“The European intellectual tradition has been grappling with the difference between subjective and objective knowledge since ancient times” (Chapmanand Alison, 2009) Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay It's statements like the one above from Jane Chapman's "Issues in Contemporary Documentary" that led me to investigate how documentary filmmakers try to remain objective when making a documentary. Everyone struggles to keep an open mind and see both sides of a story with global issues, or any issue for that matter, there is always an opinion formed fairly early on. Of course, it all depends on the facts we are given, but then it is the job of the documentarians to try to make sure that all the facts shown are true and that both sides of the issue are shown. Looking at Michael Moore's "Bowling for Columbine" (Moore,2002) and Louis Theroux's "Louis and The Nazis" (Cabb,2003) you can tell, from the different styles and conventions used, that they struggled to remain objective. Theroux makes documentaries on various topics. Some deal with controversial topics like the Nazis, others are more informative and show insight into different ways of life. Theroux got his start in documentaries when he began working as a correspondent for Moore on his program “TVNation” (Moore, 1994), co-founded by the BBC. Once this was completed, the BBC signed a development deal with Theroux. In this essay I will compare Theroux and Moore, one of whom describes himself as a nonfiction filmmaker, not a documentary filmmaker, to show how they are similar and different from each other and how they manage or fail to remain objective. In these documentaries, the people who conduct the interviews, Theroux and Moore, are both very ordinary and normal-looking that the audience can also identify with. This is very different from making a movie where they cast someone who is considered beautiful or famous. Having these regular kids in a documentary will help the audience believe the information they are given without distracting them from the facts. It also means that people being interviewed tend to feel more comfortable with the interviewer and are therefore more willing to talk about their beliefs and points of view. They would be more open and honest because they would not feel threatened by the person asking the questions. If someone famous was giving the interview, they may feel like they want to give a certain answer to please the interviewee or because they already know their beliefs or points of view. “Research is simply formulating the answer to these questions before diving in. If you skip this critical step, you could easily find yourself wasting countless hours and budget dollars pursuing people, topics, and events that will never see the light of day” (Anthony Q . Artis, 2014) Researching your chosen topic gives you the answers you need to know whether the documentary is worth making or not. It will allow you to get the facts and find the right people so you can start planning the documentary in the direction you want to take it. You can start planning what questions to ask certain people with an idea of ​​the answers you will receive. You can also start thinking about what you want to show the audience or how you want to set up the shots to portray the people you are interviewing in a certain way. By not doing any research you waste time and money on a project that may go nowhere. You could also end up being sued for defamation if you make claims you can't support. In the first six minutes of “Louis and the Nazis,” Theroux tells Tom Metzger that he “thinks a little less” of some of the languages ​​that MetzgerUSA. I feel this is slightly subjective as Theroux should remain impartial. Saying this so early in the documentary will influence the audience to think negatively about Metzger before they have heard what he has to say or what he believes. As Moore opens his documentary by showing how everything is seemingly normal in America before walking into a bank where you are given a free gun simply by opening a new bank account with them. Moore shows the audience the newspaper article in which he found the article with the slogan "More BANG for your BUCK". Even though it sounds like he is mocking the bank, which he is, Moore still remains quite objective, as his aim is to demonstrate that restrictions on guns and ammunition should be put in place, not to eliminate them completely. They. It adds humor to keep people interested by showing that it's slightly ridiculous how easily accessible weapons are. He definitely has a subjective agenda, however, at the same time, he doesn't completely agree with either side. To some extent it is a neutral party. “Participatory documentary gives US a sense of what it means for the filmmaker to be in a certain situation and how that situation changes as a result.” (Nichols, 2001) This easily reflects what happens in Theroux's documentary. For example, when Theroux is at Skip's house in "Louis And The Nazis", his being there with the crew alters the situation Theroux finds himself in when Skip asks him whether he is Jewish or not. Skip asks for the camera to be turned off and also says "Well, since you have the camera right now, I'd let you stay. Otherwise I'd probably kick your ass and put you on the street somewhere." We can see how Theroux reacts to what was said and his response which shows us that he was uncomfortable but trying to remain impartial. Theroux responds by saying: “I'm not racist and I actually think it's wrong to be racist Jew or not, I kind of recognized the premise that it really matters when I think it shouldn't and doesn't.” This statement makes it clear that he doesn't agree with Skip or the other racists he interviews, which means that Louis is not very open minded about how they think and their way of life However, by remaining calm and articulate while slightly raising their voice and using vulgar language, it makes them seem like angry and violent people and therefore the