Analysis of JFK (1991) and Thin Blue Line

Analysis of JFK (1991) and snub sombre declinationBoth hits, for example, concenter over minutae that discolourthorn or exsanguinousthorn non be substantive (umbrellas opening in JFK, a dropped thickshake in The turn off saturnine Line) to tangle the tantrumer ever overmuch profoundly into the atomic number 18na of the crime nip. to date n all image stops at a simple narration of facts twain opinion at the States character case in all the aforesaid(prenominal)ts and suggest an invoice for the alleged cover up. In JFK, this is rock-and-rolls exceedingly controversial suggestion that the CIA and the military-industrial tang school had a vested interest in comprehend chair Kennedy dead beca design he was shortly to scale d induce Americas betrothal in Vietnam.In The Thin no-account Line, cardinal related theories ar suggested for the functionary insistence on trying Randall Adams firstly, that David Harris account had the advantage of providin g the law of spirit with an eye-witness, small-arm if Harris was himself the stumbleer, no sure witness existed and secondly, that Harris could non be attempt as an adult, thus robbing the territory Attorney of the much- want death clip for the murder of a policeman.These theories be communicated finished with(predicate) devices comm hardly associated with assumed tales, much(prenominal) as a highly redolent(p) unisonal score (Phillip Glass music for The Thin unconsecrated Line invokes a melancholy backbone of helpless(prenominal)ness, speckle John Williams score for JFK has a more urgent tone, suggestive of sneaky conspiracies and forces cargonening out of control). And some(prenominal) counter situation different modes of photographic occupymaking as they do so, secern invented visible bucked in a continent Hollywood ardor with non cogitationive or faux- docudrama footage.The affinity in effect of the cardinal occupys fast juxtaposition of room s is striking, and suggests rock candys barbel whitethorn set or so been influenced by Morris work. except bandage both dupe a rooms break an over-riding lodge in with the fill breakr uncovering facts, that mogul be called the outer biography, each constructs a contrasting relativeship between the record and docudrama elements at heart the text. In JFK, stone pit functions an interior recital of Jim garrison (Kevin Costner) investigating the case. While send is essentially a surrogate for the painting theater get throughr, so that the get hold of end non be considered as the story of Jim place,3 this biography is provided moments that function only as character manoeuvre with little or no relationship to the larger cause ( much(prenominal) as sends commands and reconciliation with his wife, or a Norman Rock wellspring moment4 with his children).This, and thereforece, is an example of definitiveal Hollywood- carriage assumed filmmaking. This is th en ruptured by the moments of object lens and faux- documental film that splay on Stones job as it is cosmos expressed by Garrison. This includes what we readiness call genuine nonsubjective material the Zapruder film of the assassination and archival clicks ( much(prenominal) as of Kennedys autopsy, or the photograph of Lee Harvey Oswald holding the rifle).It alike(p)ly includes a large number of re-enactments, which be truly much presented in a mistaken documentary style (grainy or black and white film stock, hand-held cameras). This faux-documentary material is oft juxta comprise with the genuine documentary material in a trend that blends the two together (the Zapruder footage is matched by ordered footage using similar film stock, and the autopsy photographs ar intercut with shots of a jump dummy of Kennedy).The Thin sombre Line servings the comparable outer write up (film shaping machine investigating), entirely the inside(a) autobiography (the story of Randall Adams) is not constructed in a classical Hollywood style. Instead, it is told finished one of the standard modes of documentary filmmaking place by nozzle Nichols5 call address by participants in an oppugn format (with the interviewer removed finished editing).As with Stones film, this inner muniment is advocateed by conclusion, tho once more the mode of presentation is reversed the asterisk regularity utilize to pay the witnesses testimony is through reconstructions of the crime scene that, while stylized and fragmented, be constructed as a miniature classically constructed annals. This nesting of different modes might be tabulated as followsMy compass smudge, however, is that the films differ in mode, provided use mirror-image forms of the same twist. JFK is primarily a fableal film, which rents a documentary style when re-enacting speculated even outts. The Thin sacrilegious Line is primarily a documentary, hardly employs a style borrowe d from lyingal films in its re-enactments.If the two films share so much in common, and drop off so fluidly from documentary to illustrational modes so quickly, does this suggest the difference in the two forms might be mostly cosmetic? Fiction drive out be used to express rightfulnesss almost the substantial populace, and the documentary is poop be used in slipway that obscure the fairness or construct falsehoods. If the fundamental difference between prevarication and non- allegory is taken as the tie in to the received, and it is sh witness that documentaries and fictions share similar relationships to the existing, then the two forms scratching to look more a exchangeable not the same, exactly, hardly similar. JFK and The Thin zesty Line, by this way of thinking, are then only superficially different types of movies.They share the same structure and the fiction versus documentary dichotomy is more like a difference in writing style than a fundamental disti nction. This is not to invest the superficial crossover of techniques between the two forms with a conditional relation it does not posses. Documentaries are not fictions in effect(p) because The Blair Witch Project (1999) does such(prenominal) a good job of simulation to be a real document, or even because Rats in the Ranks (1996) work so well as a narrative. Rather, the d take inplaying of the documentary / fiction divergence is ground upon a deep-rooted cynicism slightly asseverates to truth in documentary.That on that pane is such reluctance to buy up truth at face comfort in documentary should not be surprising. Early or classic film studies was establish for the most part on contrasts some the relationships between film and reality. While this debate is similarly detailed to fully explore, it is important to link upon briefly because much paper upon documentary echoes the arguments of these early writers.The necessitate link to reality might be seen as a defining take of the documentary, but it was overly seen in the first half of the century as one of the defining features of the film modal(a) itself. The movie house appeared to be an even more perfect order for mechanically reproducing reality than the windlessness photographs that preceded it. This added destiny to arguments of estheticals that centred on whether the role of the artist was to attempt to recreate the real world, or rather to defend or even transcend the real.6 These arguments were thereof central to classic film possibleness and resolved into two unspecific strands of argument that echo the aesthetic positions described.Thus writers such as Siegfried Kraceur and Andre Bazin had approaches that emphasise films role as a mirror to the real. Of more interest to the circulating(prenominal) discussion, however, are early anti-rea listens such as Rudolf Arnheim. In his take up as fraud, his self-renunciation for moving pictures status as serious ta sty medium (rather than a mechanical assist) is built a round a series of explanations of the way in which film differs from the real.7 triple dimensional surfaces are brooked on a plane surface. knowl distinctness