volume and published. The following is the simple inscription beneath the bust: A. Vittoria Colonna. N.MCCCCXC. M.MDXLVII. Teresa. Colonna. Principessa. Romana. Pose. MDCCCXLV.
- 59. [185] Published onlyin 1785. [186] Philippe Macquer, in his esteemed work, Abrégé Chronologique de l’Histoire d’Espagne et de Portugal (1759-65), 2 vols. 8vo, says that there is ground for believing that he was poisoned by his enemies, which we think is very likely to have been the case. [187] 18th Sonnet. [188] One of the most distinguished females of the age, and for love of letters and literary success ranking next to Vittoria. She was born in 1485; her father, the Count Gianfrancesco Gambara of Brescia; her mother, Alda Pia of Carpi; her husband was Ghiberto, Lord of Correggio. She died in 1550. [189] Writing to Michael Angelo from the convent of St. Catherine at Viterbo, as late as 1543, she calls the nuns, her companions, “the spouses of Christ.”
- 60. ALLIES’ FORMATION OFCHRISTENDOM[190] The appearance of the third part of Mr. Allies’ great work offers an occasion for expressing the interest with which we have regarded it since the publication of the first volume in 1865. The author is well known on both sides of the Atlantic, and the present work has been noticed from time to time in this magazine. It consists of a series of historical lectures grouping and classifying the leading features of that wonderful movement which began shortly after the foundation of the Roman Empire, and has survived its downfall more than a thousand years. Mr. Allies proposes to examine minutely and accurately into these facts. Those who are familiar with his other works will fully appreciate his ability to cope with his present task, while the need of a calm and studious presentation of this period of history is sufficiently evident. The religious movement of the sixteenth century boasts, and not without reason, of having been a radical departure from the spirit of the age which preceded it. It broke with the past; first, in regard to particular questions, concerning which it took issue with existing belief. But the separation which ensued in the religious sphere soon extended to the whole range of man’s spiritual faculties. The followers of the new prophets were associated together in communities and nations, and became entirely estranged from the ancient system. This isolation was bound to produce in a short time wide divergence of sentiment, and an ever-increasing estrangement from the past.
- 61. Americans going abroadfind themselves constantly misinterpreting and being misunderstood by foreigners. We live in another era, and under circumstances so different that it is only by earnest and thoughtful preparation that we can qualify ourselves to judge of other nations. Any person who will pause for a moment will realize the difficulty of conceiving what the present state of the world would have been had the movement towards a high material development, which preceded Protestantism, been conducted under Catholic auspices alone. Of course, such a conception is impossible to the common ignorant Protestant; but even enlightened minds outside the Catholic Church must acknowledge that it is not easy to acquire a full sympathy with the intellectual epoch which preceded Protestantism. Wherever the new religion became dominant, a thorough break was effected between past and present. The American freeman resembles his English great-grandfather far more closely than the Protestant of the seventeenth resembles the Catholic of the fifteenth century. The French communist still speaks the language in which the feudal tenant addressed the seigneur of the last century; but it would be rash to affirm his capacity to understand the sentiments of his peasant grandfather. The change wrought by the sixteenth century extends throughout the world, and affects the deepest, most powerful, and most mysterious range of sentiment. This change occurred just as the literature of modern times had begun to take shape and form. Everything has borne the stamp either of its action or of the reaction against it. It was a veritable Lethe; and those who passed through it forgot the images, expressions, and thoughts of preceding generations. The results of this tendency were entirely overlooked by the partisans of Luther and Calvin. But the most superficial student of history nowadays perceives in them irrefragable proof of two things: first, that the movement of the sixteenth century was something