audience will think that it is the same for. all skinheads. Since he is only interviewing racist people, he might as well represent the other side of the issue. This therefore counteracts the fact that it is subjective. It's balancing the documentary and making it clear that the documentary is not pro-racism. During an interview on “Louis Theroux in conversation |BAFTA Guru” (YouTube, 2017) Theroux talks about the conversation with a skip and how he had already decided not to say if he was Jewish. He says he wouldn't have said it "partly as a principal and, to be honest, partly because [he] knew that this would end the skinheads... that there would probably be a tension there." This shows that Theroux has used the fact that he has some stereotypical characteristics of someone who is Jewish to his advantage to create some of the tension we see on screen. Theroux does it in “The Most Hated Family in America” (O'Connor, 2007). He asks specific questions that he knows will elicit a reaction and cause tension that will then create drama. Moore feels like having him and his crew there alters what happens to his advantage. In his movie "Bowling For Columbine", for example, when he brings two of the boys killed during the Columbine school massacre to the K-mart headquarters. At first he was told toturns the cameras off, which he does but then turns them back on when someone from media relations comes down to talk to them. I think because Moore had the cameras there, the Kmart people didn't just kick them out and weren't outright rude to them. They were trying to be polite and then they basically left Moore and company down in the lobby. But I think if Moore and his crew hadn't been there, the whole scenario probably would have happened very differently. The way Moore speaks to those he interviews is also very different from the way Theroux conducts his interviews. While talking to James Nichols about Americans' right to bear arms, he begins to nag him slightly before James agrees that there should be some restrictions on the types of weapons that are easily accessible or even allowed to be owned by anyone. Michael Moore: “Do you think you should have the right to have weapons-grade plutonium here in agricultural fields?” James Nichols: “We should be able to have anything…” Michael Moore: “Should you have guns? Should you have weapons-grade plutonium?" James Nichols: “I don't want it.” Michael Moore: “But should you have the right to have it if you wanted it?” James Nichols: “It should be limited.” Michael Moore: “Oh, so you believe in some restrictions?” James Nichols: “Well, there are some crazy people out there.” Badging is a questioning technique that interviewers use when someone doesn't answer the question or avoids it. Sometimes it is done to get the person to say the answer the interviewer wants. This is a subtle way of being subjective about the topic. Moore also asks hyperbolic questions, which is when the question is quite exaggerated, putting the audience on the edge of their seats waiting for the person to answer. It is used to create a reaction. By using this outrageous question, he is also pointing out a gap in the law regarding gun ownership since the wording is not specific about what type of gun one can have. Moore and Theroux have both visited Pastor Phelps, who is the leader of the Westboro Baptist Church, in Kansas on separate occasions. Moore is on his TV show “TVNation” (although the episode hasn't aired, it can be found on YouTube) and Theroux is on the movie “The Most Hated Family in America.” The group is known for hating gays and anyone associated with them, as well as picketing funerals with signs that say things like "God hates fags" and "Thank God for Dead Soldiers." When they meet Pastor Phelps, both Moore and Theroux handle the situation differently. Moore came to visit them when they mostly attended the funerals of gay people or anyone who had died of AIDS. He was riding around in a pink minibus with lots of pro-gay posters along with numerous stereotypical gay men. He confronted Pastor Phelps with people's homosexuality and the content he brought with him to try to get a reaction from him. Which he did to some extent before Pastor Phelps realized he was outnumbered and left. Moore and company followed him north to where he was picketing and started dancing and kissing around them, in my opinion, making the protest look like a joke. Whereupon Pastor Phelps and the others packed up and left. Moore completely had an agenda here and it wasn't subjective at all. He purposely decided to antagonize Pastor Phelps. Theroux spent three weeks with people who are part of the Westboro Baptist Church, which mainly consists of the Phelps family. He first meets Pastor Phelps while he is recording a video message for the church. Theroux asks him a basic question, “how many children do you have?”, to which Pastor Phelps avoids and refuses to answeranswer. Theroux asks again because he wants to see what his response will be considering some of his children have left the church completely. Even if he asks twice, I wouldn't consider it annoying because he lets it go pretty easily afterward and seems very innocent. However, this makes Pastor Phelps come across as unreliable and a bit skeptical. The second time Theroux meets Pastor Phelps is after one of his church services where he preached about God hating fags. This time Theroux talks to him more like a journalist to try to get some information on what Pastor Phelps thinks of his church but still doesn't get adequate answers. In this Theroux remains objective and lets Pastor Phelps pass himself off as someone who has something to hide regarding the so-called “church”. With the demise of Louis and the Nazis, Theroux became more subjective through his interview techniques. He begins to pester people and even uses ambiguous questions. He does this when he talks to John Malpezzi about Tom Metzger's article when he tells him "Why not just say no?" which means he's trying to