documentary-AMY

AMY

documentary definition: 

A documentary film  is a non-fictional, motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education, or maintaining a historical record"

what we focus on when analysing AMY
film form 
critical debates
filmmaker-theories
meaning and response
contexts

section B-documentary
an exam question would be on filmmaker-theories and / critical debates, so you can sort of plan your answer before


according to bill Nichols, the documentary can be subdivided into
6 documentary modes:

POETIC MODE- The poetic mode is considered a „subjective interpretation of the subject‟ – essentially meaning its biased. This model dictates that a certain tone or mood is depicted throughout the documentary, which will influence the viewers understanding and intake of information. This mood is purposefully created through the left out of important information, such as character descriptions and specific events, which create a biased viewpoint.


Expository Mode- The expository mode is where the documenter speaks directly to the viewer, through the use of tools such as voice over, or subtitles, and through this create a powerful argument and point of view. Images are more so used to emphasise the point being mentioned by the documenter and not to create their own point, this adds to the extremity of the point being made, and adds relevant pictorial evidence. Through this use of pictures being accompanied by direct addressing of the audience, the audience is strongly directed to view a picture or video in a specific way. This is used in historical documentaries to deliver an „unproblematic and objective‟ account and interpretation of past events.

Observational Model- Emphasizing the documentary filmmakers engagement in observing the subjects daily life and circumstances and documenting them with an unobtrusive camera. The observational mode uses a more „unbiased‟ method, through the simple observation of events happening around the documenter without any direct interference. Conclusions are then obtained from the events and scenarios witnessed. This passive way of obtaining facts, creates a more intimate connection between the audience, by them actually witnessing real events (such as trauma or injury‟) which can cause an emotional response from the viewer.

Participatory Mode- The participatory mode believes that the documenter has to have a certain level of influence on the footage and facts. This allows a certain level of clear evidence on the documenters presence affecting events. The incorporation of documenter influence will essentially make the film entirely biased, as they will create artificial events to create a strong and evident argument.


Reflexive Mode Definition- The mode uses specific footage and information that will lead viewers to a specific outcome and therefore essentially make the decision of their opinions for them. The reflexive mode essentially highlights constructed scenarios and does not create a sense of realism intentionally to emphasise the point of the documentary. This can highlight extreme cases of events, but these will be considered normal by the un-aware viewer. This extreme use of suggestion toward one viewpoint makes the documentary especially successful.

Performative Mode- An example of the Performative Mode is Alain Resnais‟ Night and Fog (1955) a subjective, survivor account of the holocaust, recounting a biased opinion of the events have taken place. The controversial content and subject matter of the film causes it to become an emotionally based film, adding the aspects of the Performative Mode. Also, it follows the typical convention that this mode is suited more for minorities to give them a voice.


AMY-Mode This could be an observational documentary as the director didn’t really have an impact on what was filmed only what was included. As none of this footage is his own except the interviews he didn’t influence the footage or behaviours. Narrative The documentary follows a linear narrative as it goes through Winehouse’s death from start to finish. It is also a single strand narrative as the only concentration of the documentary is Amy Winehouse’s life and career. Type This could be a fly-on-the-wall documentary as a lot of the documentary is footage of concerts and home footage which isn’t staged and just follows casual and usual about of what her life was like.


AMY paragraph:

At the very end of the film, where Amy's death takes place, and there is archived montage footage of the scene outside her house with the ambulance outside alongside with the voiceover  Morris, her bodyguard. The first witness to her death, explaining how Amy told him the night before how much she hated being famous. Asif Kapadia assembled the footage and Andrew's voice to magnify how little privacy Amy actually had even on her death bed, she was filmed and photographed, showing no escape from paparazzi even after her death. Kapadia wanted the spectators to sympathise and empathise with Amy, to show her lack of control and abusement to drugs as an escapism from the shock of sudden fame, as well as a cry for help and a lack of hope. Kapadia style of personal documentary depicts Amy in a certain way, as spectators we are compelled to sympathise with Amy, through the interviews with Amy loved ones as well as compelling montages of Amy being her charismatic self, but we are also forced to see her at her worse. Therefore at the end of the film, we are left to our own devices of judgment on Amy Winehouse but we are encouraged to feel sorry for her due to  Kapadia's personal documentary style. To compare Kapdias work with that of another filmmaker, Longinotto and observational filmmaker, who makes her work more of an objective form, rather than Kapadia with Amy because he takes more time manipulating his work because more process has gone into influencing spectator response, making it more subjective and leaning favour towards Amy.