of depth is lost. In the black and white cinema with reference to which Arnheim hypothesise his thesis, colour is eliminated. Lighting distorts. Editing interrupts the endure of time and creates elegant possibilities through the use of montage. Non- visual stimulus is absent (or, by and by the coming of sound, limited), and even the visual world is limited by the edge of the screen.This catalogue of distortions is, for Arnheim, the very alkali for the creation of aesthetic systems by which films prat signify meanings. After establishing the to a higher place points, he sets just or so demonstrating how each of these limitations in depicting the real is used as a method of artistic expression8. Subsequent film opening moved beyond Arnheims formulations, but h as tended to take them as a give in the sense that few would still argue that the central project of film is limited to the reproduction or reflection of reality.Given that such formulations are at the foundation of by and by film theory, it should not be surprising that they were echoed when subsequent theorists turned their minds to issues regarding documentary, and especially its relation to the real. Nol Carroll attributes much of this writing to a backfire against premature considers by proponents of direct cinema that their method of cinema provided unmitigated access to the real.9 These documentarists attempted to annul the film advancers intervention and interpretation, reacting to the overt imposition of a viewpoint present in traditional Griersonian forms of documentary. However, as Carroll puts it, direct cinema opened a faeces of worms and then got eaten by them.10 It was quickly argued that direct cinema was every bit as interpretive as Griersonian documentaries .For the distortions of reality that were set by Arnheim are every bit present in documentary cinema, but with different importees. Instead of world the unambiguously positive performer to artistic expression, every limitation of the medium is instead a problematic point of mediation by the film collide withr. The limitations of the film frame, for example, force resources upon even the most non-interventionist direct cinema filmmaker. And with every choice the filmmaker is placing the film at a greater distance from reality. Carroll quotes Eric Barnouw making this pointTo be sure, some documentarists read to be objective a term that calculates to renounce an interpretive role. The claim may be strategic, but it is surely meaningless. The documentarist, like every communicator in every medium, makes endless choices. He sic selects topics, people, vistas, angles, lens, juxtapositions, sounds, words. Each selection is an expression of his point of view, whether he is aware of it or not, whether he acknowledges it or not. make up fundament the first step, selection of a topic, there is a motive It is in selecting and arranging his findings that he expresses himself these choices are, in effect, comments. And whether he adopts the stance of observer, or chronicler or whatever, he shtupnot escape his egressivity. He presents his reading material of the world.11Such an argument for certain seems to cast doubt over the potential for objectiveness in documentary cinema. Carried to an extreme, it is the presentation of a version of the world rather than the world itself that arse be seen as render documentary a form of fiction. both way, the prospects for documentary truth in such a model seem grim indeed.It should be notable that Carroll puts little faith in such an approach to documentary, and his counter-argument leave behind be returned to. Before doing so, however, it is worthy noting that more recently, Carroll has emaciated the distinction between what he calls the selectivity argument (recited above) and more global postmodernist scepticism of claims to truth.12 The latter is based not in the guesss of classical film studies, but rather the wider discussions about the way whatever human treat imposes meaning and structure on real events. For example, historic accounts impose a narrative structure onto events to make them intelligible, and a distinction essential be drawn between the real events (which actually occurred) and the account (which lacks an independent diachronic existence)The states of personal matters and events the historiographer alludes to do start out a basis in diachronic reality, and the historians claims about those states of af sanes and events advise be literally square(a) or false. except the narratives in which those states of affairs and events figure are inventions, constructions, indeed, fictions. The narrative structure in the diachronic recounting is not line up or false i t is fictional.13This point of such an observation may seem a little obscure. If the narrative structure imposed in a diachronic account is considered independently of the statements of historical fact that it is used to explain, then of fertilise it must be considered fictional. If, however, a documentary text is considered in its entirety, then it is open to questioning about the validity of the historians factual claims (including analysis as to whether the narrative structure is an ideal or fair way of rendition the real events) in a way that fiction is not.Certainly the argument is here macrocosm posed by Carroll (albeit following Michael Renov and Hayden White) as a prelude to arguing that it is unsupportable14. However, Carroll withal refers to an alternative model for looking at the link between non-fiction and fiction, attach by Bill Nichols in his intelligence Representing echtity, which is more subtle and worth dealing with directly.Nichols, contrasted the opp osite theorists alluded to by Carroll, does not argue that documentaries must be considered fiction. He recognises that the existence of an external, real-world referent is an important distinction that cannot be dismissed as irrelevant. The world of a fiction film is a unique, imaginary domain, but the world of documentary is different Instead of a world, we are offered access to the world.15This claim to federal agency of the real means that documentaries are not untaintedly narratives they are alike argumentative, if only in the sense that they make claims (even if only implicitly) about what is aline. They are therefore a fiction (un)like any(prenominal)(prenominal) other.16 However, Nichols remains troubled by these claims to truth. While the documentary is elevated from fiction by its links to the real, this example is rendered problematic by the evident impossibility of rendering truth objectively. Documentaries, while not fiction, share with fictionthose very qual ities that thoroughly compromise any rigorous objectiveness, if they dont make it impractical Objectivity has been under no less siege than realism, and for many an(prenominal) of the same reasons. It, too, is a way of representing the world that denies its own processes of construction and their formative effect. all given over standard for objectivity will move over embedded political assumptions In documentary, these assumptions might include public opinion in the axiomatic genius of facts, in rhetorical persuasion as a necessary and enamour part of representation, and in the capacity of the documentary text to affect its listening through its implicit or transparent claim of This is so, isnt it?17Nichols argument is reminiscent of those strands of theoretical thought that view ideology as an inescapable and all pervasive force. Documentaries do make claims about the truth that are open to evaluation, but unfortunately, according to Nichols, our institutional mechanism s for assessing such claims are themselves suspect.If such an approach is pass judgment, evaluation of the arguments made by Oliver Stone and Errol Morris might be highly problematic. Carroll, however, is not willing to give in that any of these arguments establish all that non-fiction is a form of fiction, or that objectivity