convince Malpezzi to agree with him. This is not very professional and not objective at all. When Moore goes to Kmart he ends up pestering the people there to meet someone who can do something to get bullets and guns off their store shelves. Even though he was badgering them, I don't think he was being overly subjective, as his goal all along was to try to demonstrate that restrictions need to be put in place when it comes to guns and ammunition. Some people may argue that this is subjective as it benefits one side of the argument, however, I disagree as it simply shows that even people who sell guns and ammunition agree that there needs to be some restrictions. I feel like this is one of the ways he was able to do something to help his cause as he eventually managed to get Kmart to stop selling ammo and was even surprised at how quickly they would do so. However, at the end of the documentary, when he interviews Charles Heston, he grills him on why the gun crime rate is so high in America compared to other countries. During the interview he tells Charles that he is part of the NRA, but he also thinks there should be some restrictions. When Moore mentions the six year old girl, who was shot by another six year old boy, he becomes very subjective as he asks a loaded question to get a reaction from Heston and eventually even resorts to a form of emotional blackmail. leaving a photo of the girls. While they were talking Charles Heston walks away and leaves Moore to show off. Moore follows him and calls Heston to look at the little girl's photo. The big problem with this scene, which makes it seem very subjective, is the fact that it appears to have been shot in two takes. Looking at the scene, it seems like there should be two cameras. One behind Moore facing Heston and the second in front of Moore looking at him. It could have been one long take with the cameraman turning away, but the way they cut it makes Charles Heston look much more guilty and therefore like the bad guy as he walks away. By portraying Heston this way, as representing the NRA, it also makes anyone involved in pro-gun demonstrations look bad. Shortly after the film's release, Charles Heston announced some restrictions on gun ownership, but told everyone it had nothing to do with the actual documentary. "However, even if made by a collective, a documentary can never be entirely objective. Gaylor, as editor of the website, ultimately decides what is orit is not published: there is always a point of view." (Chapman and Alison, 2009) This statement by Chapman contains a lot of truth because, when a documentary is made, things are always changed in the editing to fit what a person wants to show, thus creating an opinion. During editing, clips from the process can be removed or moved to a different place to give more meaning to the things that are done or said in “Bowling for Columbine”, not the shots they are in chronological order and some appear more than once with other clips in between, this is for a reason It would have added more meaning to some scenes by splitting them and putting something else in between. This is evident when he talks to James Nichols, halfway through of the cuts and shows an interview with two boys in an arcade before returning to Nichols When showing clips of Charles Heston at a pro-gun rally supposedly in Denver soon after the Columbine school shooting, Moore says only 10 passed. days, they use editing techniques to hide cuts between two different rallies that Heston spoke at. In the first shot we see Heston at a demonstration he is wearing a blue shirt and a tie. Then we move on to a shot of a billboard promoting a demonstration and then to people taking their seats during a demonstration. The room looks similar to the one in the first shot, so the audience would most likely believe it to be the same rally and therefore not notice the difference in the next shot. In the next clip of Heston at a rally, he is wearing a white shirt with a red tie. In the clip, he mentions how the mayor of Denver told him not to come here and they superimposed clips of people protesting. The first clip is actually from the 129th NRA convention in North Carolina in 2000, almost a year after the Columbine school shooting, in “response to AlGore's call for gun control” (Sanchez, 2015). However, due to where it is placed, it is assumed that it was said at the same gathering following the shooting. This paints Heston as a horrible guy who didn't care about the shooting. Louis Theroux makes his documentary more subjective through the voiceovers he inserts. What he says in his voiceover mostly undermines what the supremacists have said in previous clips. “It's been a long and, in some ways, depressing day. I found Tom's attitude exhausting and I was even more confused when the karaoke bar he took me to turned out to be largely white. I might assume that, for Tom, karaoke sometimes took precedence over racism." After spending a day with Thom Metzger, Theroux said this in his voiceover. His basically implies that he doesn't think Metzger is as big a racist as he's made out to be. It portrays Metzger as a liar and by the end of the documentary the audience will also consider him a hypocrite because of what they have seen. Since he goes to Mexico basically to go bar-hopping in a very multicultural area and then he has a friend who is "non-white". Early on in “The Most Hated Family in America” he uses voiceover to tell the audience a little about the Westboro Baptist Church so they know what they believe and what they do. After that, however, Theroux returns to using his voiceover to question the beliefs or slightly mock even those he is speaking to. Saying that "seeing seven-year-old Elijah get hit with a drink was a reminder that among the Phelps' victims were their own children," Theroux implies that parents within the church cause harm to their children. It states to the public that children, especially the youngest ones, are both innocent and non-innocent victims.