I Think I Just Got Sick

The most recent documentary I watched for class, Charles Ferguson's Inside Job, quite simply infuriated me. Although I could spot the bias, although I was distracted by Matt Damon's voice, and although I understand absolutely nothing about the economy or banking, I was simply appalled by the fact that the economic crisis of 2008 was caused by people who profited from it. Allow me to expand.

Cocaine stimulates the same part of the brain that certain games do. The prize in these games is money. Scary, huh?

 I did spot the bias in this film. The music was obviously quite intentional, sometime formidable and sometimes sarcastic. The voice of the narrater, although it obviously tried to sound neutral, was quite loaded. Damon used loaded words and word phrases that subconsciously swayed the viewer to agree with him. This was actually funny for me in particular though, because I could not get past the fact that Matt Damon was narrating. The whole time I was watching, the Bourne series kept popping into my head, and I was just waiting for Jason Bourne to start running around and killing these bankers. I even started hoping he would.

These wealthy bankers were said to rent Lamborghinis simply to impress the prostitutes they had for they night. No one should have that kind of money, especially if it is earned a the loss of others.

Although I could spot the bias, and although I saw from the beginning that this was a strongly liberal leaning film, it made me angry. It made me angry, but not at one particular political party, but rather these bankers. It simply disgusts me that people could sit around and get rich on the backs of the average man. No, not get rich, rather become obscenely, disgustingly loaded by tearing down the population and putting the entire economy of the United States at risk, and thus putting the economy of the world at risk. The corruption, the selfishness, the shortsightedness required to do something like this simply makes me sick. End of story. 

Throughout the whole film, I could not get the above song out of my head. It should have been used as the constant background song for the whole film.

Obstructed by the Screen

This film intrigued my sense of fascination with nature, it drew me in with its chanting sound track. I was almost enchanted, hypnotized. I loved the way time montages of lapses and slow motion reel followed each other, showing the similarities between very dissimilar physical objects. The clouds followed by waves, for example, simply blew my mind. The two things looked so similar when moving at the same rate. The country view, the nature shots, and the filming technique, all drew me in at first. As the movie progressed however, I must admit that I became bored. If I had been in these places in real life I could have stayed there for all of eternity and never wanted anything else, but the fact that it was all on a screen began to bother me. I wanted to be there. I wanted to see it for myself, unobstructed by the computer screen. This thought dug itself deeper and deeper and eventually I am sorry to say that I lost interest. It was a beautiful film, don't misunderstand me. It just was not my type. I'm quite the nature guy in real life, but I like it exactly like that, namely in real life. Even though I could clearly see the story and the meaning behind this film, as it travelled gradually from nature to man, displaying our life out of balance, it just was not a documentary, if you can call it that, for me. I was quite disappointed, not with the quality of the film, but rather with my interest in it. I wish I was the kind of person who could sit there in fascination through the whole film, but sadly I am not.

In Class Writing

Although Boote seemed to be biased, in fact he created such an overwhelming argument that it almost seemed one sided. If one looks closely however, one begins to realize that perhaps he is less manipulative than he appears. He tries to convince plastic corporations to speak with him, he attempts to show both sides of the story. The plastic producers however, were not to be persuaded. They keep their secrets under tight lock and key, choosing to show nothing to the world. Still Boote directs many interviews with people around the globe, it seems he is just unable to find anyone willing to take the side of plastic. He displays the issue as it is, and does not use slimy narration or loaded cuts to waive the viewer's mind. He simply shows the audience the truth behind cheap goods, he displays the vastness of the toxic pollution that is poisoning our world. This point is important to show because if Boote were truly biased, it would almost truncate his argument. But when one sees that he shows his side of the story, and attempts to show the other, it in fact builds his argument up. Because the plastic companies refused to make a statement, one can assume that they have something to hide. But why hide it? The very fact that this argument seemed to be beginning at the beginning shows that the argument is simply lopsided. One side is right, and the other side is scared to argue, or even make a statement in retaliation.

Ruined Nature

Werner Boote's documentary Plastic Planet is a very visually charged film. The bias of the director comes through in many ways, from who he interviews to what he says about plastic, but I think the strongest way it shows itself it through a visual tug on the viewer's emotion. He begins his film with a wide spanning view of the mountains, a beautiful shot of nature at its purest. As this shot pans out, Boote's voice plays in the background, saying that no nature is left raw, no nature is left untouched by plastic. Throughout the film this is his strategy. He shoots long shots of what would be gorgeous deserts or beaches, but appear more to be rubbish dumps. They are covered in plastic garbage. There is nobody that does not like to look at a beautiful nature shot, and when it is covered in plastic bags and bottles, just about anyone will become angry or sad. 

