San Soleil

San Soleil was a very interesting documentary. At first it was very hard to understand, but now that i think about it the main focus was on memory. It was a woman narrating travels, although it seemed as if she was very disoriented. The story went from Japan, to animals doing very dirty things. It was kind of hard to follow.

A lot of the time the images that were playing in the background did not match the voice over of the woman. It makes you think was this done on purpose, for a specific meaning. Was Marker trying to say that at times our memory of the words that were said do not fit the specific images we associate them with, or rather that we misconstrue memories to match the words we want them to?

Another interesting fact was that Marker used Japan as a main focus. Why would Japan need to be a focus of his documentary? Possibly it is because Japan's culture is so different than that of the Americans, or the French. Japan is not often studied openly and there is little information about the festivals like the ones shown in the documentary.

The narrator in San Soleil is a female. For many documentaries the narrator is a male, with a very strong voice. The female in this film also had a very strong voice, but it was also calming at the same time. It was as if he used this for a reason, to make you really listen and think about the things this woman was saying.

Salesman

Salesman was the first documentary of the direct cinema movement. It followed a group of Bible salesman while they went about their day selling the Bible. As the film went on it focused on one man more than the others, and that was Paul. Paul was the oldest seller, and the film slowed his slow decline as a salesman and his frustration with the process. At the end of the film it is left open what happens with Paul, but it can be inferred that he was going to be fired in the near future. Paul could not get many more sales when he used to be able to get a lot.

The film was interesting because it showed real life people, doing their job. It looked as if the camera rarely interfered with things, but then again how could it not. A man was coming into your house to sell a bible with a camera crew. It was very interesting to see the people in the town open their houses no matter what they were doing. Many of them were in their pajamas and did not look as if they would want to be on film.

The use of direct cinema allowed the Maysles brothers to capture the men as they really were. While they were in between selling bibles you often saw them smoking and drinking, which was odd since they were bible salesman. It opened up your eyes to the things people do when no one is aware of them.

Edgar Barnes

In Barne's documentary he focused on prisons and the new hospice program that is coming to them. In the opening scene of his documentary he used a man named Jack, talking about why he was sent to jail and his story. The entire documentary then follows Jack as he is diagnosed with an illness and is going to the hospice program. There are many interviews with the staff, and one long segment of a woman talking about the hospice program and the benefits of having one in a prison. There is no outside narration in the documentary, but Barnes does use words on the screen at times in between segments. At times there is absolutely no words being said, not even an interview with the patients, the scene speaks for itself. Take for example a man trying to get into his bed, and having a very long struggle with it. It shows a very independent man struggling to do simple daily things, it proves that there is a need for hospice, so the patients can be helped. They would be able to get assistance, and it would be from their fellow prisoner.

Harvey Milk and World at War

World at War was an informative documentary. It used a narrator and archival images to get the point across. The documentary was on WWI, and focused on genocide. Genocide in this documentary was seen as subjective, and there was room for your own interpretation of the events as you were watching the film. In the film there was a narrator, but he was never seen. He talked over the clips, or in between them to explain what was happening within the documentary. The narrator would go from instructive narration to moralizing, trying to explain what was essentially going on in the war.



The times of Harvey Milk was a persuasive documentary. There was much archival footage and most of it was of Milk as a very happy individual. It showed him being content with his life, and loving every minute of it. This documentary used voice of God narration. The narrator talked over the clips, and was never seen. He is to be omniscient and ultimately be like a figure above all others. There was no interviews with experts in this documentary, and it was all footage of Milk himself.

Millhouse

Millhouse was all about president Nixon, and his presidency. This was shot pre-watergate, and ultimately influenced future campaigns. In the beginning of the film it starts slightly creepy, with a dummy of Nixon. It immediately gives the impression that de Antonio clearly did not like Nixon, and thought he was not intelligent. Throughout the film we saw clips of Nixon, and many of the things he said and did that were not the brightest. It gave an automatic negative image of Nixon, and made him out to be a bad man. This impacted future campaigns because the manipulation of film is what made him look so bad. De Antonio chose clips that portrayed Nixon in a negative light to get his point across. Today this can be seen among many campaigns, there are often slander campaigns against the persons opponent. There are commercials showing everything one person is doing wrong within their campaign. A lot of damage can be done to a persons reputation if there is enough manipulation of the film.

De Antonio does a good job of using the right clips to get his point across. He makes Nixon look like a fool through his entire documentary. Since this was pre-watergate, many people at the time were in favor of Nixon. After watergate this film was most likely looked at in a different light, for people were very anti-Nixon after watergate.

In the Year of the Pig

In the year of the pig was a very interesting documentary. It wanted to show the events leading up to when the Americans got involved in the Vietnam war. This was a very controversial issue, for many people were against our involvement in Vietnam. The documentary was synchronous and nonsynchronous. At many times they showed an image and then had a person talking about those said images. At one point in time they just ran footage of the leaders in Vietnam, Diem and Madam Nu, and merely let the images speak for themselves. They ran footage of them in interviews, and addressing the nation and let people gather their own opinions. The footage was mostly displayed them in a negative light. For the one clip of the Madam was her addressing the nation and sounding very self absorbed, and quite mean. She sounded as if she put herself above all others. The documentary seemed to show a stereotype of how Americans think of Asian women, and the Asian race. The narration was against voice of God, and most of the time had clips running with people talking in them.