- 62. altogether new inthe world; and, secondly, that it was completely subversive of the entire order which preceded it. To deny either of these propositions is to bid defiance to truth and farewell to reason. And whereas Catholics have been abused for predicting these facts, there are not wanting Protestants who glory in acknowledging them, now that they can no longer be controverted. However, we do not wish to bring them forward in our condemnation of Protestantism, but simply to illustrate another fact which is equally true. Protestantism, amongst other evils, has brought a spirit of scepticism into historical research which is one of the most ghastly symptoms of its present stage of dissolution. We do not mean a spirit which demands proof, but a spirit which no amount of proof can satisfy—which denies facts unquestionably true, and endeavors to cast discredit upon the most authentic records. It is not hard to perceive the cause or to trace the development of this spirit. The cause is that Protestantism was in every sense a break in history. It was an abnormal and morbid occurrence. The consequences of its denial—its protest—extended into every order of truth. But nowhere was their influence more fatal than in the domain of history. It lost the thread of sacred history by denying the authority of the Roman Church. But the isolated position into which it was thrown soon rendered it unfit to interpret any tradition. In fact, it had no tradition; it was obliged to make one in accordance with its own needs. At first its doubts were all directed against the Papacy, because the Papacy was irreconcilable with its existence. Then the histories of the saints were condemned, because Protestantism had nothing of the kind to show. But the irreverent critic of the claims of the Sovereign Pontiff at last attacked the Scripture, which was thrown to him as bearing its own credentials. Far worse than this—the Bible having been destroyed, the sacred person of the Author of Christianity has been exposed for dissection.
- 63. Nothing is deemedtoo blasphemous either to deny or assert of him. But now that he has been judged by the high-priests of the new religion, and condemned as an impostor, something has to be done with that vast system which civilized the world and endured for sixteen centuries, on the theory that Christ was what he proclaimed himself to be—the Lord of all things, and that his revelation was true. After practically demonstrating that Protestantism is a denial of Christianity, we might expect the age to pause in its career of denial. This, however, at present seems to be expecting too much. Having denied the authority which Christ has commissioned, the revolution soon came to deny Christ. Having denied him, it has proceeded to deny him from whom Jesus was sent. It only remains to deny every other fact which conflicts with the negative theory. It is, therefore, considered necessary to express doubt with regard to every historical fact connected with Christianity. A notable instance of this is before our eyes in Mr. Hare’s Walks in Rome, a book quite free from the more offensive forms of Protestant vulgarity. Mr. Hare has spent many years in Rome, and learned from its antiquarians the history of its secular traditions. He knows that the scene of St. Peter’s imprisonment is as well attested as any other which he describes in his work. In the course of his remarks on the Mamertine Prison, he says: “It was by this staircase that Cicero came forth and announced the execution of the Catiline conspirators to the people in the Forum by the single word Viverunt—‘they have ceased to live!’ Close to the exit of these stairs the Emperor Vitellius was murdered.” He discusses the age of the structure, and cites Ampère to prove it to be the oldest building in Rome. The author further says: “It is described by Livy and by Sallust, who depicts its horrors in his account of the execution of the Catiline conspirators. The spot is shown to which these victims were attached and strangled in turn. In this dungeon, at an earlier period, Appius Claudius and Oppius
- 64. the decemvirs committedsuicide (B.C. 449). Here Jugurtha, king of Mauritania, was starved to death by Marius. Here Julius Cæsar, during his triumph for the conquest of Gaul, caused his gallant enemy Vercingetorix to be put to death. Here Sejanus, the friend and minister of Tiberius, disgraced too late, was executed for the murder of Drusus, son of the emperor, and for an intrigue with his daughter-in-law Livilla. Here, also, Simon Bar Givras, the last defender of Jerusalem, suffered during the triumph of Titus.” Thus far the writer is dealing with facts of pagan tradition, which has been dead for centuries. Observe the change of tone when he comes to facts of the living Christian tradition—facts which he is evidently inclined to believe, but which must not be spoken of with the confidence appropriate to pagan narrative: “The spot is more interesting to the Christian world as the prison of SS Peter and Paul, who are said to have been bound for nine months to a pillar, which is shown here.” A little further on: “It is hence that the Roman Catholic Church believes that St. Peter and St. Paul addressed their farewells to the Christian world” (pp. 94-96). The testimony of the Egyptian hieroglyphs is unquestioned. The most fabulous antiquity is readily admitted for Indian and Chinese history. It is gratuitously assumed that the time of stone implements was not coincident with the use of metals in other nations, though the contrary may be witnessed on our own frontiers. If human remains are found along with those of extinct animals, it is assumed that they died together. No demand upon belief is too great unless it be in connection with Christianity. This tendency is to make men imagine that the era of our Saviour’s advent was purely mythical, and that the events of his time are as obscure as those of the siege of Troy. We think that we have accounted for the existence of this tendency in the nature of Protestantism, as developed in Strauss and the “more advanced” German speculators. But after having created this artificial cloud in history, the same parties seek to give the
