Observation

(A theoretical reflection)

Course materials: Grimshaw, Anna, and Amanda Ravetz. 2009. Social Observers: Robert Drew, Albert and David Maysles, Frederick Wiseman in Observational cinema pp. 24-50. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Man with a Movie Camera. Dziga Vertov, Soviet Union, 1929, 80 min.

Social observers by Grimshaw and Ravetz is a text mostly concerned with the way we observe things. The authors firstly address the genre of cinema verité and how it has been criticised for claiming to showcase the truth (when in fact, the simple positioning of the camera is already biased). Their focus, however, is not to criticise the movies they analise for what they are not, but for what they are. And their goal is to address observation as a “complex phenomenon that encompasses the technical and the aesthetic, skill and intuition, discipline and innovation” (Grimshaw, Ravetz, 2009, p.26).

In order to do so they analyse three movies, Primary, which follows candidates J.F.Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey, by Drew Associates. Salesman, about bible selling, by Albert Maysles, and Titicut Follies, that addresses institutional life.

In Primary, the authors believe the producers saw the role of the observer as more of a witness, one that was present whenever something was happening. The observer had to be alert to the unexpected, open to the spontaneous, learn what was banal and what was not. What the authors also claim is that Drew’s agenda was very clear throughout the movie. In Salesman, observation acquires a new meaning, it is not about large intense moments as it was on the first movie, but the emotional everyday life of those people. Whereas in Titicut Follies, Wiseman saw observation, according to the authors, as an inquiry, as a way to look closely, attentively and critically at the world.

This text made me think a lot about my way of observing and how I will apply this to the project. As researchers and scientists, we of course want to be as neutral and partial as possible, but, as we read and know, there is no such thing. Every movie and every way of observing follows some sort of agenda or goal. The angles, the sound, the position of the camera, it is all mostly intentional. My first big concern here is that the lack of technical skill will lead to sending a message I am not necessarily aware of or that I did not intend to send. Professional and experienced filmmakers can perfectly manipulate these technologies, we, however, cannot. So that makes me wonder, would our movie be more or less true to reality? Does the lack of deep knowledge of technology account for more truthfulness? Or is it in fact the opposite?

Contrasting this text with the movie “Man with a movie camera” was quite interesting. For more than one hour, Vertov shows us elements of daily life, in his silent experimental documentary. Cars, trams, eyes, horses, people on phones, babies cries, sick people, hurt people, elevators, it is all very chaotic. It seemed to me, particularly by the excerpt from 30:00 to 30:25, that the chaos is exactly what Vertov had in mind when shooting this. For him, if I were to try and guess what observation means, it would probably be something in between Salesman and Titicut Follies. Man With a Movie Camera observes the movement of everyday life, without paying attention to what is going on, but more focused on the movement itself and the chaos it creates. It is similar to Salesman in the sense that it captures the everydayness of life, but also close to Titicut because it looks closely and somewhat critically to the world.

To observe is, very clearly, something that can have different meanings for different people, and different filmmakers. I guess the challenge moving forward is to find out what meaning it has for me and my group and how we will tackle it when doing our project.