is impossible. Firstly, he argues that the cinema does not posses any unique tendency towards turn compared to other media. The same arguments about selectivity that Barnouw raises with respect to film are equally applicable to other media and compass of enquiry.18 The particular causes of distortion may be different, but any historian for example may select, manipulate, interpret or emphasise aspects of their material incisively as a documentary maker can.Thus if non-fiction film is verbalize to be indwelling due to its selectivity, so must any subject area of human enquiry, such as biography and science. In the earlier of the two articles I have discussed ( indite in 1983), Carroll is sure-footed that such a big scepticism would not be bad proposed.19 As we have seen, by 1996 that was exactly the argument Carroll was responding to. Nevertheless, in 1983 his defence against the selectivity argument is based upon the flavour of objectivity. In any given field of argument, at any given time, there are patterns of reasoning, standards for observation, and methods for assessing evidence which are used for getting to the truth.20 A gather of research is considered objective so far as it abides by these norms.Likewise, non-fiction films may be assessed against similar codes, and will be considered biased or subjective if they fail to meet them. That selectivity may make bias possible, or even in all probability, does not preclude the possibility of a film according with constituted standards of objectivity. The manifest differences between the real world and the filmed presentation proceed film from substituting for lived experience, but they do not prevent documentaries from being objective.This central assumption of this argument that there are standards of objectivity that can be used to judge the truth is exactly the assumption that we have seen Bill Nichols question. Carroll, however, disputes all of Nichols contentions that are cited above. Firstly, he does not accept that objectivity demands that a film call help to its processes of construction. After all, the fact that a non-fiction film is constructed is understood by any hearing and does not wish to be spelt out. Self- reflexive pronoun analyses of the filmmaking process or the authors own subjectivity might be a feature of many recent documentaries, but for Carrol this is an artistic device, rather than a necessary bench mark for objectivity.Nor does he accept that any standard for objectivity has embedded political assumptions, even accepting Nichols very broad definitions (outlined above) of what constitutes a political assumption . A belief in the obvious nature of facts, for example, might be a political assumption when the facts being presented are politically charged falsehoods. Yet the acceptance that some claims of self-evident truth are suspect does not mean that there can be no self-evident facts. With regards to rhetorical persuasion, he argues that films can either eschew such devices altogether (he cites nature documentaries as an example),21 or employ rhetorical structures in the service of objective discourse.Similarly, he regards the implicit claim that this is so, isnt it as present in closely any assertion and hence neither a political assumption nor a barrier to objectivity. Carrolls approach to these arguments about the prospects for truth or objectivity in documentary is a good deal to return to examples where the truth claimed by the documentary seems weak and uncontentious (as with his common use of nature documentaries as discussion points). The linking draw off of the arguments he presents is that the theorists he criticises have mistaken the impediment in presenting objective truth for an impossibility, often by poresing on exactly the texts where the truth is most problematic.22It is worth reverting to The Thin Blue Line and JFK at this point, since these films both explore events that are subject to considerable conjecture. Neither could be accused of assuming the truth about these events is self-evident (quite the opposite), yet both nevertheless ultimately make vital factual claims. As tell already, these claims question state-sanctioned verdicts, and both films led to a frequent discussion that coerce official re-examination of the cases The Thin Blue Line forced the retrial of Randall Adams, while JFK contributed to the personnel casualty of the President John F. Kennedy character assassination Records Collection Act of 1992, which appointed an black lotion Records Review Board (AARB) to critique unreleased breeding about the assassination.23 much than a decade later, with Randall Adams freed from jail, it seems fair to say that Morris case has been widely accepted as true.Oliver Stone, too, has been partially unclouded by subsequent re-examination of the case, with records released by the AARB that support some of his allegations (such as monkey with records of Kennedys autopsy).24 Yet, despite such small victories, and acceptance by many filmgoers of Stones theory of the assassination, JFK remains subject to fierce bookish criticism of both its methods and conclusions that stands in contrast to the reception of The Thin Blue Line. Linda Williams, in her discussion of the two films, dismisses JFK as paranoid fiction,25 and the widespread disapproval of Stones film by both popular and academic press is well authenticated.26 Clearly this has much to do with the nature of the case Stone discusses.The Kennedy assassination, for obvious reasons, is a much more familiar event and one that had been the subject of consi derably more public discussion than the Randall Adams prosecution. Furthermore, while The Thin Blue Line avoids underlining the political implications of its own conclusions, JFK is explicitly critical of the government and media, craft the assassination a coup detat detat and coming very close to suggesting actor president Lyndon Johnson was involved.27However, the difference in the reception of the two films cannot be explained manifestly through reference to the argument each presents. Within the very similar structures outlined at the start of this essay, there are also pivotal differences that also explain much of the negative response to Stones film compared to Morris.In his consideration of JFK, Robert Rosenstone notes that there are considerable constraints over the depiction of historical events on the screen.28 In particular, he sees the need to invent detail and shove events to shape a narrative as a limitation that must be negotiated by any historical film. While h e is referring to narrative features such as JFK, his argument is equally applicable to the summaries of and suppositions regarding events in The Thin Blue Line. This argument has clear overtones of the discussions of documentaries distortions of truth through selectivity that have already been cited.Like Carroll, Rosenstone argues that when a historical filmmaker such as Stone invents or compresses events, he or she is exercising the same type of sagaciousness that the author of any written history must.29 Such inventions can be considered true (at least(prenominal) to a point) in the sense that they can be verified, documented, or reasonably argued. The problem, notes Rosenstone, is that the impediment must occur outside the world of the film. When Stone argues in JFK that President Kennedy was about to slay troops from Vietnam, the information is justified by reference to a real memorandumrandum (National security measures Action Memo 263), but a fictitious character makes t he reference. expect no foreknowledge of the case, the hearing has no way while ceremonial occasion the film of even cognise that the memorandum really existed, let but being sure that it supports the conclusion Stone draws. If Stones conclusion is to be examined, the earreach must go beyond viewing and read the relevant documents (or studious discussion of them) for themselves. If they do so, they