“The European intellectual tradition has grappled with the difference between subjective and objective knowledge since ancient times” (Chapmanand Alison, 2009)Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get the original essay It was statements like the above from Jane Chapman's “Issues in Contemporary Documentary” that led me to investigate how documentary filmmakers attempt to remain objective while making a documentary. Everyone struggles to keep an open mind and see both sides of a story regarding global issues, or any issue for that matter, there is always an opinion that is formed fairly early on. Of course, it all depends on the facts presented to us, but then it's the job of the documentarians to try to make sure that all the facts presented are true and that both sides of the issue are shown. Looking at Michael Moore's "Bowling for Columbine" (Moore, 2002) and Louis Theroux's "Louis and The Nazis" (Cabb, 2003), you can see by the different styles and conventions used that they struggled to remain objective. Theroux makes documentaries on various subjects. Some are about controversial topics like the Nazis and others are more informative and give insight into different lifestyles. Theroux got his start in documentary when he began working as Moore's correspondent on his show "TVNation" (Moore, 1994), co-founded by the BBC. Once that was completed, the BBC signed Theroux to a development deal. Throughout this essay, I will compare Theroux and Moore, one of whom describes himself as a nonfiction filmmaker and not a documentarian, to show how they are both similar and different from each other. other and how they remain objective or not. In these documentaries, the people conducting the interviews, Theroux and Moore, have a very average and normal gut that the audience can also relate to. It's very different from making a movie where they cast someone who is considered good-looking or well-known. By having these normal guys in a documentary, it will help the audience believe the information they are given without distracting them from the facts. This also means that interviewees tend to feel more comfortable with the interviewer and are therefore more willing to talk about their beliefs and views. They would be more open and honest because they would not feel threatened by the person asking the questions. If a famous person was giving the interview, they might feel like they want to give a certain answer to please the interviewee or because they already know the interviewee's beliefs or opinions. "Research is simply finding the answer to these questions before you jump in. If you skip this vital step, you can easily waste countless hours and money from your budget researching people, themes, and events that will never see the light of day” (Anthony Q. Artis, 2014) Researching your chosen topic gives you the answers you need to know if the documentary is worth making or not. This will allow you to get the facts and find the right people so you can start planning the documentary in the direction you want to take it. You can start planning the questions you are going to ask certain people with an idea of ​​the answers you will receive. You can also start thinking about what you want to show the audience or how you want to set up shots to help portray peoplethat you are interviewing in a certain way. By not doing any research, you waste time and money on a project that might go nowhere. You could also be sued for defamation if you make statements you cannot substantiate. In the first six minutes of "Louis and the Nazis," Theroux tells Tom Metzger that he "thinks a little less of him" for some of the language Metzger uses. I think it's slightly subjective because Theroux is supposed to remain impartial. By saying this so early in the documentary it will cause the audience to think negatively of Metzger before hearing what he has to say or what he believes. While Moore opens his documentary by showing how everything seems normal in America before walking into a bank where they give you a free gun just for opening a new bank account with them. Moore shows the audience the newspaper article he found the article in with the slogan "More BANG for your BUCK". Even though he appears to be making fun of the bank, which he is, Moore remains somewhat objective, because his goal is to show that gun and ammunition restrictions should be put in place, not to get rid of it completely. them. It adds humor to keep people interested by showing that it is slightly ridiculous how easily accessible guns are. He certainly has a subjective agenda, but at the same time he doesn't fully agree with either side. It is a neutral party to a certain extent. “The participatory documentary gives America a sense of what it means for the filmmaker to be in a given situation and how that situation changes as a result. » (Nichols, 2001) This easily mirrors what is happening in Theroux's documentary. For example, when Theroux is at Skip's house in "Louis and the Nazis", his presence with the crew changes the situation Theroux finds himself in when Skip asks him if he is Jewish or not. Skip asks for the camera to be turned off and even says, "Well, because you have the camera right now, I'll allow you to stay." Otherwise, I’d probably kick your ass and put you on the street somewhere.” We can see how Theroux reacted to what was said and his response which shows us that he was uncomfortable but was trying to remain impartial. Theroux responds by saying, "I'm not racist and I actually think it's wrong to be racist." And so, I feel like by saying whether I'm Jewish or not, I'm sort of acknowledging, in a way, the principle that it really matters