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Danielle Factual Research

Danielle factual Programme research

QUEEN OF VERSAILLES

Focusing on the Siegel family as they attempt to build the largest house in the United States, this 2012 documentary explores the various possibilities within a capitalist state and the impact of the U.S. economy’s decline on the Siegels. Directed by Lauren Greenfield, a “fly-on-the-wall” filming style is in use throughout documentary in an attempt to allow the Siegels and interviewees to be hindered as little as possible as they proceed with their business.

Throughout the documentary, the fraudulent idea of the “American Dream” and its lack of deliverance is referenced in several ways. David Siegel, the family patriarch, faces massive loses within his company (Westgate Resorts) as their PH Tower in Las Vegas causes certain financial struggles and difficulties between 2009 and 2011 during the filming of the documentary. This results in the Siegel family having to reduce their housekeepers substantially, resulting in obvious unemployment for many, and the death of a family pet due to neglect.

SUPER SIZE ME

Morgan Spurlock directs and stars in this documentary, examining the rapid growth in obesity amongst American citizens. Filming himself over the course of a month, Spurlock eats only McDonalds in a gonzo-style journalistic attempt to document the deterioration of his own health a nutritional balance.

The film uses a diary-style in which Spurlock self-inspects his mental and physical changes (with aid of a medical professional) over the 30 days. The film also uses interviews with various doctors, health specialists and his girlfriend.

Spurlock’s means of accomplishing the set goals within the documentary were heavily criticised post-release as he avoided exercise, and ingested 5000 calories a day, whenever he was only required to ingest as much as the average daily calorific intake to give a “realistic” result. The film was made on a 65,000(USD) budget, and grossed 22.2 million(USD) at the box office.

GRIZZLY MAN

Directed and narrated by Werner Herzog, Grizzly Man inspects the self-made documentations of Timothy Treadwell, a man living in the wilderness amongst grizzly bears. Treadle and his girlfriend spent nearly 13 years in Alaska, spending every summer amongst the bears in the wilderness. Both he and his girlfriend were ultimately killed by the bears they were certain to have befriended.

Treadwell’s footage is used throughout the documentary, and due to its raw and amateurish quality, gives the film an anxious and unpredictable atmosphere. The film also uses interviews with those closest to Treadwell and his girlfriend, and those who found the corpses of the two.

Throughout the documentary, Treadwell is depicted is a “free spirit”, a man undeniably passionate and compassionate toward those around him and the various wild animals he felt connected with. However, many criticise the actions of Treadwell, claiming him to be naive and careless. During his death, his camera was left on. However, due to the lens cap covering any footage, only the audio was picked up. Herzog attempts to listen to a portion of the tape, but is unable to listen to the entire recording due to its distressing and traumatising nature.

CAPTURING THE FRIEDMANS

This documentary was directed by Andrew Jarecki in 2003, focusing on the criminal activities of convicted child moldesters Arnold and Jesse Friedman. The film is comprised one-to-one interviews with victims and those involved in the case, using archive footage of the Friedman family as opposed to re-enactments. The use of archive footage builds a linear story in which the audience are presented a “normal family”. The use of their personal footage creates a dark and eerie atmosphere due to the heavy nature of their crimes.

The documentary develops into a conspicuous case-study in which the audience is wrapped up in various accounts of the events. The documentary portrays the investigation as a possible corruption, as children (arguably) falsely admitted to being victims of sexual harassment due to the pressure of the officers investigating them.

THE BRIDGE

The Bridge is a documentary exploring the significance of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge in regards to the high level of suicides from jumping. The film was inspired “Jumpers”, an article featured in The New Yorker magazine in 2003.

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The film confronts several issues and topics, specifically that of suicide. However, an important issue the film brought attention to was the ethical-debate of knowingly filming a suicide. Director Eric Steel claimed to be shooting a nature-documentary around the San Francisco bay-area, purposefully lying to successfully apply for filming-permits. I consider the film undoubtedly important, as it creates a narrative amongst audience members about mental health related issues. However, I believe in regards to these ethical-debates surrounding the act of filming a suicide, that an alternative approach could have been considered, such using footage in a way that implies what is happening, rather than showing an actual scene. I found the footage highly disturbing and I think shooting such a scene can have particular consequences on the crew members’ own mental-health.