will, as Rosenstone states, be undertaking the same good-hearted of critique and review that a work of written history is subjected to. This process of measuring a film against standards of objectivity is exactly that which Carroll highlights as the means of linking non-fiction films to the truth. Stone has actively sought to enter into such debates, mounting enormous defences of the historical accuracy of JFK and his other works.30That JFK was so controversial was perhaps partially due to the fact that interviews do not necessarily judge films within such evaluative frameworks un like the target audience for written history, they may assume that what they see is true and not enter into the debates as to the films veracity. Even assuming an engaged, sceptical audience, however, it is also the case that Stones film does not make the separation of truth from fiction a straightforward task. I have already suggested that the film possesses terzetto layers of exposition an outer narrative (Stones case), an inner narrative (Garrisons story), and evidence (presented as documentary material and re-enactments). The inner narrative story of Jim Garrison (which is likely to be understood by most audiences as at least partially fictional and not taken as literally true) is often weaved seamlessly in with the evidence (more likely to be seen as Stones presentation of true material).Garrison, for example, meets the mysterious Mr X (Donald Sutherland) in Washington, who outlines a hypothesis about who killed Kennedy and why. This calls forrader a series of re-enactments o f high aim discussions between officials that are weaved into Mr Xs account. The narrative is calling forth evidence, but the difficulty with this sequence is in separating what material is a fictional narrative device, what is speculated, and what is documented truth. For example, are we to accept that Garrison really did meet an anonymous official who told him this information, and take that as evidence that Stones case is true? Or are we to take this as precisely part of the inner narrative, a method of presenting evidence? As mentioned, Mr X talks in detail of a real memorandum in order to put Stones case that Kennedy wished to withdraw from Vietnam.An audience might decently surmise that the existence of such a memo (putting aside its meaning) is a documented fact. However, this quickly leads into discussions of the reaction to this memo within high levels of the government, and the point at which history slides into speculation in this sequence is by no means readily appare nt. The re-enactment portions of the sequence are presented in a represent style using black and white photography, but this does not swag them as conjectural, since Stone switches between film stocks throughout the film without tipple such distinctions. (Elsewhere in the film, for example, the Zapruder film of the assassination, is alternated with simulated footage shot in the same style.)The effect of these aesthetic decisions by Stone is to confuse the boundaries between non-fiction and fiction in a way that makes finish of objective standards for assessing truth difficult. The audience can only infer which sections of the film are deputeed to be read as non-fiction and subject to such examination.Written in October 2001 for the Melbourne University subject Ethnographic and Documentary Cinema.Notes1. This is the concluding sentence of Eric Barnouw, Documentary A bill of the Non-Fiction characterisation, (Oxford University Press, New York Oxford, 1993, 2nd Revised Edition) , p. 349.2. The list of similarities between the two films that follows draws partially on Linda Williams, Mirrors without Memories Truth, History and The Thin Blue Line in Barry Keith allot Jeanette Sloniowski (eds), Documenting the Documentary Close Readings of Documentary Film and Video (Wayne State UP, Detroit, 1998), p 381.3. The films Garrison, for example, has access to information the real Garrison did not, in order to appropriate Stone to communicate it to audiences. For example, In the movie we attributed to Garrison the information about Shaws background but in real life Jim did not have access to that information at that time. (Oliver Stone audio commentary, JFK DVD, Region 4 Special Edition Directors Cut release, Warner Brothers, 1 hour 28 mins approx.)4. This phrasal idiom is Stones own JFK audio commentary, op. cit., 2 hours 10 mins approx. While these scenes are also used to communicate information about the larger case, this is an example of narrative efficiency , and does not contradict my point that they do contain aspects (such as the melodromatic nip of Garrisons children asking Dont you love us any more?) which function simply as domestic drama, with no relation to the case against Clay Shaw.5. Nichols has revisited and slightly reformulated these modes over time, but they can be summarised as expository (ie voice-of-God documentaries that use direct address to tell the audience a truth), observational (cinema verite style films that aim to observe events without participating), interactive (interview based films that allows for direct address by participants, while allowing for filmmakers interaction through questioning), reflexive (films that draw attention to the documentarys own methods), and performative (stressing an individual, subjective position, while downplaying objective or referential aspects). See Bill Nichols The Voice of Documentary, Film Quarterly 36, no 3 (Spring 1983) Representing Reality Issues and Concepts in Docu mentary (1991, Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis), Chapter 2 and (for the perfomative mode) performing Documentary, Blurred Boundaries Questions of Meaning in coetaneous Culture (c. 1994, Indiana UP, Bloomington), pp 92-106.6. This point and the subsequent discussion of classical film theory draw on the discussions in the anthologies Gerald Mast et al. (eds.), Film hypothesis and Criticism Introductory Readings, (Oxford University Press, New York and Oxford, 1992), pp. 3-7, and Antony Easthorpe, Contemporary Film Theory (Longman, capital of the United Kingdom New York, 1993), pp. 2-5.7. Rudolf Arnheim, Film as Art (Faber Faber, London, 1958), esp. pp. 17-37.8. Ibid., p. 37-114.9. Nol Carroll, From Real to Reel Entangled in nonfiction film, in Nol Carroll, Theorizing the Moving Image (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1996), p. 224-252. (Originally published in Philosophic Exchange in 1983, and will be cited in succeeding(a) as Carroll (1996/1983) to d istinguish it from his piece in Post-Theory cited below). Reference to direct cinema is p. 225.10. Ibid.11. Ibid., p. 226. Carroll is quoting from the first rendering of Barnouws Documentary, citing p. 287-288 of that translation (Oxford University Press, New York, 1974). The nearest like to this quote I can find in the third edition (op. cit.) is at p. 344.12. Nol Carroll, Nonfiction films and Postmodernist Skepticism in Nol Carrol David Bordwell (eds.), Post-Theory Reconstructing Film Studies, (University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, 1996), pp. 283-306.13. Ibid., p. 288. Emphasis is Carrolls.14. Carroll is frequently belligerent about the texts he discusses but is especially so about Renovs Theorizing Documentary, describing it as a state of the art analysis of received thinking about the documentary film, and dismissing Renovs argument as a red herring. Ibid., p. 285 291.15. Both quotes Nichols, 1991, op. cit., p. 109. Emphasis is Nichols.16. This is the name of the second part of Nichols book. How accommodative this argumentative nature is as a distinction between fiction and documentary (and how unlike any other form of fiction documentary can be said to be) is debatable given that fiction can be every bit as argumentative as documentary (as JFK demonstrates).17. Ibid., p. 195.18. Carroll (1996/1983), op. cit., p. 226.19. Carroll I mention this because I do not think that commentators