I
found it very interesting how in his NPR interview, Werner Herzog talked about
how he doesn’t make a clear distinction between his documentaries and his
feature films, and how he stylizes documentaries.
Herzog says, "Sometimes I even invent, I script.
Sometimes--not in Timothy Treadwell's case because he was dead, and you do
not--you have to respect what's there, and you do not distort it or--so."
However, I wonder how much of Grizzly Man
IS actually stylized. It is probably not as stylized as some of his other
documentaries, due to the filming by Timothy himself, but it makes me
wonder. His stylization in Grizzly Man,
then, is when he places outside scenes or other people’s comments at the
perfect place in the film in between Timothy's scenes. In this way, he is
able to sway the audience and make Grizzly
Man the story that he wants it to be. Grizzly Man is, according
to Herzog, a feature film.
Werner Herzog’s comments in the
interview reminded me of The Things They
Carried because Herzog implies that the raw documentation of something
itself is very plain and is not enough to tell the truth. This seems very
contradictory because how can inventing and scripting something be more
truthful than the truth? Yet, we see this in The Things They Carried in how to write a true war story. Tim O’Brien
is able to share the truths and true experience of war through completely fictional
stories. Thinking about this gives me a whole new perspective on documentaries
and how they are really made and portrayed, and how true they really are.
I thought this was a very well constructed and insightful piece. I think you highlight a very interesting idea, that just because a film is a documentary does not make it a feature film, and with that there are biases and exaggerations or eliminations of the actual truth. I thought it was very cleaver to tie this concept with Tim O'Brien's chapter, How To Tell A True War Story. We can almost use this chapter as a guide to how to tell a true documentary.
ReplyDeleteI also thought it was interesting when Herzog mentioned that sometimes his stories are scripted and invented. This reminds me of the Things They Carried in several ways too. Tim O'Brien also invents stories but successfully relays/shares the truth and emotions of the war. You also reminded me of the quote from TTTC where O'Brien writes, "it is as if Tim is trying to save Timmy's life with a story." Timothy seems like he makes these films to save himself rather than to save the bears. I had never though of documentaries as being scripted or invented until recently but I think there can definitely still be truth from untrue story telling.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with you. When a filmmaker who specializes in documentaries visited my high school she stressed the idea that the mere facts of a story cannot convey the full emotional and significant impact that the story really had. Stylizing, and even embellishing, the story allows it to be told through film in an effective way. The world of media is harsh and stories must be interesting to appeal to a large audience. Stylizing stories not only resolves this problem but also gives the audience an emotional and meaningful experience throughout the film, which lends respect to the original story.
ReplyDeleteI just wrote out my entire comment and then accidentally clicked the "sign out" button instead of the "publish" button. Fml.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, I love your title. A+.
As we started to watch Grizzly Man, I went into it thinking that it was going to be a strict factual story about Timothy Treadwell's life, and that train of thought wasn't too hard to keep up throughout the first half of the movie because, like we talked about in class, Herzog didn't seem to really insert his opinions on Treadwell, and most of the other people they interviewed mostly had positive things to say. After we started to analyze how the way the film was put together wasn't authentic, I began to really understand why you said you thought Grizzly Man is similar to TTTC.