- 65. impression that Christianitywas but a natural development out of the union of Eastern with Western thought. Having endeavored to reduce it to a myth by denying or questioning history, the process is reversed, and history is appealed to in order to prove that Christianity was a purely natural phenomenon which can be readily explained. It is, according to these rash theorists, a syncretism of the best thoughts of Egypt, India, and Greece, produced principally by the agency of the Alexandrian schools. This explanation is mainly satisfactory to them because it would explain the rise and establishment of Christianity without a miracle.[191] The hypothesis was eagerly embraced for this reason. Just so Strauss leaped for joy at the hypothesis of Darwin, because it professed to account for the existence of men without creation. But just as Darwin, while able to produce both specimens and remains of man and ape, could never find the intermediate animal, or even any trace of him, so this forged account of the origin of Christianity breaks down in the very fact which is necessary to give it even the semblance of value, viz., the warrant of historical facts. In order still further to misrepresent the origin of Christianity, it is necessary to observe the testimony of history as to the moral condition of the pagan world. Tacitus and Suetonius are pagan authors, therefore it will not do to impeach their writings in the same manner as the Gospels and the Christian Fathers. Being heathens, their works are certainly genuine, and they are to be held as truthful men—a presumption to which the Evangelists and Fathers are in no way entitled. But we notice the tendency to overlook the frightful picture presented by these historians, and the attempt, by a judicious comparison of the best specimens of paganism with the worst scandals or most austere characters of church history, to draw conclusions injurious to Christianity. This whole process of doubting the records, misstating the origin, and denying the real nature of early Christianity, is a fraud which will not bear scrutiny; it is maintained by men who avow their
- 66. willingness to acceptany hypothesis which conflicts with the ancient faith, and to lend the prestige of their talents to any effort against it. The historical warfare has been vigorously carried on in Germany by both sides. The movement has penetrated into the English universities. Its echoes have been heard in our own midst, in the utterances of certain writers who, being possessed by the spirit of snobbishness, cleave to outlandish modes of thought because of their foreign or novel character. Mr. Allies’ work is a thoughtful and profound exposition of facts, and brushes away the cobwebs with which hostile criticism has sought to envelop the history of Christianity. The author does not aim at a connected narrative. The chapters of his work are lectures, each one of which is an essay, complete in itself. The reader is presumed to be acquainted with the general outlines of history, and the author directs his efforts to answer such questions as naturally arise with regard to the introduction of Christianity and the foundation of that order which appeared under the title of Christendom in the Middle Age. Accordingly, after giving his idea of the philosophy of history, Mr. Allies draws a graphic picture of the state of the Roman world. The civil polity of the Augustan age, the majesty of the Pax Romana, appear in their splendid proportions. The reader is brought face to face with all that is known of that epoch. Its ideas of manhood and morality are set forth from the testimony of eye-witnesses. Then follows a sketch of the work to be accomplished by Christianity, entitled the New Creation of Individual Man. This is succeeded by a series of lectures viewing the results which were to be expected from the influence of Christianity upon human character. Here we find also the testimony of eye-witnesses of the growth of the new religion, and an instructive comparison between Cicero and St. Augustine, illustrative of two most important ages of history. The fifth lecture of this first volume is on the New Creation of the Primary Relation between Man and Woman; and the seventh lecture
