Documentary subject matter vs. quality

Recently, I saw two of the most buzzed-about documentaries of the year, Waiting for "Superman" and Inside Job. Despite the extremely urgent and pertinent subject matter (education and the financial collapse, respectively) and the universal critical praise, why did I find the net result to be rather underwhelming?

While some might grumble that narrative films about wars or social issues get a lot more love at Oscar time, the disparity becomes jacked up so much in the documentary world that a nonfiction film can coast on its subject alone. In an article over at Cinematical earlier this year, Christopher Campbell notes that despite its worthy topic, he found the documentary Food Inc. to be downright mediocre. He claims that "the majority ignored the problems with its storytelling, editing and narrowness of testimony because they favored the cause," and offered excerpts from critics who were essentially unable to defend the film on its own merits but just kept stressing that people should see it. Despite the opportunities offered by the cinematic medium, he concludes that the film offered nothing beyond the book on which it was based.

Now, I will say that making a documentary about an issue as opposed to a specific person, group or event poses great challenges. Do you include lots of facts and figures? Interviews with experts, the common man, or both? What stance do you take? These questions have no right answers, but with Inside Job and Waiting for "Superman" I can't help but feel that something was wrong about the approach.

WfS must be making serious bank off the guilt of the privileged and insulated, because the chatter in the ladies' room afterwards seemed to indicate certain viewers' lack of awareness of the state of American education. Listen, I don't expect everyone to know the details and statistics, but as far as I'm concerned knowing that education here is awful is as basic as knowing that we went to war with Iraq. But I guess if everyone knew that, not as many people would be finding the film so eye-opening. As a way of demonstrating its point, the film follows a handful of students in different cities in their quest to escape the public school system and get into a private or charter school. I had trouble getting involved in these stories, because of the distance maintained by the constant reminder that the education of these kids isn't what's really at stake, but they're Representative of a Larger Issue.

I also understand a documentary's desire to convey a specific stance, but even with my limited knowledge of the situation I know that nothing on earth is as binary and straightforward as the director, Davis Guggenheim, makes it out to be. Basically, the take-home message is that everything is the fault of the cackling, nefarious cults known as teachers' unions, and we just need to send all kids to charter schools because charter schools are perfect. But how convenient that all the charter schools they feature are excelling, which is not entirely representative of how they're actually faring nationwide. And how convenient that it's entirely the fault of the unions, and has nothing to do with politicians, government, parents, or anyone else. Look, I'm fine with biased documentaries, and if you're Michael Moore you're sure as hell going to leave out any information that hurts your cause. But if a film is urging reform, I think it's actually detrimental to say there's only a single cause and single solution. Why was there no mention, for instance, of Brockton High School, which went from performing dismally to outperforming most of the state by an aggressive implementation of literacy and writing lessons in every class, including gym? There was no government involvement, no unions got their feathers ruffled, it didn't cost a thing, and no personnel was shuffled. Did I mention that this was at a school with 4,100 students? Where's the documentary on that? I suppose that ultimately, this film can be galvanizing and startling to those who genuinely believe that the American education system is peachy. For everyone else, however, it's clunky and simplistic, and its likelihood of winning the Oscar because the voters feel guilty about sending their kids to private school bums me out.

Inside Job, conversely, could never conceivably be described as simplistic - it's a barrage of information that's actually pretty well organized. The problem, though, is that the movie has no exclusive information. Oh sure, there are plenty of interviews, but they don't offer anything new - economists and scholars reemphasize that they predicted the meltdown, and the fat cats squirm in the spotlight and act like nothing happened. All the information is already out there - frequently on the front page - making the film simply a synthesis. That's fine, I guess, but I tend to agree with critic Shawn Levy's assessment that it hasn't "been rendered in a way that's genuinely worth paying contemporary movie ticket prices to learn about." I couldn't help but wondering if it was really more of a TV special, something in the vein of 20/20 perhaps. Had it been produced and aired in that format, it probably would have reached a significantly wider audience. But instead they had Matt Damon narrate it, released it in theaters and cinched a Best Documentary nomination.

Look, I'm always glad when any form of media gets people talking, especially about issues and current events. I just don't think that should be confused with good filmmaking, and if the best-made documentary of the year is actually about a cute kitten with a funny hat, it should be recognized as such. What do you think? Does subject matter trump all? What was your reaction to these films?

