Evidence and Facts: The Intricate Webs in Documentary Filmmaking

“Documents are factual; documentaries are evidential. What constitutes evidence, and how do documentary filmmakers utilize it? Facts provide information but do not necessarily serve as evidence” [Page 97]. My points of focus for Nichols’s read, because I see facts as undeniable certainties such as ice melts and fish swims and evidence as the web that connects all the facts to form a theory, knowledge or a story. With that there is a heavy importance of gathering evidence even if the facts are known and example from Nichols read seems to express this concern.

On Page 99 the documentary “An Injury to One (Travis Wilkerson)”, the film tells the history of a town whose mines are owned by a company named ARCO. A lake which happens fill the open-pit

mine has been rendered toxic, loaded with copper, lead, zinc and etc. A flock of geese happened to land on that lake after a sudden storm. 342 geese were found dead in the morning, and as Nichol describes their deaths “blistered with lesions, their esophagi and trachea corroded, and their livers bloated with toxic quantities of heavy metals”[page 160]. From the description of the event described in Nichols read and by the film’s author Wilkerson, it would seem that evidence points to the negligence of the company ARCO, but the company’s representatives point the blame to bad dieting and not the lake. I took a read on that and confirmed its authenticity of the disaster but I also learned that about 20 years after the incident Sandy Stash who was the project manager of the ARCO at the time and one of the representatives that blamed the deaths of geese to bad diet, admitted it was cause of the acidity of the lake.
The framing of the example is the major importance I derived. How the story is labeled “bad food”, which is to say that the facts depicts the geese had a poisonous diet or the labeled “mass suicide”, this one from Wilkerson himself says according to Nichols’ read page [100] “a costly symbolic gesture pointing to a past crime”. I am honestly not bothered much about death of the geese or trying to decipher which side was accurate, but am depicting this example for it is the easiest for me to understand the importance of documentary filming.
First off, I asked myself if the documentary filming is still relevant in this day of age. Where modes of communications have greatly matured since the early 2000 and facts and information can easily be gathered from news anchor, blogs, tweets, Wikipedia and etc. However, as the Nichols states on page 112 in regards to live news coverage the facts are scarce, background information does not exist, and no one can accurately narrate a story when the actual story is unknown. The same can be said by blogs, tweets and Wikipedia, where it is often opinions of others usually blinded by a personal agenda, lacking any source materials. Once in a while a reliable one occurs but it is never instantaneous, or spotless on facts gathering. Now Nichols reads never said that Documentary films are a 100% percent reliable source of information for an event, but the author expresses the functions of what a documentary film should try it best to perform with all honesty and thorough research. The author expresses his functions and further explains upon them with the example of the tragedy that is 9/11 which are:
• Making Meaning [page 113]
• In Search of a Pattern [page 116]
• What’s The Story Here? [page 118]
• Framing Things [page 120]
• Frames and Fetishes [page 121]
• Fetishism and Fantasy [page 124]
• The Terrorist Fantasy [page 128]
With the functions and reasons for documentary films, I would think there will be very little to talk more about the subject, but I would be wrong since Nichols book is nearly 300 pages, and along these 300 pages was ‘Documentary Ethics’.
Documentary Ethics as cleverly defined as the subtitle of the chapter [page 154, chapter 13] ‘Doing the Right Thing’. In this case besides the facts checking and correlation of evidence, filmmakers of documentary films, have to be consider the protection of the vested interests of the professional group from outside intervention by providing a self-policing mechanism and to safeguard the well-being of those who come into contact with this professional group. [Page 154]. A brief summary of this is to protect the film subjects and the audience who views them.
Documentary films are retells real life events and a great majority of those events are traumatic for example 9/11, the holocaust, Vietnams war and Pearl Harbor just to name a few even others that aren’t about tragedy but may involve stories that may seem unpleasant to some people for example documentary about Nelson Mandela, often depicts the trails and tribulation of the famous South African as he fought peacefully for his country and in most cases leave out the information about is involvement in a terrorist group Umkhonto we Sizwe(spear of the nation) which was responsible for many innocent deaths.

The ethnic codes or rules, for documentary films seem simple enough to follow, but the problem they could affect the authenticity of a documentary film which may lead it to be inaccurate. An example is the British documentary film titled “You Have Been Trumped” Directed by Anthony Baxter. The film depicts a David and Goliath story, where Trumps propose building a luxury golf course on a Scottish land owned by the locals. Skipping the details, the film ends with the locals wining and the plan for the golf course abandoned, however, the golf course was built and the locals were forced out of the land.

What happened? Why the change of depicting in the

documentary?
In one of Nichols read which I seem to revel was on page 162.

Where the volunteers were recruited to test another person’s the learning skills via shock therapy and would be ordered to administer increasing electric shocks on the ‘learners’. The twist being that the learners were actors and what was being tested was the willingness of the volunteers to follow the commands with the knowledge that it could lead to severe discomfort or even death of fellow human being. Besides having this example to test the ethnic code on both sides with the unknowingly film subjects and the audience, I find it brilliant because it brings out the darkness of an average person by given them a little power or it expresses how easily we act as sheep blindly following orders that we should be second guessing. Who knows the experiment was actually trying to prove it could just being trying to break the ethnic codes alone?

To end my discussion with a quote form Nichol’s read “ A documentary ethnics would seem to approach to fundamental level when it addresses the need to respect the dignity and earn trust of subjects and viewers alike as well as acknowledge that struggle for power and the right to represent a distinct perspective are at issue. The foundation does not produce “Do this, Do that” dogma but instead acknowledges that questions of ethnics remain situated in an evolving historical context”.[page 162

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