- 67. deals with anequally Christian doctrine, viz., the Creation of the Virginal Life. A recent German writer, laboring under a delusion not uncommon in his country, doubts whether the improved morality which appeared after the introduction of Christianity was really due to that religion or to the German race. This characteristic doubt is left undecided by the writer, but will probably soon be settled adversely to Christianity by some more adventurous Teuton. The public, for whose benefit these speculations are likely to be extended, will do well to read a little history, and will not find Mr. Allies’ chapters amiss. The second volume, which appeared in 1869, treats of the developments of that spiritual society which sprang into existence with the original ideas of Christianity and from the same source. The peculiar characteristics are traced of that hierarchical order which, after three centuries of bloody persecution, came forth from its hiding-place in perfect organization, to receive at once the homage of Constantine and to become the guide of civilization and the supreme ruler of nations for more than a thousand years. The position of the church at the time of Constantine was that of complete victory. The portent in the sky which appeared to that emperor was not more miraculous than the spectacle afforded by Christianity. Starting from a distant point in an obscure race, without means, without facilities of communication, it had not only revolutionized the pagan world but it had maintained its own unity as a corporate body in the face of wholesale treason from within, and intense intellectual opposition, accompanied with three centuries of proscription, from without. Three centuries ago another movement started in our modern world. It had all the prestige of the civilization which germinated along with it. It has had the support of the civil power. It has had the best blood and most vigorous races to work for it. No earthly element of success has been refused to it. What is the result? Where is its unity? The very idea is abandoned. Where are its original convictions? Not one remains. What is its
- 68. present influence? Ithas none. What is its prospect in the future? Entire destruction. Nothing is better calculated to give us a correct idea of the difference between Protestantism and Christianity than this sort of a comparison. Such, however, is not Mr. Allies’ design. He aims, in his second volume, to show that Christianity had a definite theory and constructive spirit with regard to society. As he contrasts in his first volume the pagan notion of individual man with the Christian ideal, and shows a creative power in the latter producing results undreamed of in the heathen character, so the author traces, in his second volume, the social ideas brought in by Christianity. The unity of the church, as taught and described by the fathers, was an idea no less remarkable in its marvellous working than in its utter novelty. This conception was based on the fundamental principle of Christianity, that its divine Founder had authorized a corporate body to teach the world those truths which he came to bring, and that the power of God was pledged to the infallibility of his church. This doctrine is the only constructive idea that has ever been broached with regard to society. Protestantism was a direct assault upon the very nature of Christianity, and is to be held responsible for the absence of this idea in modern civilization. Mr. Allies develops the history of this Christian idea with great accuracy, filling out his comparison between Christian and pagan thinkers in all departments of thought, and establishing the claims of the new faith to be a creation fresh from the Author of all things, and not a development out of the putrescent civilization of the ancient world. That Christianity produced a type of character wholly distinct and peculiar, is a fact of which there can be no doubt on the part of those who have the slightest disposition to consult authentic records. That it possessed a vitality and organizing power of which there is no other instance, is equally certain. But we often hear the sayings of Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, and the later Stoics quoted, as
- 69. exhibiting a toneof thought almost equal to that of Christianity, and by the enemies of religion vaunted as something far above the morality of the Gospel. No reader of Plutarch can escape the impression of his gentle and refined philosophy. Though full of grievous errors, it has a flavor of truth, a respect for purity, and an appreciation of virtue which are not to be found in the earlier historians. The great error of those who would make Christianity a development of heathen thought is simply, then, mistaking the cause for the effect. A great change was undoubtedly to be expected from the blending of Greek and Roman speculation with the Jewish and Egyptian religions. This change actually took place. But its product was acted upon by Christianity, and did not become a factor of the new religion. Mr. Allies gives us the summary of ancient philosophy, which he traces down to its contact with Christian truth. We are able to see the vanity of that