Moving Images, Understanding Media

224 Moving Images: Making Movies, Understanding Media

Th e intent is to create truthful, spontaneous reactions from the subjects

of the movie, and the appearance of the fi lmmakers is embedded in the search

for truth in the motion picture, as one can see in documentaries by such

fi lmmakers as Marcel Ophuls and Nick Broomfi eld. Variations on the techniques

of cinéma vérité movies have been used signifi cantly by contemporary fi lms

that feature their directors, such as in the documentaries of Michael Moore

and in mockumentaries that accompany the fi lmmaker.

Filmmakers who have made documentaries in which they are physically

present in the images have employed a wide variety of methods. In the feature

fi lm Th e Beaches of Agnès (2008), director Agnès Varda uses the presence

of beaches in her life as a storytelling cornerstone for this autobiographical

fi lm. She invited family members and friends to participate in this memoir

that explored her over fi ve-decade moviemaking career and other adventures,

including her marriage with director Jacques Demy until his death from

cancer. Discussing the use of clips from her movies for this documentary,

“Th e selections from my fi lms were treated as if the ensemble of my work

was an information bank and I could use a fi ction or documentary scene

outside of its context.”

For his movie Super Size Me (2004), fi lmmaker Morgan Spurlock centers

the entire fi lm around a personally-directed experiment to create an exposé

on American gluttony and fast food culture. In fi lms such as this one, since

incidents are taking place just as they are fi lmed, the presence of the fi lmmaker

can be the essential instigator of what we see.

Documentaries that are autobiographical or that recount a family memoir

oft en feature the presence of their creator throughout the fi lm, which can

Figure 6-14 A frame

featuring director Agnès

Varda’s hand in her

documentary The Gleaners

and I. As discussed in

Chapter 5, Varda has made

a wide range of fi ction and

documentary fi lms, and for

The Gleaners and I she used

low-cost digital technology

to create an award-winning

feature. (Courtesy

Ciné-Tamaris)

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