In response to “the growth of personal documentary”... When I look at this question, it breaks away from the bounds of documentary and fundamentally becomes a more general question. That is, “is there truth?” However, I will not attempt to answer that question directly. My thinking begins with, “where else do truths exist in context?” The personal point of view is a partial reality created by a partial understanding. Every person attempts to find truth from this paradigm. Applying this to the original question... The distinguishing difference is that a personal documentary does not feign omniscience. It does not pretend to be unbiased. This is what Aufderheide means by a personal documentary calling attention to the partiality of our understanding. Dear Zachary is a perfect example of this. The viewer is strung along point by point as if the film were live footage and every part of that film centers around the Bagby's. Our knowledge is constrained by time while the truths we're given are in the context of the Bagby's world. I think the Bagby point-of-view is easy to see with the image of Andrew contrasted against the image of Shirley. This type of bias is not perceived as a flaw, but rather something that creates an intimate connection. I would say it's probable we perceive it in this way due to its near similarity to the bias applied on to our own reality.
-Gavin Owens
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Your position seems reasonable, Gavin, and one that you appear to share with others (eg, Ethan): if the film does not try to hide its bias, then it's acceptable. But I think we can still test the limits of this. If I make a film using bogus research to defend the claim that global warming is not occurring, for instance, I think that many people would be uncomfortable with it even if it were clear about its position... some may even find it dangerous.
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