false reading of history which seeks to represent Christianity as a mendicant receiving crumbs from Plato, Pythagoras, Philo, and the Stoics. We perceive from their writings and the tone of their disciples the barrenness and emptiness of Attic thought, up to the time when it received the few corrections and additions from Christian doctrine which enabled it to appear for a short time as a rival of heavenly truth. The author goes with laborious scrutiny through that labyrinth of error which is included under the title of Neo-Platonism. Outside the Catholic Church, few scholars have read even the principal works of St. Thomas Aquinas. Charles Sumner was said to possess them; Disraeli the elder and George Eliot refer to them. But the former never showed that he understood their contents, and the last-named writers show that they have not. Although such a study is absolutely necessary towards acquiring a correct knowledge of the intellectual life of the Middle Age, it is rarely undertaken by non-Catholics. To study the remains of Neo-Platonism is a task of equal subtlety, and yet nothing is more common than to hear shallow speculators on history affirm that Christianity was greatly affected by the
- 70. Alexandrian school. Butthe difference is no less marked when we come to find out what the views of the leading Neo-Platonist actually were. This “distracted chaos of hallucinations” was the highest effort of paganism. It was an attempt to reconcile and weld together all the elements of the old world, as a barrier to the new and irresistible power which was everywhere gaining ground. It was the development which was to have been expected. It was the fusion of East and West to which Christianity has been credited. But, instead of acting upon, it was radically affected by, Christianity; and, instead of bringing forth Christianity, it was the deadliest foe of the Gospel. It is from this old armory of Alexandria that modern error draws and refurbishes the clumsy weapons which dropped thirteen centuries ago from the hands of the first opponents of Christianity. It is a good place to go for this sort of bric-à-brac. It contains a sum of all the aberrations of the human intellect. Here, stripped of its modern garb, we find the cosmic sentimentalism of Strauss. Here the absolute being of the German pantheists stares us in the face. Here, from Iamblichus and Porphyry, we hear the same mournful and unhealthy drivel which is printed and sewed up in gilt morocco by enterprising and philanthropic publishers of the present day. On rising from the perusal of Mr. Allies’ third volume, we see clearly the end of that wonderful and brilliant Hellenism which, while ever occupied “either in telling or in hearing something new,” slighted the real truth which had come into the world, and served but as a pit to its own pride. Too much praise cannot be given to Mr. Allies for the labor bestowed upon his history of the actual development of the philosophy of Greece in the Roman Empire. He has traced each school of thought from year to year, and reproduced a correct summary of its beliefs. The Neo-Stoic philosophy, which is especially vaunted by the enemies of Christianity, is studiously delineated. The points of agreement and difference are clearly noted between its four great chiefs—Seneca, Musonius, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius. The analogies and contrasts between the developed Stoic school and the
- 71. Christian teachers whowere its contemporaries, are also brought into relief. In order to portray the effect of the Neo-Pythagorean doctrines and the revived Platonism, the author gives a complete analysis of that most singular and interesting character, Philo the Jew—singular, in that he was the only one of the ancient Hebrew race who became a great philosopher; interesting, because he shows us the precise difference between Platonism and Jewish belief, and the immeasurable superiority of the unreasoning Jew, who believed only that which he had received by tradition, over the highest flight of heathen genius unaided by revelation. The lecture on Philo closes with a summary of the interval between his time and Plutarch’s, and the change during that epoch from the old Roman world of Cicero, together with the cause of this change. Following this, another lecture presents the state of the pagan intellect and the common standing ground of philosophy, from the accession of Nero to that of Severus. Towards the close of his reign, under the auspices of the Empress Julia and from the labors of Philostratus, came forth the new gospel of paganism in the life of Apollonius of Thyana. This work, upon the strength of which modern infidels have sought to attribute a mythical origin to the Gospels, was a counterfeit of the truth, in which paganism sought to construct an ideal teacher, to oppose to that Master who was now beginning to be known throughout the world. This sketch of Apollonius of Thyana is very complete, and shows a new phase of thought yet more strikingly affected by that hated and persecuted power which was daily growing in the midst of the Roman world. Having completed his study of pagan belief and sentiments as far as the reign of Severus, the author is fully prepared for the difficult and thankless task of reviewing the struggle between Neo-Platonism, as represented by Iamblichus, Porphyry, and Plotinus, and their followers, against divine truth. The third volume closes with a graphic summary of the intellectual results from Claudius to Constantine, and a comparative glance at
