COM 117 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Man From Plains, Errol Morris, Barbara Kopple
26 Feb 2018
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Fly on the wall. think frederick wiseman and his landmark sixties and seventies films. The camera runs on and on, but the filmmaker still shapes our perceptions. The maysles films (salesman, grey gardens) were more shaped and even more influential. There"s not much rigorous v rit these days, because the audience won"t sit still. Albert brooks made the definitive v rit parody, real life, in which a megalomaniac filmmaker burns down the house of the family he"s covering: investigative journalism. Environmental catastrophes, cover-ups, injustices all the way up to genocide. Memphis three muckrakers that helped free three wrongly convicted kids. Sometimes these movies break through, but they"re bitter medicine: personality-driven investigative journalism (and essay). Morgan spurlock eats at mcdonald"s, gets fat, barfs: errol morris, or anti-v rit . Stylized reenactments and talking heads shot from a fixed perspective, as in the thin blue line and the fog of war, with philip glass music to provide momentum.