Amy essay

Apply one filmmaker's theory of documentary film you have studied to your chosen documentary. How far does this increase your understanding of the film?

In Asif Kapadia's documentary Amy, which is about the life of Amy Winehouse, Kapadia could be seen as a personal documentary filmmaker due to the many hours of archive footage he collected and edited to make the film. Kapadia shares some traits with the observational filmmaker, Kim Longinotto, where they both delve deep into the lives of their chosen projects by making the spectator feel a part of their life; both use voiceover to create a commentary on their chosen subjects; however, whilst Longinotto personally speaks in her documentary voiceover, Kapadia is silent. Therefore, there is more of a sense of distance created by Kapadia from his subject. Kapadia’s documentary speaks directly to the spectator through voiceovers of the people who were involved in the time of what was being shown. This exposes the deeper meaning of what was happening at that time. This influences the spectator to create new opinions on Amy and not what is just being shown. Kapadia wants the spectator to feel a certain way about Amy and does this through the archived footage he edited in certain ways. This included handheld camera footage and paparazzi footage. All of these micro features help the spectator to feel more involved with the documentary, as they create a feeling of intimacy with Amy’s ‘real’ life. Kapadia's main theme he wanted to express was that of what publicity can do to your life and what the corruption of fame does to people. 

At around the midpoint of Amy (dir. Asif Kapadia), there is a section where Amy's song Love is a Losing Game is played over a series of videos and pictures over her and Blake. The song and the images are manipulated by Kapadia as they are played as the spectator learns of the demise of their relationship and the negative, destructive effect that it had on Amy and her mental health. This section and this technique are particularly effective as Kapadia manipulates the way the spectator views Blake throughout the film, this section, in particular, portrays him as corrupt and manipulative shaping the way the spectator will continue to view Blake. Whereas Amy is shown to be sweet and innocent compared to blake, perhaps suggested by the inclusion of the song weaved into the background of the images, it is one of her more honest and open songs and develops the idea that Blake was the negative counterpart in the relationship and was the main destructive influence on Amy. This could be seen as a further manipulation by Kapadia to give the spectator a bias against Blake as a figure, possibly diminishing the objective element of the documentary as the spectator learns more about her and her relationship with Blake. Compared to an observational filmmaker such as Kim Longinottto who has more of an objective approach. Because she is purely just observing and filming, also Longnitto spends less time editing than Kapadia. He searches for archived footage and goes through a long process of editing and cutting all the footage down into a 128-minute film. Kapadia's personal documentary-style makes Amy a more subjective film because he spends more time engineering his work. 

At the very end of the film, where Amy's death takes place, there is archived montage footage of the scene outside her house with the ambulance outside alongside with the voiceover of Andrew Morris, her bodyguard. The first witness to her death, explaining how Amy told him the night before how much she hated being famous. Asif Kapadia assembled the footage and Morris’ voice to magnify how little privacy Amy actually had even on her death bed, she was filmed and photographed, showing no escape from paparazzi even after her death. Kapadia wanted the spectators to sympathise and empathise with Amy, to show her lack of control and abuse of drugs as a form of escapism from the shock of sudden fame, as well as a cry for help and a lack of hope. Kapadia style of personal documentary depicts Amy in a certain way, as spectators we are compelled to sympathise with Amy, through the interviews with Amy loved ones as well as compelling montages of Amy being her charismatic self, but we are also forced to see her at her worse. Therefore at the end of the film, we are left to our own devices of judgment on Amy Winehouse but we are encouraged to feel sorry for her due to Kapadia's personal documentary style. To compare Kapadia’s work with that of another filmmaker, Longinotto and her observational style, Kapadia’s film seems more subjective because he takes more time manipulating his work; more process has gone into influencing spectator response, making it more subjective and leaning favour towards Amy.

in conclusion, my understanding of film has increased because the comparison I made between Longinottos observational style showed how it differs from Kapadia's style in Amy and that allowed me to become more aware of the big spectrum of documentary film differs as a whole. It also illustrated to me how the editing processes differed to make a different ending result of the film.

Discuss how far your chosen films reflect aesthetic qualities associated with a particular film movement.

Discuss how far your chosen films reflect aesthetic qualities associated with a particular film movement. 

sapphire collins

'man with a movie camera' by Dziga Vertov and 'a Propos de nice' by Jean Vigo are my chosen films both of these films are the pioneers of the Constructivist art movement that showcases the conversion of how people view the Bourgeoisie as a defect of capitalism. It encapsulates the uprisen of industrialisation and the increasingly progressive nature people of Russia  (a man with a movie camera). Constructivism art according to its manifesto is  'purely technical mastery and organisation of materials' and that art should directly reflect the modern industrial world. Vertov and Vigo both are constructivist and pioneer the constructivist movement through there films.