- 72. the relative powerof the old order and the new to reconstruct a society in stable and harmonious proportions. With this lecture, which seems to foreshadow the contents of a fourth volume, Mr. Allies’ work stops for the present. Its publication in parts has placed it at a great disadvantage, inasmuch as ten years have passed since the first volume appeared. It may seem premature to review a work not yet complete, but enough has been published to establish the claim of the author to a most useful and successful contribution to the needs of the time. He has grown into his task, and has accumulated both facts and reflections. There is little reason to fear that the remaining volume will not be equal to the three which have preceded it. The style is unpretending, and the whole work extremely modest. In this respect, it will not meet the approval of those who prefer rhetoric to exact truthfulness. Historical works must be plentifully illustrated, either by the engraver or the imagination of the author, to make them popular nowadays. But the intelligent reader who will take pains to examine carefully Mr. Allies’ volumes will be well repaid, and the author himself can rest in the conviction that he has written a solid and useful book, which deserves a place in every library. [190] The Formation of Christendom. By T. W. Allies. Part Third. London: Longmans, Green, Reader & Dyer. 1875. [191] It is also necessary on account of its vagueness, and eminently fits in or rather mixes with the confusion of mind which is so marked a characteristic in this school of speculators.
- 73. SIR THOMAS MORE. AHISTORICAL ROMANCE. FROM THE FRENCH OF THE PRINCESSE DE CRAON. X. In that portion of the attic of Whitehall Castle looking toward the west they had, according to the king’s orders, erected an altar in order to celebrate Mass. Three persons had assembled there, and were reflecting on the singularity of the hour and the choice of the place where they found themselves called by this religious ceremony. Lady Berkley, seated upon a high cane chair, had carefully gathered about her feet the long train of her silk dress, to avoid having it sweep over the floor covered with dust, and she observed with great attention the old tapestries, which had been nailed all around the altar in order to conceal as far as possible the unsightly appearance of the rafters of the roof. Heneage, with his arms crossed, not far from her, waited, having nothing to do, while Dr. Roland Lee, invested with the pontifical vestments, kneeled on the step of the altar, inwardly grieved at this new whim of the king, which he found as inconvenient as disrespectful; but being very pious, he endeavored to pray to God and occupy himself only with the holy sacrifice he was going to offer up. They had waited very nearly an hour in this position, when Norris entered with a light in his hand. “The king,” he said in a loud voice.
- 74. The assistants immediatelyarose to their feet, and the king appeared, followed by Lady Boleyn, with Anne Savage carrying her train, gleaming with embroidery. On entering she cast a glance upon the surroundings of this improvised chapel, and she was far from finding them to her liking. But Henry VIII. gave her no time for reflection; he placed two chairs in front of the altar, and, putting himself in one, he made a sign to her to kneel upon the other; then, having called Sir Roland, he announced to him that he had to proceed with the marriage. Although he had presaged nothing good from the singular preparations he had seen made in this attic chapel, yet poor Dr. Lee was far from anticipating such an order as he now received; he found himself in a horrible state of perplexity, and stood without making any reply. “Come!” said the king after a moment’s silence, “commence the prayers.” But Roland turned toward him, and still continued to stand on the step of the altar; he said with a great deal of dignity: “No, your majesty cannot marry, the ecclesiastical authorities not having yet decided.…” “What say you, Roland?” interrupted the king brusquely. “God alone has power to judge the conscience of princes, and mine has decided that I should marry. Go on and do what I command you now.” “Sire,” replied Roland, who feared that his days were numbered, “your majesty has all power over my poor body, and I am your very unworthy and very devoted subject; but I cannot solemnize your marriage without having proof that you are at liberty to contract it.” Henry bit his lower lip. “Roland!” he said.