 Another way in which Boote plays the viewer's emotions is with visually caused fear. He shows plastic molecules as little, angry faces. People drink from plastic bottles, and these mean little faces invade the drinker's body and invade the cell system. Now if there is anything that people don't like to think about, it is a parasite invading their body. Boote displays the plastic as an evil little parasite just waiting to hop into someone's mouth and take a ride in their bloodstream.

Although this film is biased in many ways, and the director influences the viewer using more than just this one strategy, I found this one particularly interesting. I am a very visually centered person, so this technique was very effective on me. I realized that it didn't matter what was being said in the film, there could have been constant voice overs stating dramatic statistics about how plastic is going to save the world, about how it is humanity's salvation, and still I would have come out of the film hating it. As a lover of nature, this was a very powerful film for me, and I am now truly quite frightened when I actually look around with an opened pair of eyes and really see how much plastic there is everywhere.

To Be or Not to Be? The Rumsprina's Ultimate Question

Amish parents toss their children into the raging ocean of the twentieth century with no preparation. They throw their naive kids into the wind, and use their lack of direction and shock to pull them back into their church. The Devil's Playground, the documentary by Lucy Walker about Rumspringa, seemed to me to be the most neutral video that we have watched so far. Walker gave an account of what happens, and did not seem to twist the opinions of the viewer. Of course every documentary has some bias. It is probably not a coincidence that in nearly every interview the amish boys are smoking. There is no interview with a Rumspringa kid that did not go crazy and party. This is probably not a coincidence.

This not not however, what I'm going to be talking about today. I want to discuss the period of the amish life called Rumspringa. I think it is wrong. The amish parents do not give their children a fair chance, they toss their innocent children into an angry, unforgiving world with no preparation. Not only this, but they leave them no where to go. Due to a belief that education leads to pride, parents pull their children out of school after the eighth grade. This leaves them at a dead end nearly everywhere except within the amish community. Technically yes, it is possible to go to college and get a job in the outside world with an education of a fourteen year old. But how likely is that to actually happen? To become something big, to make a difference in this world, to go to a prestigious college and get a high paying job, one usually needs a education past the middle school. Bot only this, but the parents allow their children to go out into the world and do whatever they want. Of course these sixteen year olds who have never watched TV, never dated, and never drank go insane trying to take advantage of everything at once. They throw enormous parties with hundreds of people and get trashed for days. They experiment with terrible drugs. They get themselves into trouble. They get scared. The adults say that they are giving their kids a choice between the amish way of life and the "english" way, but I do not think that they actually are. What these amish kids experience and get scared off by is not the average person's way of life, it is the rush of a bunch of kids who have been caged up there whole lives trying to experience everything they never have. Of course most come running back. They were not prepared. This Rumspringa tradition is simply wrong in the twentieth century. The two ways of life are two different for an unprepared adolescent to cope with. Perhaps it worked back when the cultures were more similar, but today it is simply wrong to throw innocent and unprepared children into a world of drugs, alcohol, and freedom.

Crazy Christians by Josh

When I first watched Grizzly Man I was not ready for the bias, for the heavy dose of the director's opinion. I was immediately swayed by Herzog's view, and it took me quite some time before I realized how much his opinion had actually affected mine. This time however, I came prepared. I was on my guard for sneaky opinionated comments. I prepared myself for the director's argument. I put my shield up and my spy glasses on, and what i saw was quite interesting indeed. I realize that there is only so much that Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing could influence in their documentary Jesus Camp due to the fact that it is much more of a raw film. There is only one voice over and very little back round music. But the influence is there. The film begins with a radio host discussing how crazy these people are. Immediately, the viewer's first idea is that these evangelicals are wacko. Very soon after are shot of the kids crying and praising God in tongues. Placed strategically after this statistics appear on the screen that display how many evangelicals there are in the United States. What the directors do not do however, is draw the line between regular evangelicals, and this small sect. It appears to the viewer who doesn't know better that all evangelicals are this way. All the while these statistics are on the screen tragically sad music plays in the background.

The only voice over I could find in the whole film is also strategically placed. It happens when Rachel is bowling. I included the scene above. Her voice plays in the background, praying for a good shot. As she walks away after her turn, the camera is strategically placed so that one can see the ball going into the lane over her shoulder as she walks away. She was shown praying, a prayer which was intentionally edited into that specific scene, and her prayer is not answered. However crazy these people are, there is no denying that the directors of this film had an agenda. These biased scenes continue throughout the film. A dog is shown rolling it eyes during their special pledge. Becky Fischer is displayed intentionally as a crazy lady. She may be, but the scenes that are chosen throughout the film are no coincidence. Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing try to discredit christianity by using these extremist evangelicals. By not drawing the line between this small sect and the average christian they create a hazy boundary that gradually seeps into all of christianity.