Convincing is the Name of the Game

To me, this was the most striking quote from the Godmilow document. I feel that it underlies one of my own preheld (and confirmed) conceptions about documentary and, to widen the perspective, nonfiction films in general. As we have previously said in class, all directors come at a movie looking to express some point or perspective on an issue. Since society looks at documentary films and nonfiction works especially in regards to “telling the truth” and revealing something about a possibly unknown topic, it really is in the director’s hands to “change people’s minds”. In my own personal opinion, every type of movie shows some kind of message, which can be interpreted as what Godmilow expresses; a change in people seeing things. In this case, nonfiction should entirely rely upon fact and upon revealing facts, which in many ways, it does. Society looks at, and defines nonfiction as that which DOES change people’s perceptions on a topic. What one must keep in mind is that a change in perception can either be in opinion or in fact. We can see this in a comparison of say, Fahrenheit 9/11’s affect on a viewer verse the effect of a nature film on some exotic penguin in Antarctica. In these cases, each has a different effect on a viewer, but both change some aspect of their mind (perception) and therefore, succeed in Godmilow’s point.