- 75. “Sire,” replied theother, as if he thought the king had called him. “The imbecile!” exclaimed Henry VIII. to himself; but he saw it would be better to dissimulate. “Roland,” he replied, with an inflection of voice as different as his new intention, “do you think I would command you to do anything wrong? I have received from Rome the bulls of our Holy Father, who recognizes the nullity of my marriage with Catherine, the wife of my brother, and permits me to select for my spouse any other unmarried woman in my kingdom. However, in order to avoid scandal, he bound me to do it secretly.” “Then I have nothing to say,” replied Roland Lee, relieved of an immense weight; “but your majesty will, of course, first show me the proofs.” “Obstinacy!” thought the king. “How, Sir Roland,” he cried, assuming an air of extreme mortification, “the word of your king, then, is no longer sufficient? Is it necessary for me to go and bring you a thing which I affirm to have in my possession? Roland,” he added in a severe tone, “until now your conscience alone has spoken, therefore I have not been offended; but take care that, instead of commending your course, I no longer see in you other than an incredulous obstinacy. I pledge you my royal word on the truth of what I have stated.… But add not a word more.” Roland dared not reply, and, unable to believe the king would dare to prevaricate in that manner before such a number of witnesses, he began, although much disturbed, to say the Mass.… But the quiet solemnity of prayer influences the most obdurate heart: man is so insignificant in the presence of God. Henry felt more and more troubled. Queen Catherine’s letter, Norris’ description of her departure, the scene of the previous evening, passed one after another before his eyes and continued to torture his memory. The words of the holy daughter of Kent, “The woman you wish to marry will dishonor your couch and perish on the
- 76. scaffold,” arose unconsciouslyto his lips, and aroused in his soul a gloomy jealousy. He cast a glance upon Anne Boleyn; their eyes met, and the miserable woman was terror-stricken at the expression of fury that gleamed from his eyes. Then he looked around him. The sun had arisen, and brought into bold relief the old and faded tapestries surrounding the altar. “Is this place worthy of me?” he thought to himself. “Is it thus I have prayed with Thomas More?—that quiet, peace, order, and respect?… There one is happy; here they are consumed, devoured by remorse! Happiness of the just, I execrate thee, because I have not been able to attain thee!”… Thus all that was good excited his envy; even Catherine, whom he had driven from the door of his palace a wanderer on the earth, seemed to him happier than himself. But it was still worse when the venerable priest, turning towards him, began the ancient and solemn rites of marriage between the children of God, and came to these words: “You, Henry of Lancaster, do confess, acknowledge, and swear before God, and in presence of his holy church, that you now take for your wife and legitimate spouse Anne Boleyn, here present.” “Ah!” said the king mentally, “hell would be better than the life that I lead.” He trembled, and answered in a loud voice: “Yes!” “You promise to keep to her faithfully in all things, as a faithful husband should his wife, according to the commandment of God?” “Yes,” he answered again. “And you, Anne Boleyn, you also confess, acknowledge, and swear before God, and in presence of his holy church, that you now take for your husband and legitimate spouse Henry of Lancaster, here present.” “Yes,” stammered Anne Boleyn, who had no relatives, no friends around her—no one except two valets and a femme de chambre.
