Please leave your musings about the films and ideas generated by the Flaherty screenings.
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10 Responses to “Thoughts on the Flaherty Seminar”
WHY AM I HERE?
Five years ago I was falling in love with an Aztec dance troupe called
Quetzalcoatlicue. I offered my camera to its leader, Susana de Leon. I dreamed of learning more about indigenous dance and the way this group worked as community force.
Without a beat, Susana said, “We need a film on immigration.” That was not what I wanted to hear, but I began to listen and take notes.
When the ICE raids hit Minnesota a couple years ago, it was clear I must do
something if I can. I have found a perfect town a few hours north of Minneapolis, Pelican Rapids. It is a two stop light global village.
I find myself wondering if there’s a difference between intelligent and academic (perhaps one of the academics can answer this).
I feel the discussions are leaning a bit academic which bums me out (and kind of bores me). I would love to hear more from those (of us) who do not speak “academic.” I’ll commit to trying a little harder to speak from the heart and not the OED.
I feel we are hearing the same voices in every discussion. I would like to hear new voices encouraged. I worry, also, that it becomes like group therapy for some. I think it’s disrespectful of the filmmakers and the participants if instead of making a brief comment or question, the questioner goes on at length about their own emotional state.
TWO FACTOIDS ABOUT BAHMAN GOBADHI’S “HALF MOON”
1. All actors were non-professional Kurds – but for three: the two lady singers and the head border policeman were Persian.
2, Wireless broadband and cell phone service depicted in the film were readily available in the whole of Iran at the time the film was made. Their use in the story should not be considered surreal.
TWO FACTOIDS ABOUT BAHMAN GOBADHI’S “HALF MOON”
1. All actors were non-professional Kurds – but for three: the two lady singers and the head border policeman who were Persian professional actors.
2, Wireless broadband and cell phone service as depicted in the film were readily available throughout the whole of Iran at the time the film was made.
I agree with the poster who complained about a questioner who goes on at length about his or her own emotional state while watching a film, with accompanying dramatic hand gestures, for example “This is how I felt at the start of the film, these were my emotions midway, and even more important, this was my intense feeling at the end of the film!!!” The speaker’s spouse or mother may be interested in this detail, but it is likely that others are not.
I have really started to notice how many preconceptions I bring to films I watch over the past few days here. The Flaherty magic has been working on me despite myself, even when I have occasionally felt frustrated by some films or some discussions. I can feel myself loosening my grip on any rigid expectations – no longer seeing films I find difficult as pizza with the wrong kind of topping on them, as Laura Waddington put it.
It’s very exciting to feel this shift happen and I’m looking forward to seeing how this changes the work I do in the future.
I’m interested in how Bahmin Gobadhi has represented disability through the character of Mahdi in A Time for Drunken Horses and also how disability is used to serve the narrative. I feel Mahdi’s disability is sensationalized, that Gobadhi’s use of this character manufactures pity, and causes the audience to have greater sympathy for this family’s plight. Mahdi is made to be sick in the narrative and is given a death sentence; we learn he will die anyway, even if he gets the operation in Iraq his doctor has deemed he needs. At the same time, the character of Mahdi and the fact of his disability might be a metaphor for the Kurdish situation– the Kurds are not “whole” or complete, something is missing, they are facing death. Both of these uses of the image of a disabled body follow popular trends in the representation of disability (the “pity” narrative and the notion that disability = death).
I have to be honest and say that I am very disappointed with this year’s film program. Only about 20% of the films engaged me with stimulating content and form. The other 80% I found to be extremely boring, tedious, overly theoretical and abstract, impersonal and poorly produced (bad camera work and editing). I would like to see Flaherty’s program return to their approach of the 1980s (when I first attended) when they screened the very best of social issue and politically engaged documentaries.
“In Vanda’s Room” resonated with me because of the current situation in my hometown, where public housing is currently being demolished. In the film, I found the parallel destruction – that of the buildings and that of the inhabitants – devastating, yet the film still conveyed a dignity about how life is lived, drug use and all. I think about how residents of public housing where I live formed complex social networks and support systems for several generations there, and those systems dissolve with demolition. This is somewhat hinted at “in Vanda’s Room” by the family’s produce business and Vanda’s daily rounds.
For me this film brings up the issue of social responsibility and change, a topic referred to a few times but not fully addressed. Do documentary producers want to affect change? Is it enough to simply “leave a document,” probably to be archived in a collection, as in Laura Waddington’s “Border,” or in Alan Sekula’s “A Film For Laos”? There are many different kinds of practices that involve documentary tendencies, as Dan Streible pointed out, and some are more a part of the art world than the world of filmmaking. Laura’s artistic honesty that she spoke about follows a specific set of “rules,” her own rules, just as Pedro Costa developed his own approach which he felt was artistically honest, and Renee’s personal guidelines probably vary greatly but likewise reflect what she considers an honest approach. I think we just started figure out how to talk about these varying types of artistic honesty on Thursday. How does artistic honesty relate to social responsibility? And do some people think artistic honesty is mumbo jumbo?
June 22, 2008 at 2:55 pm |
WHY AM I HERE?
Five years ago I was falling in love with an Aztec dance troupe called
Quetzalcoatlicue. I offered my camera to its leader, Susana de Leon. I dreamed of learning more about indigenous dance and the way this group worked as community force.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQw3Vz1Ec70
Without a beat, Susana said, “We need a film on immigration.” That was not what I wanted to hear, but I began to listen and take notes.