Although each crew member was trained in suicide-prevention, and had the coast-guard on speed-dial, Steel justifies these disturbing shots by claiming that by the time anybody on the wrong side of the bridge-railing was spotted through the lens, the crew would not have enough time to take action against the jump.

Various static-shots of the bridge are used throughout the filming, often in wide-angle and/or using time-lapse. Extreme zooms on pedestrians are often partnered with ambient music to give a haunting, foggy atmosphere. I find these shots especially overwhelming as they provide a strong visual/audio insight into how it may feel for those in a suicidal state of mind.

TOUCHING THE VOID

Touching The Void was produced in 2003 as a documentary-drama. Based on the book telling the story of Simon Yates and Joe Simspon attempting to clim the Siula Grande in Peru, and how the trek brought about disastrous consequences.

The documentary uses a combination of controlled-interviews in which Simon and Joe retell their stories, and scene re-enactments which successfully draw the audience into an intense viewing.

CATFISH

Catfish was directed by Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost, following an anonymous friendship between Nev Schulman (a 22-year old photographer) and Abby, an eight year old child-prodigy from Michigan. This friendship evolves into a relationship between Nev and Abby’s older sister Megan, who only communicates through text, email and phone- call.

When Megan send Nev an mp3 recording of a song she claims to have covered, the two directors become suspicious of Megan’s claims and her intent. This inspires the film-

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team to travel to Michigan to confront the family on their lies, ultimately finding out the truth; online profiles all over Facebook, including that of Megan, had been created by Angela Wesselman, Abbys mother. As a result of this discovery, Angela deletes these profiles and personas out of embarrassment, consequentially forcing the filmmakers to recreate these profiles and messages for cinematic/filmic purpose.

I am on the side of several critics, believing the documentary is fake and created as somewhat of a “scare story” in relation to the rise of social-media and Facebook’s prominence in modern societies.

THE IMPOSTER

This 2012 documentary is based on Frederic Bourdin, a French imposter acting as the returned Nicholas Barclay (an American teenager who went missing for several years in 1994).

The Barclay family were alerted three years after their son’s disappearance that he had been found in Spain, forced into a child-slavery ring throughout Europe. Bourdin had blonde hair and blue eyes, despite Nicholas Barclay’s dark hair and brown eyed appearance. DNA and fingerprint scans later revealed the child was in fact a 23-year old Frederic Bourdin posing as Nicholas Barclay.

Charlier Parker, the private investigator who ousted Frederic Bourdin, is convinced Nicholas Barclay was in fact murdered and the the Barclay know more than they let on, thus accepting Bourdin nearly without question despite his obvious physical and characteristic differences.

This documentary successfully uses re-enactment that allows audience members to further understand and speculate the gravity of each situation.

THE WORLD AT WAR: GENOCIDE

This documentary was directed by Michael Darlow and released early 1974, a year before the end of the Vietnam War. It inspects the atrocities of the WW2 and the Holocaust, and its impact on the world and its inhabitants. With a budget of 9million pounds (post inflation), the series took four years to produce, using eye-witness accounts and interviews to build a strong narrative.

The film was released only 30 years after the war ended, and although one may argue the advantage of hindsight, the documentary is told from a British perspective (although Laurence Olivier’s narrative is fairly objective, focusing primarily on factual statistics).

BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE

Directed by Michael Moore, Bowling For Columbine explores the mass-shorings and gun-culture within the United States, specifically inspecting the Columbine High School shooting committed by Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold in April 1999. Twelve students and a teacher were murdered, whilst a further twenty-one people were injured before the two perpetrators committed suicide.

The film’s first act builds a strong and convincing argument against the use of firearms within America. A strong scene supporting the argument against simple obtainability of a firearm follows Michael Moore joining a bank/opening a bank account and receiving a rifle as a thank-you from the bank.

Although this scene faced criticism due to recipients not actually receiving the rifle on the same day as opening an account, Michael Moore debunked this claim when releasing footage of bank employee Jan Jacobsen stating that the firearms are secured locally onsite of the bank.

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