war & peace in documentary filmmaking

josephine has had a revelation about conflict, exploitation, and humanity in documentary filmmaking. we're here to follow a person's life. this may sound obvious to you abstract thinkers out there, but you can't just walk in and say to whoever's in front of the camera: "act naturally." people say, "it may sound mercenary, but you've got to go in and get your shot. you're making a movie. you trample things. people may make fun of you, but what can you do?" they may think they're just laying plain the realities of documentary film-making, but while driving south on interstate 65 from chicago in some epiphantic fit of envisioning, josephine exclaimed that you don't have to listen to those people.

no no she says, it's about the relationship you make with the person on film. if you care about the fate of the person and your own work as fitting in their life as a positive influence, the person will feel cared about. he'll know you have good intentions, that if he finds a way to be in front of the camera, it's for a postive reason, and that your work is a positive force in the world. he'll be happy to be in front of the camera. only then can a film-maker capture unguarded, real feelings that move audiences. and at that point the film is secondary to the friendship anyway. it's the actions of communication off camera between film-maker and actor that enrich the scenes that go on in front of a documentary camera.

of course good documentaries may already exhibit this. but there is a vast number of documentaries that exhibit inhumanity and tension between the film-maker and the filmed. here it's obvious to any audience that no one in front of or behind the camera is ever able to achieve any height or depth of human expression.