When the ICE raids hit Minnesota a couple years ago, it was clear I must do
something if I can. I have found a perfect town a few hours north of Minneapolis, Pelican Rapids. It is a two stop light global village.
You can see why this is a great place for such a film here, as documented in a project called FACES OF CHANGE:
http://www.pelicanrapids.lib.mn.us/facesofchange.html
I wish I was there today, where the annual friendship festival is going on:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQ4sTVseF54
At the seminar, I want to learn more about migration and the media made about migration.
I am here because I wanted to film Aztec dance.
June 23, 2008 at 2:06 pm |
I find myself wondering if there’s a difference between intelligent and academic (perhaps one of the academics can answer this).
I feel the discussions are leaning a bit academic which bums me out (and kind of bores me). I would love to hear more from those (of us) who do not speak “academic.” I’ll commit to trying a little harder to speak from the heart and not the OED.
June 23, 2008 at 11:44 pm |
I feel we are hearing the same voices in every discussion. I would like to hear new voices encouraged. I worry, also, that it becomes like group therapy for some. I think it’s disrespectful of the filmmakers and the participants if instead of making a brief comment or question, the questioner goes on at length about their own emotional state.
June 24, 2008 at 7:48 pm |
TWO FACTOIDS ABOUT BAHMAN GOBADHI’S “HALF MOON”
1. All actors were non-professional Kurds – but for three: the two lady singers and the head border policeman were Persian.
2, Wireless broadband and cell phone service depicted in the film were readily available in the whole of Iran at the time the film was made. Their use in the story should not be considered surreal.
June 24, 2008 at 9:14 pm |
TWO FACTOIDS ABOUT BAHMAN GOBADHI’S “HALF MOON”
1. All actors were non-professional Kurds – but for three: the two lady singers and the head border policeman who were Persian professional actors.
2, Wireless broadband and cell phone service as depicted in the film were readily available throughout the whole of Iran at the time the film was made.
June 25, 2008 at 1:53 pm |
I agree with the poster who complained about a questioner who goes on at length about his or her own emotional state while watching a film, with accompanying dramatic hand gestures, for example “This is how I felt at the start of the film, these were my emotions midway, and even more important, this was my intense feeling at the end of the film!!!” The speaker’s spouse or mother may be interested in this detail, but it is likely that others are not.
June 25, 2008 at 10:16 pm |
I have really started to notice how many preconceptions I bring to films I watch over the past few days here. The Flaherty magic has been working on me despite myself, even when I have occasionally felt frustrated by some films or some discussions. I can feel myself loosening my grip on any rigid expectations – no longer seeing films I find difficult as pizza with the wrong kind of topping on them, as Laura Waddington put it.
It’s very exciting to feel this shift happen and I’m looking forward to seeing how this changes the work I do in the future.
June 26, 2008 at 5:21 am |
I’m interested in how Bahmin Gobadhi has represented disability through the character of Mahdi in A Time for Drunken Horses and also how disability is used to serve the narrative. I feel Mahdi’s disability is sensationalized, that Gobadhi’s use of this character manufactures pity, and causes the audience to have greater sympathy for this family’s plight. Mahdi is made to be sick in the narrative and is given a death sentence; we learn he will die anyway, even if he gets the operation in Iraq his doctor has deemed he needs. At the same time, the character of Mahdi and the fact of his disability might be a metaphor for the Kurdish situation– the Kurds are not “whole” or complete, something is missing, they are facing death. Both of these uses of the image of a disabled body follow popular trends in the representation of disability (the “pity” narrative and the notion that disability = death).
June 27, 2008 at 12:31 am |
I have to be honest and say that I am very disappointed with this year’s film program. Only about 20% of the films engaged me with stimulating content and form. The other 80% I found to be extremely boring, tedious, overly theoretical and abstract, impersonal and poorly produced (bad camera work and editing). I would like to see Flaherty’s program return to their approach of the 1980s (when I first attended) when they screened the very best of social issue and politically engaged documentaries.
June 27, 2008 at 5:36 am |
“In Vanda’s Room” resonated with me because of the current situation in my hometown, where public housing is currently being demolished. In the film, I found the parallel destruction – that of the buildings and that of the inhabitants – devastating, yet the film still conveyed a dignity about how life is lived, drug use and all. I think about how residents of public housing where I live formed complex social networks and support systems for several generations there, and those systems dissolve with demolition. This is somewhat hinted at “in Vanda’s Room” by the family’s produce business and Vanda’s daily rounds.
For me this film brings up the issue of social responsibility and change, a topic referred to a few times but not fully addressed. Do documentary producers want to affect change? Is it enough to simply “leave a document,” probably to be archived in a collection, as in Laura Waddington’s “Border,” or in Alan Sekula’s “A Film For Laos”? There are many different kinds of practices that involve documentary tendencies, as Dan Streible pointed out, and some are more a part of the art world than the world of filmmaking. Laura’s artistic honesty that she spoke about follows a specific set of “rules,” her own rules, just as Pedro Costa developed his own approach which he felt was artistically honest, and Renee’s personal guidelines probably vary greatly but likewise reflect what she considers an honest approach. I think we just started figure out how to talk about these varying types of artistic honesty on Thursday. How does artistic honesty relate to social responsibility? And do some people think artistic honesty is mumbo jumbo?