Truth or Fiction

Hot Docs, the Toronto based documentary film festival is going to screen a film which questions Micheal Moore's film making practices. The film is called "Manufacturing Dissent".

Here is an article written by one of the film makers, Debbie Melnyk...

http://www.nysun.com/article/52715

And here is another article discussing the film controversy...

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/entertainment/view/271037/1/.html

Just Google for more info if you feel inclined.

Now, none of this background information regarding Mr's Moore's film strategies is new, and, ultimatelty, I have no desire to comment on his work in particular. What interests me is the concept of the documentary film as truth or fact.

Is Mr Moore violating the audiences trust by manipulating the events in his film? Are his film still documentaries?

Are Mr Moore's films less true and/or less documentaries in light of accusations of manipulation?

They are "less true" on the level of plot, perhaps. By that I mean, what happened did not happen in the order in which it's presented. This level of manipulation is a fairly common place narrative device. (So is omission, I should add.) But what about the story his films tell? Is he lying by excluding his interview with Roger Smith in Roger and Me?

I don't think so. The film was not about interviewing Roger Smith. It never claims to be about interviewing Roger Smith (interviewing Mr Smith is a narrative device, no more). None of his films are specifically about the individuals involved. Moore chooses his subject because they represent a point of view in the larger arguments his film engage.

Micheal Moore's film's are rhetorical, in the classical sense of Rhetoric.

I'd argue he has never claimed to be telling the truth, but is in fact trying to convince the audience to believe what he thinks is true. In the realms of rhetoric, "truth" and "belief" have no relation, nor should they in the real world. I'd also argue that what distinguishes a documentary from a fiction film is that documentaries are rhetorical. So, even though he "lies" to the audience (or omits) about specifics, his films are still documentaries by the simple fact that they are rhetorical.

No documentary is "True". They shouldn't even try to be. They just have to be convincing.

More on this later, in my first Books on Film post.

t