when I think it shouldn't and that that’s not the case.” This statement makes it clear that he does not agree with Skip, nor the other racists he interviews, which means that Louis is not very open-minded about their way of thinking and their way of acting. life. However, by remaining calm and articulate while they raise their voices slightly and use foul language, it makes them seem angry and violent and therefore the audience will assume that this is the same for all skinheads. Since he only interviews racist people, he can also give the impression that he represents the other side of the debate. This then counters the fact that it is subjective. It brings balance to the documentary and makes it clear that the documentary is not pro-racism. During an interview on “Louis Theroux in conversation |BAFTA Guru” (YouTube, 2017), Theroux talks about the conversation with a skip and how he had already decided not to say whether he was Jewish. He said he wasn't going to say "partly as a director and to be honest, partly because he knew it would put an end to the skinheads...that there was probably tension there." This proves that Therouxused the fact that he exhibits certain stereotypical traits of someone who is Jewish to his advantage to create some of the tension we see on screen. Theroux does this in “The Most Hated Family in America” (O’Connor, 2007). He asks specific questions that he knows will provoke a reaction and cause tension which will then create drama. Moore shows us how his presence and that of his crew changes what happens to his advantage. In his film “Bowling For Columbine,” for example, when he takes two of the boys shot in the Columbine school massacre to the K-Mart headquarters. At first he was told to turn the cameras off, which he does, but then turns them back on when someone from media relations comes down to talk to them. I think because Moore had the cameras there, the Kmart people didn't just kick them out and were downright rude to them. They were trying to be polite, and then they just left Moore and his colleagues down in the lobby. Whereas I think if Moore and his team weren't there, the storyline probably would have played out very differently. The way Moore addresses those he interviews is also very different from the way Theroux conducts his interviews. While talking to James Nichols about Americans' right to bear arms, he begins to lightly harass him before James agrees that there should be restrictions on the types of weapons that are readily available or even allowed to be owned to anyone. Michael Moore: “Do you think you should be allowed to have weapons-grade plutonium here in the agricultural fields? » James Nichols: "We should be able to have anything..." Michael Moore: "Should you have guns? Should you have weapons-grade plutonium? James Nichols: “I don’t want it.” Michael Moore: “But should you be allowed to have it if you wanted it?” James Nichols: “It should be restricted. » Michael Moore: “Oh. Oh, so you believe in certain restrictions? James Nichols: “Well, there are some wackos out there. » Blame is a questioning technique that interviewers use when someone doesn't answer the question or avoids the question. Sometimes this is done to get the person to say the answer the interviewer wants. This is a subtle way of being subjective on the subject. Moore also asks hyperbole questions, meaning when the question is exaggerated enough, it puts the audience on the edge of their seat waiting for the person to answer. This is used to create a reaction. By using this outrageous question, he also points out a loophole in the law regarding carrying guns because the wording is not specific about what type of gun you can have. Both Moore and Theroux visited Pastor Phelps, who is the leader of the Baptist Church in Westboro, Kansas, on different occasions. Moore appeared on it as part of his television show "TVNation" (although the episode was not aired, it can be found on YouTube) and Theroux appeared on it when he was filming the movie "The Most Hated Family on Earth". 'America'. The group is known for hating gays and anyone associated with them, as well as staging funeral pickets with signs reading things like "God Hates Gays" and "Thank God for Dead Soldiers." When they meet with Pastor Phelps, Moore and Theroux handle the situation differently. Moore would visit them when they were bagging mostly at the funerals of gay men or people who had died of AIDS. He was riding around in a pink minibus with lots of pro-gay posters and lots of stereotypical gay men. He confronted Pastor Phelps about people's homosexuality and the content he brought with him totrying to get a reaction from him. Which he did to an extent before Pastor Phelps realized he was outnumbered and left. Moore and his colleagues followed him north, where he was on picket line, and began dancing and kissing around them, in my opinion making the protest seem like a joke. He and Pastor Phelps packed their things and left. Moore completely had an agenda here and was not at all subjective. He deliberately set out to upset Pastor Phelps. Theroux spent three weeks with the people who are part of the Westboro Baptist Church, made up mainly of the Phelps family. He meets Pastor Phelps for the first time while recording a video message for the church. Theroux asks him a fundamental question: “How many children do you have?” ”, to which Pastor Phelps skirts around and refuses to answer. Theroux asks again because he wants to see what her answer will be given that some of his children have left the church altogether. Although he asks twice, I wouldn't consider it harassing because he lets it go quite easily afterward and seems very