Monday, October 19, 2009
Manipulating Nature
People often forget that documentaries are not always the absolute truth. They can show what the filmmaker believes to be true or what the filmmaker wants the audience to believe. However in the case of nature I think that filmmakers should try to keep as close to reality as possible. That said, if a filmmaker needs footage of a certain natural process that will not take place during the time that he/she is filming, I think it would be acceptable for the filmmaker to recreate this process without manipulating the authenticity of the process itself. Disney’s “White Wilderness” does not follow this because the entire story was fabricated. According to the article, lemmings were not native to the filming and were bought from kids in a different area. If Disney’s argument is that they confused dispersal with migration, then they should have done more research. Even in 1958, I’m sure it was possible to look further into a strange occurrence like mass lemming suicides.
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On that same note we only know where the short was shot because we have read about it. I, personally, am not keen enough to notice the slight differences between the the landscapes of where they shot and where Lemmings live. Perhaps this is not a breach as we simply associate that lemmings live where the camera is and that could be Timbuktu for all we know
ReplyDeleteGood point, Adam -- and this again reveals the degree to which we are at the filmmaker's mercy (at least in terms of 'what really happened'). Much as we turn to experts to build a bridge (engineers, et al.), perhaps we turn to filmmakers to give us the unadulterated 'truth' (though one problem here is that they're policing themselves... perhaps we should have filmmakers vet each other's films?).
ReplyDeleteChris brings up a good point about the "White Wilderness" documentary. In class, we talked about how it may have been possible that the filmmakers got confused and thought that lemmings actually did commit mass suicide. Even if this was the case, they still shouldn't be excused in any way. If one were to kill dozens to recreate a natural occurrence, they should make sure that the act was in fact a natural occurrence. There had to have been some sort of literature on the subject, and there were undoubtedly a plethora of qualified experts they could have contacted. If the "White Wilderness" filmmakers did in fact believe in this myth, the only conclusion I can make is that they simply didn't care enough about the lemmings to do some fact-checking. Fore shame.
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