What's the point of the "awareness" documentary?

Yesterday, my boyfriend asked me if I was interested in seeing the documentary Collapse with him, which according to IMDb is "a portrait of radical thinker Michael Ruppert [who] explores his apocalyptic vision of the future, spanning the crises in economics, energy, environment and more." I declined, because, well, what's the point?

I have always had a vague problem with "crisis" documentaries that I have never really been able to put into words. I could finally crystallize my feelings after seeing the excellent The Yes Men Fix the World. The film follows the Yes Men, two men who expose hypocrisy and stupidity in corporations and the government through elaborate pranks. Think Michael Moore meets Borat. In addition to causing a stir, though, the pranks have a purpose - for instance, one of them poses as a representative of the New Orleans government and promises to reopen a public housing area, thinking the real government will be too embarassed not to follow up on it. It doesn't actually work, but they get a lot further than you'd think. Most amazingly, though, it had a hopeful ending. They pass out a fake issue of the New York Times that has optimistic headlines like "College is made free for everyone" and "war in Iraq ends" and show people reacting positively to it, and end on the basic message that if two guys can get as far as they did, anyone is truly capable of making a change.

That was it. That was why Michael Moore's films had always left a sour taste in my mouth. It wasn't because of the subject matter - the Yes Men tackled subjects like a city in India left ravaged by the effects of a chemical disaster - but that the message seemed to be "this sucks and there is nothing anyone can do to fix it." Particularly in Roger and Me, which ends on an almost snarkily ironic credits sequence that features the Beach Boys' "Wouldn't It Be Nice," Moore doesn't seem concerned with making things better, only informing people that things are terrible. And this begs the question: what's the value of just plain awareness?

I'm going to put out the bold idea that it's not worth very much. The idea is that from awareness will come action, but at least from personal experience I never find that it works that way. Moore's films (I'm just using him as an example, there are obviously others) are so depressing that they become paralyzing. You walk out of the theater feeling too bad to do anything. Usually the only thing borne from that kind of "awareness" is cocktail-party banter. "Say, did you know that the town of Flint, Michigan is falling apart at the seams? Simply dreadful! Would you like another martini?" I experienced a fundamentally different phenomenon with The Yes Men, however. By staying positive and particularly ending a positive note, the film galvanized and energized me instead of draining me. I wanted to do something. (I didn't, because I suck, but this was closer than I had gotten before.)

The other problem is that is often's unclear what viewers CAN do to make a difference. I learned in a psychology class that contrary to popular belief, human beings often don't engage in helping behavior not because they don't want to or they're heartless, but because they simply don't know how. They see a situation and keep walking because they genuinely don't know what to do and how to contribute. Thus, I think these kinds of documentaries could benefit substantially from a screen at the end that says something like "We have started a fund for the people you see in this film, go to blablabla.com to learn more and donate" or maybe have people with collection jars outside the theater. There's nothing wrong with guiding people and giving them a little push. It can be hard to come away from a film of that sort and immediately formulate a way to connect yourself to the cause.

Finally, an inherent problem with the "just awareness" movie is that it costs money to make. Maybe a lot of money - obviously, not an Avatar-type budget but still thousands of dollars. If this movie is not going to motivate people to help, wouldn't the money be better spent helping the cause yourself? Returning to Roger and Me, the budget on that film was an estimated $160,000. Michael Moore himself said the film was a failure because it didn't cause anyone to jump to the aid of Flint. Well, Michael, maybe that money would have been better spent on the citizens of Flint - saving families from eviction, opening a public help center, something. It could have done a lot of good. Did he think a bunch of eccentric billionaires would see it and spill open their wallets? Furthermore, Moore's stunts - asking senators if they'd send their children to Iraq, trying to track down the CEO of General Motors - don't really accomplish anything. He could have led by example, perhaps - use half the money to help the town and the other half to document it.

I want to be wrong about this. If you have stories of yourself or people you know seeing depressing crisis documentaries that motivated them to open hospitals in Africa or even shell out some cash, please tell me. But as far as I can tell, the "awareness" model should be reevaluted and those filmmakers should take a cue from the Yes Men.

What do you think?