innocent. However, this makes Pastor Phelps seem untrustworthy and a bit skeptical. The second time Theroux met Pastor Phelps was after one of his church services where he was preaching about how God hated queers. This time, Theroux talks to him more like a reporter to try to get information about what Pastor Phelps thinks of his church but he still doesn't get any proper answers. In this, Theroux remains objective and lets Pastor Phelps pose as someone who has something to hide: this is the so-called “church.” At the end of Louis and the Nazis, Théroux became more subjective through his interview techniques. He starts harassing people and even uses leading questions. He does this when talking to John Malpezzi about Tom Metzger's article when he says "Why don't you say no?" which means he's trying to convince Malpezzi to agree with him. It's not very professional and it's not at all objective. When Moore goes to Kmart, he ends up pestering people to meet someone who can do something to remove bullets and guns from their store shelves. Even though he was harassing them, I don't think he was being too subjective since his goal, all along, was to try to show that restrictions needed to be put in place regarding guns and ammunition. Some people might argue that this was subjective in that it benefits one side of the argument. However, I disagree because it just shows that even gun sellers and ammo agree on the need to impose some restrictions. I think this is one of the ways he was able to do something to help his cause because in the end he was able to convince Kmart to stop selling ammo and was even surprised how quickly with which they were going to do it. However, at the end of the documentary, during an interview with Charles Heston, he asks him why the rate of crime involving guns is so high in America compared to other countries. He tells Charles during the interview that he's part of the NRA but even he thinks there should be restrictions. When Moore brings up the six-year-old girl, who was shot by another six-year-old, he becomes very subjective as he asks a loaded question to get a reaction from Heston and even resorts to a form of emotional blackmail to the end. leaving the photo of the little girls. While they were talking, Charles Heston walked away andlet Moore show himself. Moore follows him and calls Heston to look at the photo of the little girl. The big problem with this scene, which makes it very subjective, is the fact that it looks like it was shot in two takes. Looking at the scene, it seems like there should be two cameras. One behind Moore facing Heston and the second in front of Moore looking at him. This could have been a long sequence with the cameraman turning around, but the way they cut it makes Charles Heston look much more guilty and therefore like the bad guy as he walks away. By portraying Heston in this way, as a representative of the NRA, it also reflects poorly on anyone involved in pro-gun rallies. Shortly after the film's release, Charles Heston announced some restrictions on gun ownership, but he told everyone that this had nothing to do with the documentary itself. "However, even made by a collective, a documentary can never be completely objective. Gaylor, as editor of the website, ultimately decides what is published or not - there is always a point of view ." (Chapman and Alison, 2009) There is a lot of truth in this statement by Chapman because when making a documentary, things are always changed in the edit to fit what a person wants to show, thus creating an opinion. During editing, process clips can be removed or moved to another location to make more sense of things that are done or said. As in "Bowling for Columbine", the shots are not listed in chronological order and some appear more than once with other clips between them, not for nothing. It would have added more meaning to certain scenes by splitting them up and putting something else in between. This is evident when he talks to James Nichols, halfway through the cuts and shows an interview with two boys in an arcade before cutting back to Nichols. Showing clips of Charles Heston at a so-called pro-gun rally in Denver right after the Columbine school shooting, Moore claims that it was only 10 days afterward that they used gun control techniques. editing to hide cuts between two different rallies Heston spoke at. The first photo we see of Heston at a rally, he is wearing a blue shirt and tie. They then cut to a shot of a billboard promoting a rally and then to people taking their seats at a rally. The room looks similar to the one in the first shot, so the audience would likely believe it to be the same gathering and therefore not notice the difference in the next shot. In the following clip of Heston at a rally, he wears a white shirt with a red tie. In the clip, he mentions how the mayor of Denver told him not to come here and they overlaid it with clips of people protesting. The first excerpt is actually from the 129th NRA convention in North Carolina in 2000, almost a year after the Columbine school shooting, in "response to AlGore's call for control firearms” (Sanchez, 2015). However, due to where it is placed, one could assume that this was said at the same rally that took place after the shooting. This makes Heston a horrible guy who didn't care about the shooting. Louis Theroux makes his documentary more subjective through the voice-overs he uses. What he says in his voiceover largely undermines what the supremacists said in the clips that preceded him. "It's been a long and, in some ways, depressing day. I found Tom's attitude exhausting and was even more confused when the karaoke bar he took me to went.