who leave off that the nonfiction film is subjective intend their remarks as a mere gloss on the notion that everything is subjective. But that, I fear, is the untoward implication of their attack. Ibid., p. 226.20. Ibid., p. 230. See also Carroll, 1996, op. cit. pp. 283-285.21. Carroll, 1996, p. 294.22. See, for example, Ibid., p. 293, regarding film scholars focus on art-documentary.23. Michael L. Kurtz, Oliver Stone, JFK, and History, in Robert brent Toplin (ed), OliverAnalysis of JFK (1991) and Thin Blue LineAnalysis of JFK (1991) and Thin Blue LineBoth films, for example, pore over minutae that may or may not be significant (umbrellas opening in JFK, a dropped thickshake in The Thin Blue Line) to draw the viewer ever more deeply into the world of the crime scene. Yet neither film stops at a simple recitation of facts both look at the States role in events and suggest an explanation for the alleged cover up. In JFK, this is Stones highly controversial suggestion that the CIA and the military-industrial complex had a vested interest in seeing President Kennedy dead because he was shortly to scale down Americas involvement in Vietnam.In The Thin Blue Line, two related theories are suggested for the official insistence on trying Randall Adams firstly, that David Harris account had the advantage of providing the police with an eye-witness, while if Harris was himself the murderer, no reliable witness existed and secondly, that Harris could not be tried as an adult, thus robbing the District Attorney of the much-sought death sentence for the murder of a policeman.These theories are communicated through devices commonly associated with fictional narratives, such as a highly evocative musical score (Phillip Glass music for The Thin Blue Line invokes a melancholy sense of helplessness, while John Williams score for JFK has a more urgent tone, suggestive of furtive conspiracies and forces careening out of control). And both counterpoint different modes of filmmaking as they do so, contrasting invented material filmed in a classical Hollywood style with documentary or faux-documentary footage.The similarity in effect of the two films fast-paced juxtaposition of styles is striking, and suggests Stones approach may have been influenced by Morris work. Yet while both films have an over-riding concern with the filmmaker uncovering facts, that might be called the outer narrative, each constructs a contrasting relationship between the narrative and documentary elements within the text. In JFK, Stone uses an interior narrative of J im Garrison (Kevin Costner) investigating the case. While Garrison is essentially a surrogate for the filmmaker, so that the film cannot be considered as the story of Jim Garrison,3 this narrative is provided moments that function simply as character drama with little or no relationship to the larger argument (such as Garrisons arguments and reconciliation with his wife, or a Norman Rockwell moment4 with his children).This, then, is an example of classical Hollywood-style fictional filmmaking. This is then ruptured by the moments of documentary and faux-documentary that expand on Stones argument as it is being expressed by Garrison. This includes what we might call genuine documentary material the Zapruder film of the assassination and archival photographs (such as of Kennedys autopsy, or the photograph of Lee Harvey Oswald holding the rifle).It also includes a large number of re-enactments, which are very often presented in a simulated documentary style (grainy or black and white f ilm stock, hand-held cameras). This faux-documentary material is often juxtaposed with the genuine documentary material in a manner that blends the two together (the Zapruder footage is matched by staged footage using similar film stock, and the autopsy photographs are intercut with shots of a wax dummy of Kennedy).The Thin Blue Line shares the same outer narrative (filmmaker investigating), but the inner narrative (the story of Randall Adams) is not constructed in a classical Hollywood style. Instead, it is told through one of the standard modes of documentary filmmaking identified by Bill Nichols5 direct address by participants in an interview format (with the interviewer removed through editing).As with Stones film, this inner narrative is back up by evidence, but again the mode of presentation is reversed the principal method used to support the witnesses testimony is through reconstructions of the crime scene that, while stylized and fragmented, are constructed as a miniature classically constructed narrative. This nesting of different modes might be tabulated as followsMy point, however, is that the films differ in mode, but use mirror-image forms of the same structure. JFK is primarily a fictional film, which employs a documentary style when re-enacting speculated events. The Thin Blue Line is primarily a documentary, but employs a style borrowed from fictional films in its re-enactments.If the two films share so much in common, and slide so fluidly from documentary to fictional modes so quickly, does this suggest the difference in the two forms might be largely cosmetic? Fiction can be used to express truths about the real world, and the documentary is can be used in ways that obscure the truth or construct falsehoods. If the fundamental difference between fiction and non-fiction is taken as the link to the real, and it is shown that documentaries and fictions share similar relationships to the real, then the two forms start to look more alike not the same, exactly, but similar. JFK and The Thin Blue Line, by this way of thinking, are then only superficially different types of movies.They share the same structure and the fiction versus documentary dichotomy is more like a difference in genre than a fundamental distinction. This is not to invest the superficial crossover of techniques between the two forms with a significance it does not posses. Documentaries are not fictions just because The Blair Witch Project (1999) does such a good job of pretending to be a real document, or even because Rats in the Ranks (1996) works so well as a narrative. Rather, the downplaying of the documentary / fiction division is based upon a deep-seated cynicism about claims to truth in documentary.That there is such reluctance to accept truth at face value in documentary should not be surprising. Early or classic film studies was based largely on arguments about the relationships between film and reality. While this debate is too detailed to full y explore, it is important to touch upon briefly because much writing upon documentary echoes the arguments of these early writers.The direct link to reality might be seen as a defining feature of the documentary, but it was also seen in the first half of the century as one of the defining features of the film medium itself. The cinema appeared to be an even more perfect method for mechanically reproducing reality than the still photographs that preceded it. This added urgency to arguments of aesthetics that centred on whether the role of the artist was to attempt to recreate the real world, or rather to interpret or even transcend the real.6 These arguments were therefore central to classic film theory and resolved into two broad strands of argument that echo the aesthetic positions described.Thus writers such as Siegfried Kraceur and Andre Bazin had approaches that emphasised films role as a mirror to the real. Of more interest to the current discussion, however, are early anti-re alists such as Rudolf Arnheim. In his Film as Art, his defence for cinemas status as serious artistic medium (rather than a mechanical process) is built a round a series of explanations of the way in which film differs from the real.7 Three dimensional surfaces are projected on a plane surface. Perception of depth is lost. In the black and white cinema with reference to which Arnheim formulated his thesis, colour is eliminated. Lighting