Review: OT Our Town

The most impressive thing about this documentary for me was the editing. The cuts between the different scenes choices B-roll were very poignant.

The story telling in this documentary was a more distanced approach, with just observation and interviews and without any sort of narration. This establishes us as an audience that feels like we have a direct connection to the main characters without having to access them through an interpreter or a middle-man. This approach makes editing all the more difficult because the storyteller can only relate ideas through the implication of experiences rather than writing a fancy paragraph to convey ideas to us.

The incredibly creative thing that this documentary did in place of their own narration was to pull out poignant portions of a film version of "Our Town," which is the play that these high school kids are performing. This was a very fun way to contrast of the play’s heritage to the student's heritage, and lead the story in the same fashion that a first person narration would do, without making the audience feel like they are being spoon fed the story.

The director decided to tell the story on a linear timetable, because the inciting moment, rising action, and climax are all very implicit in the set-up of events which leads to a natural story arch which leaves little reason to take another approach to the story. everything for these students is leading up to whether the performance of their play will be a success or not and the viewers of the film have to watch if they’re going to get the payoff of learning if the event will be a success of not

The most effective scenes were the ones that raised the stakes and set up the story for a large payoff at the end of the documentary. We followed various individuals into their homes and throughout their lives and learned many different reasons why they shouldn't be able to put on a successful play. These are the kinds of setups that make us cringe when Netflix has to buffer in the third act of the documentary, because we can hardly stand not seeing how the story ends.

The talking heads in this documentary were particularly effective, because the characters sometimes had opposing goals. A lot of the students seemed to have a really hard time with the English teacher that was directing the play. Hearing a talking head from both the students and the teacher herself allowed us to notice the tension between the individuals a lot more. This is the same strategy that reality television shows use to add tension in their stories, but in this documentary the tension seems more organic and less contrived.

The only time I ever really felt like I may have been manipulated in this story is when we finally get to the play that the students are putting on and everything goes very well. Granted, it is a happy way to finish of the story of these High School students, but it seemed like there was a much higher chance that things were going to go wrong because of all of the things that were going wrong right before the play. Maybe this is just the way the story went and I don’t have a reason to really be skeptical, but I have my suspicions that the documentarians may have overplayed the disasters of the play in order to add more drama to the piece.

Review: Nobody's business

The documentary Nobody’s Business, had some very carefully crafted editing, which told the story in a way that we could feel engaged and connected with the characters of the film. The film starts with Oscar Berliner telling a joke, of which the punch-line is "can you make a landscape of me?" Here Alan has already given us his thesis for the film, which is to show a landscape view of Oscars life. The next thing we dive into is a moment that shows us Oscars character very clearly. This adds intrigue. The questions Alan has he translates into visuals and takes us on the same journey he was going through. He is never the main voice of the piece, but we become familiar with his perspective through the things that other people are saying. Therefore, the perspective isn’t over manipulated. He’s not trying to convince us of anything, but the story is convincing us itself. 

I really appreciated how Allan did not put together the documentary just by a navel gazing narration and slideshow, or a clear set of questions and answers with objectives, but he took the most telling moments with his father and let us gaze into his life and develop our own thoughts and implications. This is important because we are learning and developing our own opinions and revelations of Oscar the same time Alen is. He takes us on his journey of discovery rather than revealing everything in a lecture type of way in a classroom. This makes the development of the story more exciting, and more important to us. The way he told the story was so important that it couldn’t have worked any other way.

I am Always interested in people and am constantly thinking about meddling in the lives of others. This film does a fantastic job of looking at something so close to Alen Berliner's life without being guilty of the sin of navel gazing. This method of showing and not telling is what puts distance between his own life and our life so that we can ease into the story and learn to actually care about his grandfather even though the story isn’t something that would normally be considered documentary worthy. We never get the impression that he is saying “I'm smart and I have a thing or two to say that will enlighten you about who my father is.” The subject is very close to him but he keeps it void of his own thoughts and opinions so that we can take the journey with him.

The B-roll was an incredibly efficient and creative way to show the story that the director wanted to tell. Much of the B-roll was done through juxtaposition of his father’s interview and the archival footage. Every time Alen and his father were fighting about the interviews we would see some old footage of a boxing match. This adds entertainment value, and continues to pull us into the story. All of the B-roll acts as a catalyst for impressions that we get of Alen’s father through the interviews. They hone or thoughts so that we think about what Alen want’s us to think about without feeling manipulated.

Review: Forks Over Knives

Coming from a lifelong and avid picky eater, it’s a big deal when I say that this documentary changed my life. 

                 There is a fine line that these documentaries have to tread between a heavy handed presentation and an ineffective laisseze faire presentation. I felt like the director was very successful in his storytelling approach. Whenever I watch documentaries like this one that are trying to convince me to change the way I act, I take things with a grain of salt because I am a little paranoid that the filmmakers are trying to manipulate my opinion. This film on the other hand, seemed to respect my ability to deduct the evidences that they’re presenting to me.

Though respectful, The documentary didn’t leave me completely autonomous and was definitely trying to prove a point, but it didn’t do so with rhetoric, but with storytelling. The convincing evidence came from the stories of the doctors, the participants, and even the documentarian. We were able to see how they sincerely believe in the validity of a diet with less animal product because of the evidences they come across by study and experimentation in their lives.

What was interesting about the main point of view in this documentary, which was of the director, is that he didn't really share much of his opinion during the film. In fact, he kept himself very much a side story and only seemed to pipe in when he was showing the audience the results of his self-experiment. All I had to work with were the facts that he was giving me, and when somebody tells you “I’ve lost weight and have more energy,” It’s hard to argue back.

      There were only a very small handful of times when I felt like I couldn’t trust what the documentary was saying, and that was when I saw people who looked like they would be stereotypically categorized as people who would choose a Vegan diet because of the social circles that they existed in. For example, there were a couple of doctors at the beginning of the film that looked like they'd be pretty hipster and liberal, and I had decided as soon as I saw them that I wouldn’t trust anything they had to say. As the movie went on I was surprised to see that they didn’t spend any time in a talking head interview, so I never really had a clear opportunity to disagree with them.

     The documentary always related itself back to my culture, my diet, and my country, but never me explicitly. They likened the subject close enough to my life to get my attention, but not close enough for the film to feel like it was didactic or preachy. In the end I did not want to resist the documentary because it didn't feel accusatory. It felt humble and patient, and the topic applied to me so greatly that I really felt a drive for change.

     This documentary made use of the ever popular tool of charts and graphs to go along with their statistics. These are arguably overused in modern documentary, but I think it’s probably because they’re really effective at planting ideas into our heads without any skepticism on our part. Each graph or 3D example was laying down sciences that were backing up the arguments in the documentary, and I readily believed everything they had to say.

      Probably the most convincing evidence of this film is the stories of the two old physicians. Their ranking and their findings were very convincing, but the most compelling part about them was their sincerity and what they believed about their findings. I think the documentary would have fallen extremely short of its potential if we didn’t get to know them on a personal basis. I learned to trust them because of their history and character.

            I really enjoyed this documentary over-all and would defiantly force the entire country to watch it if I were Emperor of the FDA.