- 77. “You promise tokeep to him faithfully in all things, as a faithful wife should her husband, according to the commandment of God?” “Yes,” she answered more distinctly. Then the priest took the nuptial ring, and, placing it in the hand of the king, made a sign to give it to his wife. Henry VIII., leaning toward Anne Boleyn, gave it to her, seeming scarcely conscious that he did so. The sight of this ring recalled the one he had given Catherine on a former and similar occasion, the sanctity of the engagements he had contracted with her, the love he then bore her, her youth, her sincerity, her charms, her virtues, the tranquillity of his own conscience; now, he had dissipated all these blessings—dissipated them wilfully and through his own fault; he felt himself despised and despicable. His legitimate wife driven forth and discarded, while he took another by means of a disgraceful falsehood which must be very soon discovered. He no longer had children; he had renounced at the same time all the rights of a man, a father, a husband, in order to recommence, at his age, a new career, already branded with disgraceful recollections and shameful regrets. “May the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob unite you, and may he shower his benedictions upon you! I now pronounce you man and wife, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,” said the priest, making the sign of the cross over them. “Amen!” responded the assistants. “No benedictions! Don’t talk to me about benedictions, wretches!” replied Henry in a stifled voice. “It is truly just and reasonable,” continued the priest, ascending the steps of the altar and extending his hands towards heaven, “it is right and salutary, that we return thee thanks at all times and in all places, O Lord, most holy Father, Almighty God eternal, who by thy
- 78. power hast createdthe universe out of nothing; who in the beginning of the world, after having made man in thine image, gave him, to be his inseparable companion, the woman whom thou hast formed from thyself, in order to teach him that he is never permitted to put asunder those whom thou hast united in the sacrament thou hast instituted. O God! thou who hast consecrated marriage by so excellent a mystery that the nuptial alliance is the figure of the sacred union of Jesus Christ and his church; O God! by whom the woman is united to the man, and who givest to this intimate union thy blessing, the only one which has not been taken away, neither by the punishment of original sin nor the sentence of the Deluge; O God! thou who alone hast dominion over the hearts of men, and who knowest and governest all things by thy providence, insomuch that no man can put asunder those whom thou hast joined together —” “When shall I get out of this place?” murmured Henry VIII. “Nor injure those whom thou hast blessed—unite, we pray thee, the souls of these thy servants, who belong to thee, and pour into their hearts a sincere friendship, to the end that they may become one in thee, as thou art the only true and all-powerful God. Regard with a favorable eye thy servant, who, before being united to her spouse, implores your protection. Grant that her yoke may be a yoke of love and peace; grant that, chaste and faithful, she may follow the example of the holy women of old; that she render herself amiable to her husband, like Rachel; that she may be wise as Rebecca; that she may enjoy a long life, and be faithful like Sara; that the author of prevarication may find nothing in her that proceeds from him; that she may abide firm in thy law and in the observance of thy commandments; that, at last, being attached only to her husband, she defile not the marriage-bed by any illicit connection.” “Do you understand what the priest advises you?” said Henry VIII., angrily regarding Anne Boleyn, and speaking almost loud enough for her to hear him.
- 79. “That, in orderto sustain her weakness, she may fortify herself by an exact and well-regulated life; that she may conduct herself with such proper modesty as will ensure respect; that she inform herself of her duties in the heavenly doctrines of Jesus Christ; that she may obtain from thee a happy fecundity; that she may lead a life pure and irreproachable—” “I will not suffer her to do otherwise,” thought the king. “That at length she may arrive at the rest of the saints in the kingdom of heaven. Grant, Lord, that they may both live to behold their children’s children until the third and fourth generation, and attain a happy old age, through Jesus Christ our Lord, thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, world without end.” “Amen!” responded the assistants. “It is over at last,” said the king, rising precipitately. He motioned Anne Boleyn to follow him; but she made no reply, and he saw that she was weeping, and had put her hands over her eyes to conceal her tears. He then left her, and immediately went out. XI. On returning to his apartments, the king found in his cabinet Cromwell and Cranmer, who, pompously invested with the garb of his new episcopal dignity, came with Cromwell to thank the king for having conferred on him this exalted position. The sight of these two intriguers produced a disagreeable impression on Henry. He was very wearied already by the scene through which he had just passed, and longed to be alone. Instead of that, he found himself face to face with two new instruments of torture.
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