distorts. Editing interrupts the flow of time and creates artistic possibilities through the use of montage. Non-visual stimulus is absent (or, after the coming of sound, limited), and even the visual world is limited by the edge of the screen.This catalogue of distortions is, for Arnheim, the very basis for the creation of aesthetic systems by which films can signify meanings. After establishing the above points, he sets about demonstrating how each of these limitations in depicting the real is used as a method of artistic expression8. Subsequent fi lm theory moved beyond Arnheims formulations, but has tended to take them as a given in the sense that few would still argue that the central project of film is limited to the reproduction or reflection of reality.Given that such formulations are at the foundation of later film theory, it should not be surprising that they were echoed when subsequent theorists turned their minds to issues regarding documentary, and particularly its relation to the real. Nol Carroll attributes much of this writing to a backlash against premature claims by proponents of direct cinema that their method of cinema provided unmitigated access to the real.9 These documentarists attempted to avoid the filmmakers intervention and interpretation, reacting to the overt imposition of a viewpoint present in traditional Griersonian forms of documentary. However, as Carroll puts it, direct cinema opened a can of worms and then got eaten by them.10 It was quickly argued that direct cinema was every bit as interpret ive as Griersonian documentaries.For the distortions of reality that were identified by Arnheim are equally present in documentary cinema, but with different implications. Instead of being the unambiguously positive means to artistic expression, every limitation of the medium is instead a problematic point of mediation by the filmmaker. The limitations of the film frame, for example, force choices upon even the most non-interventionist direct cinema filmmaker. And with every choice the filmmaker is placing the film at a greater distance from reality. Carroll quotes Eric Barnouw making this pointTo be sure, some documentarists claim to be objective a term that seems to renounce an interpretive role. The claim may be strategic, but it is surely meaningless. The documentarist, like any communicator in any medium, makes endless choices. He sic selects topics, people, vistas, angles, lens, juxtapositions, sounds, words. Each selection is an expression of his point of view, whether he is aware of it or not, whether he acknowledges it or not. Even behind the first step, selection of a topic, there is a motive It is in selecting and arranging his findings that he expresses himself these choices are, in effect, comments. And whether he adopts the stance of observer, or chronicler or whatever, he cannot escape his subjectivity. He presents his version of the world.11Such an argument certainly seems to cast doubt over the potential for objectivity in documentary cinema. Carried to an extreme, it is the presentation of a version of the world rather than the world itself that can be seen as rendering documentary a form of fiction. Either way, the prospects for documentary truth in such a model seem grim indeed.It should be noted that Carroll puts little faith in such an approach to documentary, and his counter-argument will be returned to. Before doing so, however, it is worth noting that more recently, Carroll has drawn the distinction between what he calls the selectivi ty argument (recited above) and more global postmodern scepticism of claims to truth.12 The latter is based not in the assumptions of classical film studies, but rather the wider discussions about the way any human discourse imposes meaning and structure on real events. For example, historical accounts impose a narrative structure onto events to make them intelligible, and a distinction must be drawn between the real events (which actually occurred) and the account (which lacks an independent historical existence)The states of affairs and events the historian alludes to do have a basis in historical reality, and the historians claims about those states of affairs and events can be literally true or false. But the narratives in which those states of affairs and events figure are inventions, constructions, indeed, fictions. The narrative structure in the historical recounting is not true or false it is fictional.13This point of such an observation may seem a little obscure. If the nar rative structure imposed in a historical account is considered independently of the statements of historical fact that it is used to explain, then of course it must be considered fictional. If, however, a documentary text is considered in its entirety, then it is open to questioning about the validity of the historians factual claims (including analysis as to whether the narrative structure is an accurate or fair way of interpreting the real events) in a way that fiction is not.Certainly the argument is here being posed by Carroll (albeit following Michael Renov and Hayden White) as a prelude to arguing that it is unsupportable14. However, Carroll also refers to an alternative model for looking at the link between non-fiction and fiction, mounted by Bill Nichols in his book Representing Reality, which is more subtle and worth dealing with directly.Nichols, unlike the other theorists alluded to by Carroll, does not argue that documentaries must be considered fiction. He recognises th at the existence of an external, real-world referent is an important distinction that cannot be dismissed as irrelevant. The world of a fiction film is a unique, imaginary domain, but the world of documentary is different Instead of a world, we are offered access to the world.15This claim to representation of the real means that documentaries are not simply narratives they are also argumentative, if only in the sense that they make claims (even if only implicitly) about what is true. They are therefore a fiction (un)like any other.16 However, Nichols remains troubled by these claims to truth. While the documentary is distinguished from fiction by its links to the real, this representation is rendered problematic by the apparent impossibility of rendering truth objectively. Documentaries, while not fiction, share with fictionthose very qualities that thoroughly compromise any rigorous objectivity, if they dont make it impossible Objectivity has been under no less siege than realism, and for many of the same reasons. It, too, is a way of representing the world that denies its own processes of construction and their formative effect. Any given standard for objectivity will have embedded political assumptions In documentary, these assumptions might include belief in the self-evident nature of facts, in rhetorical persuasion as a necessary and appropriate part of representation, and in the capacity of the documentary text to affect its audience through its implicit or explicit claim of This is so, isnt it?17Nichols argument is reminiscent of those strands of theoretical thought that view ideology as an inescapable and all pervasive force. Documentaries do make claims about the truth that are open to evaluation, but unfortunately, according to Nichols, our institutional mechanisms for assessing such claims are themselves suspect.If such an approach is accepted, evaluation of the arguments made by Oliver Stone and Errol Morris might be highly problematic. Carroll, ho wever, is not willing to concede that any of these arguments establish either that non-fiction is a form of fiction, or that objectivity is impossible. Firstly, he argues that the cinema does not posses any unique tendency towards bias compared to other media. The same arguments about selectivity that Barnouw raises with respect to film are equally applicable to other media and fields of enquiry.18 The particular causes of distortion may be different, but