Film is a relatively new invention, the film itself is an expression of modernism. Within this context, Vertovs MWAMC (1929)  pioneered the movement and should be considered one of the best films of its time because of its importance in the history of art. It's essentially a time-capsule that allows the modern-day spectator to watch an abstract view on how the people of 1929 dealt with the oppression of the bourgeoisie and their attempt to reject it. Vertov being a constructivist, for him, montage was part of the selection process. The combination of shots would affect the audience, making them aware. He founded the experimental group Kino eye together with his wife Elisaveta Svilova (co-editor) and his brother Mikhail Kaufman (cameraman). They felt the task of the Soviet film was to document reality ‘to reveal the truth’ and were opposed to the fiction film that depended on artifice.

'A popos de nice' was directed by Jean Vigo and photographed by Boris Kaufman (brother of dziga Vertov) the film depicts life in Nice, France by documenting people in the city, daily routines, a carnival & social inequalities. from Vigo's manifesto, he proclaims 'way of life is put on trial... the last gasps of a society so lost in its escapism that it sickens you & makes you sympathetic to a revolutionary solution'. Although its a french film, its heavily influenced by soviet modernism and constructivism-not least through family ties to Vertov, and as such it sits firmly in that genre.


Specifically in MWAMC, Roughly a third of the way through the film, Vertov uses a sequence involving trains and trams in order to showcase communistic expansion and innovation in the Soviet Union. He praises this new technological advance via the use of muscular filmmaking. of the ways this is most prevalent is through the use of split-screen and a canted camera angle. This is reflective of the social hierarchy as the rich on the right get richer whilst the poor on the left get poorer; however, after the Russian Revolution of 1917, which saw the overthrow of the aristocracy, there was a newfound sense of equality, so the canted split screen could be seen as representing the way in which rich and poor were merging.  Vertov was heavily influenced by the soviet USSR government, to incorporate Russian propaganda in MWAMC to display Russia in more of positive light and to appeal to global superpowers. Even though Vertov was governed by the governmental pressures he still was able to incorporate 'film hooliganism'.  Sergei Eisenstein, a Soviet contemporary of Vertov, dismissed him as a “hooligan", due to Vertov’s almost fetishistic experimentation with the possibilities of the medium.

Another example of this would be the very final scene encapsulates the kino group's exploration of the postmodern constructivist movement and celebrates experimental cinema. Vertov uses many intercutting, fast pace shots of a bird's eye view shot of a mass group of people in the centre of Moscow. Vertov wanted to demonstrate his virtuoso film making by using the birds-eye view shot. We then it cuts to Kaufman, with the fast pace moving camera showing the reality of how fast pace life can be.; then onto a low angle extreme close up of Svilova- specifically her eyes -as she edits the film; and a series of shots of trains and other forms of new technology moving rapidly across the screen. This gives the impression that Svilova is watching over the diegetic events of the film; in effect, she is controlling them. The Kino-Eye group believed in experimenting with the potential of cinema to record the truth. Therefore, the editor's role is celebrated here. This final sequence is all about the gaze of Svilova, and also the gaze of the camera lens; it is a newfound way of capturing modernity. Of how the modernist, revolutionary, constructivist vision or the future has taken over cinema, but also the world at large. Vertov's juxtaposition of the clock pendulum and the rapidly moving train - presented via quick, two frames cuts-perfectly encapsulates this aesthetic



in 'A popos de nice'  about a quarter way through, there is a high angle shot of seemingly well-dressed middle-class people walking along the beach. Because the camera is seemingly distant from the civilians this dehumanises them and gives a sense of them being unattainable. Throughout the film, we see more of these shots looking down on the middle-class citizens. Illustrating how he Thinks low of the working-class individuals and highlights his dislike for them. Show the city symphony as represents the population excluding the middle-class, and how the rest of society has a dislike for the middle class due to their elaborate lifestyle and potential arrogance.  


In conclusion, both 'APDN' and 'MWAMC' display aesthetic qualities in there films to reflect the attitudes they have towards the societal issues that they want to overcome and begin to change. Both films have a big part in film history itself. Because they pushed the film to new lengths with new innovative aesthetic techniques such as film hooliganism, muscular filmmaking and meta-analysis in film, and these features have never been seen before. Therefore these films acted as a forefront to pave the way for other filmmakers in the future.