I realize that nothing can ever be truly objective, even the simple presentation of facts is always filtered by the mind which organizes them. But does every single modern documentary have to simply go for an emotional response?
OK, so not all the oscar winners and nominees were feel good stories, but the fact remains that they were all emotional. Even the documentary Food Inc., while producing a lot of fact filled moments and tried earnestly to expose wrongful practices of the large food industry, spent many many moments on emotional pieces, which usually didn't add anything major to the story.
In addition to this, The documentary awards (short and long) are often seen as a reflection of issues that hollywood, or the academy, care(s) about.
And so the winner for long documentary was a fluff piece (The Cove) about the Japanese practice of eating dolphins (and whales), and some of their methods of hunting. Sure, I don't personally agree with the eating of these animals, but I also come from a society where this is certainly not the norm, and really isn't accepted either. In Japan, there is a long history and tradition of eating these creatures, much like there is a tradition for them to eat other creatures of the sea. Japan is a series of islands, with alot of coastline, and not alot of land. It makes perfect sense they'd turn to the sea for sustinence. Alas, I digress. Possibly the thing that irks me the most about it is they don't have any regard at all for what Japan thinks of it. A good chunk of the movie was about how the locals were opposed to this film and how difficult it was for this film crew to get this message across to the world. (Good for you, thanks). OK, maybe the methods of hunting they use aren't that "humane", but frankly what is humane hunting anyway. These are probably the same idiots that want the deer population to starve themselves to death rather than get hunted down, cos it's natural -- nevermind that their natural predators haven't been in most of these areas for over 100 years. Goddamnit, I digress again.
Really the makers of this film come off as more ignorant than the people they're trying to portray. Even the title (The Cove) implies this is a secret and dirty act they are doing, and this is the only place this happens, and we, as responsible members of this western world, must be the ones to stop it.
It's like if a film crew went to Mexico to make a documentary about how the people are savages, making tacos instead of hamburgers.
What about Eskimo hunting? Is that OK? They hunt all sorts of sea mammals (which I'm assuming is the criteria for making this evil, being mammal). I can just imagine one of the producers trying to talk to an Inuit -- "Don't you know you can get all your protein sources from Soy and Soy byproducts? Where's your nearest Wholefoods?" "Geeeee, Thaaaaaaanks."
Like I said in my previous post, it's this total lack of self-awareness that makes the academy awards watchable.
Moral arguments are always the worst, simply because they lack universality. The world is not black and white, and fuck if it's always shaded in gray.
"Good sir, can you show me to that place where sea lions ride the waves to the shore?"
--Ok, one more picture. That's it, I swear.
Terrifying.
Anyways, onto the short documentary.
It got Kanye'd. Haha. It happens at the MTV awards, chalk it up to the zany nature. It happens at the academy awards? You betta bet there was some monocle droppage.
I'll try and put this together as fairly as possible. The documentary that won was about a woman in Africa who suffers from natural disfigurement, making her "tainted by witchcraft" amongst locals, that sings in a band, and to a lesser extent her band, who also suffer from deformities. There were originally two people involved in the direction/shooting of this short documentary or whatever, and naturally they had different ideas on what the direction was to be (oh, so that's what a director does). Anyways, one director wanted it to be about the woman, the other wanted it to be about the band. The one who wanted it to be about the woman won, and finished the movie listed as the director, and thus the recipient of the award. The other person, having contributed, managed to keep a role as producer in the credits, though largely maintained a position of disowning the film. The movie wins, and the director walks up and gives a speech. The other person crashes through (apparently to the protest of the director's 90 some year old mother, hah) and runs up, interrupts the speech only a few short words into it, and doesn't let the other dude finish.
So let me rephrase that. The director, who's documentary was his vision, gets cut out of his own acceptance speech by the partner who only the day prior had pretty much disowned any attachment to the project.
At least Beyonce was nominated for an award when the proceedings were interrupted on her behalf; and its probably less emotionally jarring for this to happen to a middle aged man than to an 18 year old girl.
BTW, last time a "major" motion picture, and not an "independent" film won best picture was only a few years ago with The Departed (2006). And possibly one of the "largest" films ever made, Return of the King (2003) has won recently, and blockbusters simply dominated in the late 90s. So, even with an expanded field, the academy can't pick one of its own major studio films to win the best picture award. Wow. I really question a lot here, but I'll leave this as it is.
You guys got enough pictures, no video.
-- Knuttel
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