any historian for example may select, manipulate, interpret or emphasise aspects of their material just as a documentary maker can.Thus if non-fiction film is said to be subjective due to its selectivity, so must any field of human enquiry, such as history and science. In the earlier of the two articles I have discussed (written in 1983), Carroll is confident that such a wide-ranging scepticism would not be seriously proposed.19 As we have seen, by 1996 that was exactly the argument Carroll was responding to. Nevertheless, in 198 3 his defence against the selectivity argument is based upon the notion of objectivity. In any given field of argument, at any given time, there are patterns of reasoning, standards for observation, and methods for assessing evidence which are used for getting to the truth.20 A piece of research is considered objective insofar as it abides by these norms.Likewise, non-fiction films may be assessed against similar codes, and will be considered biased or subjective if they fail to meet them. That selectivity may make bias possible, or even likely, does not preclude the possibility of a film according with established standards of objectivity. The obvious differences between the real world and the filmed presentation prevent film from substituting for lived experience, but they do not prevent documentaries from being objective.This central assumption of this argument that there are standards of objectivity that can be used to judge the truth is exactly the assumption that we have see n Bill Nichols question. Carroll, however, disputes all of Nichols contentions that are cited above. Firstly, he does not accept that objectivity demands that a film call attention to its processes of construction. After all, the fact that a non-fiction film is constructed is understood by any audience and does not need to be spelt out. Self-reflexive analyses of the filmmaking process or the authors own subjectivity might be a feature of many recent documentaries, but for Carrol this is an artistic device, rather than a necessary benchmark for objectivity.Nor does he accept that any standard for objectivity has embedded political assumptions, even accepting Nichols very broad definitions (outlined above) of what constitutes a political assumption. A belief in the self-evident nature of facts, for example, might be a political assumption when the facts being presented are politically charged falsehoods. Yet the acceptance that some claims of self-evident truth are suspect does not m ean that there can be no self-evident facts. With regards to rhetorical persuasion, he argues that films can either eschew such devices altogether (he cites nature documentaries as an example),21 or employ rhetorical structures in the service of objective discourse.Similarly, he regards the implicit claim that this is so, isnt it as present in virtually any assertion and hence neither a political assumption nor a barrier to objectivity. Carrolls approach to these arguments about the prospects for truth or objectivity in documentary is often to return to examples where the truth claimed by the documentary seems clear and uncontentious (as with his common use of nature documentaries as discussion points). The linking thread of the arguments he presents is that the theorists he criticises have mistaken the difficulty in presenting objective truth for an impossibility, often by focussing on exactly the texts where the truth is most problematic.22It is worth returning to The Thin Blue Li ne and JFK at this point, since these films both explore events that are subject to considerable conjecture. Neither could be accused of assuming the truth about these events is self-evident (quite the opposite), yet both nevertheless ultimately make vital factual claims. As noted already, these claims question state-sanctioned verdicts, and both films led to a public discussion that forced official re-examination of the cases The Thin Blue Line forced the retrial of Randall Adams, while JFK contributed to the passing of the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992, which appointed an Assassination Records Review Board (AARB) to re-examine unreleased information about the assassination.23 More than a decade later, with Randall Adams freed from jail, it seems fair to say that Morris case has been widely accepted as true.Oliver Stone, too, has been partially vindicated by subsequent re-examination of the case, with records released by the AARB that suppor t some of his allegations (such as tampering with records of Kennedys autopsy).24 Yet, despite such small victories, and acceptance by many filmgoers of Stones theory of the assassination, JFK remains subject to fierce scholarly criticism of both its methods and conclusions that stands in contrast to the reception of The Thin Blue Line. Linda Williams, in her discussion of the two films, dismisses JFK as paranoid fiction,25 and the widespread condemnation of Stones film by both popular and academic press is well documented.26 Clearly this has much to do with the nature of the case Stone discusses.The Kennedy assassination, for obvious reasons, is a much more familiar event and one that had been the subject of considerably more public discussion than the Randall Adams prosecution. Furthermore, while The Thin Blue Line avoids underlining the political implications of its own conclusions, JFK is explicitly critical of the government and media, calling the assassination a coup detat and coming very close to suggesting former president Lyndon Johnson was involved.27However, the difference in the reception of the two films cannot be explained simply through reference to the argument each presents. Within the very similar structures outlined at the start of this essay, there are also crucial differences that also explain much of the negative response to Stones film compared to Morris.In his consideration of JFK, Robert Rosenstone notes that there are considerable constraints over the depiction of historical events on the screen.28 In particular, he sees the need to invent detail and compress events to shape a narrative as a limitation that must be negotiated by any historical film. While he is referring to narrative features such as JFK, his argument is equally applicable to the summaries of and suppositions regarding events in The Thin Blue Line. This argument has clear overtones of the discussions of documentaries distortions of truth through selectivity that have already been cited.Like Carroll, Rosenstone argues that when a historical filmmaker such as Stone invents or compresses events, he or she is exercising the same type of discretion that the author of any written history must.29 Such inventions can be considered true (at least to a point) in the sense that they can be verified, documented, or reasonably argued. The problem, notes Rosenstone, is that the verification must occur outside the world of the film. When Stone argues in JFK that President Kennedy was about to withdraw troops from Vietnam, the information is justified by reference to a real memorandum (National Security Action Memo 263), but a fictitious character makes the reference.Assuming no foreknowledge of the case, the audience has no way while watching the film of even knowing that the memorandum really existed, let alone being sure that it supports the conclusion Stone draws. If Stones conclusion is to be examined, the audience must go beyond viewing and read the relev ant documents (or scholarly discussion of them) for themselves. If they do so, they will, as Rosenstone states, be undertaking the same kind of critique and review that a work of written history is subjected to. This process of measuring a film against standards of objectivity is exactly that which Carroll highlights as the means of linking non-fiction films to the truth. Stone has actively sought to enter into such debates, mounting extensive defences of the historical accuracy of JFK and