Linda Williams: “Mirrors without Memories: Truth, History and The Thin Blue Line” in Documenting the Documentary
-Fredric Jameson: cultural logic of post-modernism as new depthlessness
-much faith once placed in the ability of the camera to project truth
-but: remarkable hunger for documentary images of the real
-JFK (1991) as good example of ultimate loss of historical truth
-Stone belives that it is possible to intervene in the process in which truth is constructed
-documentaries very popular, often grim, historically complex subjects
The thin blue line as prime example for postmodern documentary approach:
-most remarked for the film-noirish beauty, re-enactments, etc
-Morris captures a truth, elicits a confession
– but in a film that is temporarity manipulated by the docu auteur
-rather than voyeuristic objectivity he achieves something more useful to the production of truth
-strategic approach to truth
still: no one ever believed in an absolute truth of cinema vérité.
-truth is not guaranteed and cannot be transparently reflected by a mirror with a memory
-new historicizations are fascinated by an inaccessible, ever receding, yet newly past which does have depth
-Errol Morris choice of discrediting some versions but never fixing one as the truth gives The thin blue line its power of truth
-Michael Moore’s Roger & Me: self-promoting placement of himself at centre of film, at times no objective portrayal of historical facts -> criticism from Jacobson
Where should documentaries draw the line in manipulating the historical sequence of their material
-Shoah: Lanzmann replaces memory of witness with another false memory: Lanzmann not to challenge the false testemony but dramatizes its effects -> rather action than memory
Williams conclues that not all postmodern documentries succumb to depthlessness of the simulacrum or that it gives up on truth. -> there can be historical depth to the notion of truth
Film History Memory Blog 