Political Documentaries

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Political Documentaries
Political Documentaries have rolled up over these past few years to become the most popular and widely accepted form of documentaries by the general public. They have attracted audiences though many documentaries are considered to be in the realm of popular culture. Furthermore many documentaries take on political themes and as such deserve attention in the media, politics and popular culture (Cogan & Kelso 10). There are many varied reasons for this but the main factor for this kind of popularity lies with globalization and the never ending war on terror. These two issues enhanced public consciousness on what globalization really means (Gecco 2). The fact the staying in the west does not insulate an individual from the life of the people on the other end. This awareness of the fact that a disgruntled individual or group living miles and miles away can cause an imbalance in the way of life has led to people searching for more information on how such a situation came about and how it could affect them or ways in which it could have been prevented. According to Gecco (3) Political documentaries have fit the role of relaying such useful and important information as a piece of media that looks at such issues gives a summary in a manner that the public easily understand instead of the torturous knowledge acquisition from books or other written sources. Basically Political documentaries deal with issues relating to politics such as elections, past and current presidents like the “Unprecedented: The 2000 Election, The Fog of War and Fahrenheit 9/11.In this essay I will address what really are political documentaries, their history and their future as well as some examples of political documentaries..
Defining the form of a Documentary
Establishing what really constitutes a documentary is really not yet determined. For many years both the creators of documentaries and scholars have debated over what really differentiates documentaries from fictional movies and their conclusions keep changing with time. According to Renov (11) the term documentary involves more or less the artful restructuring of the historical world. The line between documentaries and fictional movies is a blurry one due to the fact that there are similarities in the production of both. For instance there is the reenactment of scenes, added lighting to scenes, rehearsed actions as well as scoring of music in the final film that obviously was not part of the filming process. Furthermore the directors of both categories of films may choose to leave out part of the scenes, decide on the best camera angles and edit the shots. Another major aspect relating to documentaries is the fact that it is hard for an individual who is conscious of being filmed go about with their business assuming they were not being filmed. They would obviously change aspects of their behavior before the cameras. People who appear in documentaries are required to be themselves by being social actors and not professional actors (Cogan & Kelso 14). But the fact that they are aware that other people are going to watch them; they adjust their affairs to what is expected of them.
Nichols (xi) notes that documentaries regardless of the type, whether political, human interest documentaries or social change documentaries, should focus on the world we live in rather than an imagined world envisaged by the filmmaker. A documentary thus is not a replica of reality but a representation of where we live in, our world as it is. A world that if aspects of it were not familiar to us: we would not have come across (Nichols 20). Nichols further clarifies that fiction films aim to suspend disbelief in their audiences where as documentaries aim to inspire belief, to prove to its audiences that all events are true. Thus, symbolically a documentary is more of a visual essay which seeks to educate more than entertain and it is no wonder that all most all documentaries have political implications.
Documentary genres
Almost all non fiction films can be allocated to a variety of sub genres. For example many documentaries give emphasis to definite scientific, educational and nature issues. The social documentary is time and again linked with political themes and this category of documentary can be divided further into sub genres. Barnouw (129-143) breaks up documentaries according to the functions that its practitioners accomplish the prophet, the advocate, the chronicler, the explorer, the observer and so on. Other scholars as well have somewhat devised categories of documentaries in an attempt to aid a clearer understanding of their purposes. Despite of the complexity in clearly defining them, each subgenre is filled with political views and opinions.
Yet trying to tell the difference of what exactly should be included in a political documentary is very problematic. Although some theorists argue that almost all products of the media has connotations of politics, this would render the intersection of documentaries and politics meaningless. It is therefore important to narrow down and focus on documentaries that are precisely political such as those on government propaganda (Grierson 54).
Politics: the left and right wing
The traditional Left-Right political model as shown below is insufficient in denoting all political view points. Basically left and right are forms of socialism that are very distinct. The level of socialism is not found on the basis of the Left-Right paradigm but through the Libertarian-Socialist paradigm, with anarchy at one end and totalitarianism on the other end. The real political paradigm can be represented as a diamond where the long axis stands for the level of socialism and the shorter axis representing the socialism form. Usually there is a natural tendency for the government to grow to be larger with more power over time. By just focusing on the Left-Right axis we note that we have allowed the government to be more totalitarian.


The Traditional Left-Right Paradigm

Traditionally, political candidates were grouped into either having left or right wing views. It does not really matter whether a politician is described as liberal, a communist, a socialist, a conservative, a radical, a Nazi, a fascists or a green, they all end up somewhere on either the left or right axis. Mainstream political parties always fight for the central ground as they are usually either moderate left or moderate right.
The left and right terms have no commonly agreed definitions. Left usually describes progressives, liberals, greens and socialists and is said to be communism. The left usually tend to favor higher taxes and spending, endorse free speech, democratic processes, wealth redistribution and social freedom and endorse nationalized industries to become private industries. The right on the other hand includes nationalists, conservatives; extreme or radical right is termed to be fascism, corporatism and Nazism. The right usually endorses low taxes and spending, promotes values of morality, tradition, patriotism and economic freedom especially for big businesses.
The Origins of the Documentary
The origins of the documentary can be traced back to the roots of early films of the French man, Mr. Louis Lumière late in the 19th century. During the 1920’s sophisticated documentaries came out in France, England, The Soviet Union, Holland, Germany and North America. However it was the leading documentaries like Esfir Shub and Sergei Eisenstein of the Soviet Union that influenced other states to use documentaries to advance their political policies.
A Brief History of the Political Documentary
The film William McKinley at Home showing the then presidential candidate in 1896, amidst his campaign for office is most often considered the first political documentary. This documentary was by far a shoot of McKinley engaged in his campaign without providing a clear view point on the events. The United States for instance in1911 had already produced many rudimentary propaganda films. One on the World War 1 allies endorsing support for American involvement in 1917 is a good example.
The 1930’s is when the institutionalization of the documentaries took place. A number of filmmakers in United States from the left began the production of some documentaries that served harsh critiques of the capitalist enterprise as well as other views of the U.S society. The Workers’ Film and Photo League was formed in 1930 in order to train people to produce films with a Marxist view. Part of the Group’s agenda was to expose issues that were not covered by the usual news services. Nykino was established in 1934 which functioned more or less the same as the Film and Photo League. In contrast to these two was possibly the right leaning sequence The March of Time which covered current affairs.
The 1940s witnessed Canadian and British documentaries being distributed. This also marked the era of the World War II and once the then U.S. president Roosevelt committed troops than documentaries from Britain, United States and Canada exchanged footage and films that were centered on the war. With this documentaries started to gain screenings than they had during the 1930s.
The post war d...