his other works.30That JFK was so controversial was perhaps partly due to the fact that audiences do not necessarily judge films within such evaluative frameworks unlike the target audience for written history, they may assume that what they see is true and not enter into the debates as to the films veracity. Even assuming an engaged, sceptical audience, however, it is also the case that Stones film does not make the separation of truth from fiction a straightforward task. I have already suggested that the film possesses three layers of exposition an outer narrative (Stones case), an inner narrative (Garrisons story), and evidence (presented as documentary material and re-enactments). The inner narrative story of Jim Garrison (which is likely to be understood by most audiences as at least partially fictional and not taken as literally true) is often weaved seamlessly in with the evidence (more likely to be seen as Stones presentation of true material).Garrison, for example, meets the mysterious Mr X (Donald Sutherland) in Washington, who outlines a hypothesis about who killed Kennedy and why. This calls forth a series of re-enactments of high level discussions between officials that are weaved into Mr Xs account. The narrative is calling forth evidence, but the difficulty with this sequence is in separating what material is a fictional narrative device, what is speculated, and what is documented truth. For example, are we to accept that Garrison really did meet an anonymous official who told him this information, and take that as evidence that Stones case is true? Or are we to take this as simply part of the inner narrative, a method of presenting evidence? As mentioned, Mr X talks in detail of a real memorandum in order to put Stones case that Kennedy wished to withdraw from Vietnam.An audience might correctly surmise that the existence of such a memo (putting aside its meaning) is a documented fact. However, this quickly leads into discussions of the reaction to this memo within high levels of the government, and the point at which history slides into speculation in this sequence is by no means readily apparent. The re-enactment portions of the sequence are presented in a stylised style using black and white photography, but this does not flag them as conjectural, since Stone switches between film stocks throughout the film without drawing such distinctions. (Elsewhere in the film, for example, the Zapruder film of the assassination, is alternated wi th simulated footage shot in the same style.)The effect of these aesthetic decisions by Stone is to confuse the boundaries between non-fiction and fiction in a way that makes application of objective standards for assessing truth difficult. The audience can only infer which sections of the film are intended to be read as non-fiction and subject to such examination.Written in October 2001 for the Melbourne University subject Ethnographic and Documentary Cinema.Notes1. This is the concluding sentence of Eric Barnouw, Documentary A History of the Non-Fiction Film, (Oxford University Press, New York Oxford, 1993, 2nd Revised Edition), p. 349.2. The list of similarities between the two films that follows draws partly on Linda Williams, Mirrors without Memories Truth, History and The Thin Blue Line in Barry Keith Grant Jeanette Sloniowski (eds), Documenting the Documentary Close Readings of Documentary Film and Video (Wayne State UP, Detroit, 1998), p 381.3. The films Garrison, for exam ple, has access to information the real Garrison did not, in order to allow Stone to communicate it to audiences. For example, In the movie we attributed to Garrison the information about Shaws background but in real life Jim did not have access to that information at that time. (Oliver Stone audio commentary, JFK DVD, Region 4 Special Edition Directors Cut release, Warner Brothers, 1 hour 28 mins approx.)4. This phrase is Stones own JFK audio commentary, op. cit., 2 hours 10 mins approx. While these scenes are also used to communicate information about the larger case, this is an example of narrative efficiency, and does not contradict my point that they do contain aspects (such as the melodromatic touch of Garrisons children asking Dont you love us any more?) which function simply as domestic drama, with no relation to the case against Clay Shaw.5. Nichols has revisited and slightly reformulated these modes over time, but they can be summarised as expository (ie voice-of-God docum entaries that use direct address to tell the audience a truth), observational (cinema verite style films that aim to observe events without participating), interactive (interview based films that allows for direct address by participants, while allowing for filmmakers interaction through questioning), reflexive (films that draw attention to the documentarys own methods), and performative (stressing an individual, subjective position, while downplaying objective or referential aspects). See Bill Nichols The Voice of Documentary, Film Quarterly 36, no 3 (Spring 1983) Representing Reality Issues and Concepts in Documentary (1991, Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis), Chapter 2 and (for the perfomative mode) Performing Documentary, Blurred Boundaries Questions of Meaning in Contemporary Culture (c. 1994, Indiana UP, Bloomington), pp 92-106.6. This point and the subsequent discussion of classical film theory draw on the discussions in the anthologies Gerald Mast et al. (eds.), Film Theory and Criticism Introductory Readings, (Oxford University Press, New York and Oxford, 1992), pp. 3-7, and Antony Easthorpe, Contemporary Film Theory (Longman, London New York, 1993), pp. 2-5.7. Rudolf Arnheim, Film as Art (Faber Faber, London, 1958), esp. pp. 17-37.8. Ibid., p. 37-114.9. Nol Carroll, From Real to Reel Entangled in Nonfiction film, in Nol Carroll, Theorizing the Moving Image (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1996), p. 224-252. (Originally published in Philosophic Exchange in 1983, and will be cited in future as Carroll (1996/1983) to distinguish it from his piece in Post-Theory cited below). Reference to direct cinema is p. 225.10. Ibid.11. Ibid., p. 226. Carroll is quoting from the first edition of Barnouws Documentary, citing p. 287-288 of that edition (Oxford University Press, New York, 1974). The nearest equivalent to this quote I can find in the third edition (op. cit.) is at p. 344.12. Nol Carroll, Nonfiction films and Postmodernist S kepticism in Nol Carrol David Bordwell (eds.), Post-Theory Reconstructing Film Studies, (University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, 1996), pp. 283-306.13. Ibid., p. 288. Emphasis is Carrolls.14. Carroll is frequently belligerent about the texts he discusses but is particularly so about Renovs Theorizing Documentary, describing it as a state of the art compendium of received thinking about the documentary film, and dismissing Renovs argument as a red herring. Ibid., p. 285 291.15. Both quotes Nichols, 1991, op. cit., p. 109. Emphasis is Nichols.16. This is the title of the second part of Nichols book. How helpful this argumentative nature is as a distinction between fiction and documentary (and how unlike any other form of fiction documentary can be said to be) is debatable given that fiction can be every bit as argumentative as documentary (as JFK demonstrates).17. Ibid., p. 195.18. Carroll (1996/1983), op. cit., p. 226.19. Carroll I mention this because I do not think that commentat ors who conclude that the nonfiction film is subjective intend their remarks as a mere gloss on the notion that everything is subjective. But that, I fear, is the untoward implication of their attack. Ibid., p. 226.20. Ibid., p. 230. See also Carroll, 1996, op. cit. pp. 283-285.21. Carroll, 1996, p. 294.22. See, for example, Ibid., p. 293, regarding film scholars focus on art-documentary.23. Michael L. Kurtz, Oliver Stone, JFK, and History, in Robert Brent Toplin (ed), Oliver