There’s an interesting article in the New Yorker that came in the mail yesterday: “Nanook and Me”: Fahrenheit 9/11 and the documentary tradition, by Louis Menand.
It makes a very good case for the thesis that there’s a huge difference between documentaries and journalism, and there always has been.
(I do realize I’ve made this point several times before, but in discussions of F9/11 many people still seem to be confused between the definition of *journalist *and documentarian . I thought this article says it more clearly than I ever have.
Menand’s piece in short: the first great documentary, “Nanook of the North,” was a load of crap that bore no resemblance to reality. So, when Michael Moore makes a documentary that’s a load of crap and bears no resemblance to reality, he’s actually following a great tradition.
Of course, F/911 was full of crap!!!
It is full of words of the current administration and actions of it.
rjung
August 8, 2004, 7:47am
4
To quote Roger Ebert (link here, since the original is now a pay-to-see archive from the Chicago Sun-Times):
Most documentaries, especially the best ones, have an opinion and argue for it. Even those that pretend to be objective reflect the filmmaker’s point of view. Moviegoers should observe the bias, take it into account and decide if the film supports it or not.
Michael Moore is a liberal activist. He is the first to say so. He is alarmed by the prospect of a second term for George W. Bush, and made “Fahrenheit 9/11” for the purpose of persuading people to vote against him.
That is all perfectly clear, and yet in the days before the film opens June 25, there’ll be bountiful reports by commentators who are shocked! shocked! that Moore’s film is partisan. “He doesn’t tell both sides,” we’ll hear, especially on FOX News, which is so famous for telling both sides.
The wise French director Godard once said, “The way to criticize a film is to make another film.” That there is not a pro-Bush documentary available right now I am powerless to explain. Surely, however, the Republican National Convention will open with such a documentary, which will position Bush comfortably between Ronald Reagan and God. The Democratic convention will have a wondrous film about John Kerry. Anyone who thinks one of these documentaries is “presenting facts objectively without editorializing” should look at the other one.
So F911 is compared to the inaccurate documentary “Nanook of the North”? Works for me!
By those standards, sounds like Oliver Stone’s “JFk” would qualify as a traditional documentary.
The author essentially discredits the word “documentary”. I’ll remember that. But that doesn’t leave much of a tradition, does it?
And IMHO journalism is no guarantee of accuracy either.