In documentary filmmaking, there's a tradition of telling stories about victims. We often do that from a very patronizing place, but mostly we do it from a very selfish place, to reassure ourselves that our lives are in sympathy and solidarity with the victims.
Interpretation
Documentary filmmaking often portrays victims in a way that serves the filmmaker's emotional needs rather than truly representing their stories.
In this quote, Joshua Oppenheimer critiques the common practice in documentary filmmaking of focusing on victims' stories. He suggests that filmmakers frequently adopt a patronizing perspective, using the narratives more to comfort themselves and affirm their own moral standing rather than sincerely engaging with the realities of those they depict. This reflection reveals the complexities of storytelling in documentaries, where the motives behind representation can influence the authenticity and depth of the narrative.
In practice
This quote can be used in a panel discussion about ethics in documentary filmmaking.
If we don't accept the uncomfortable proposition that every perpetrator of virtually every act of evil in our history has been a human being like us, then we actually foreclose the possibility of understanding how we do this to one another and therefore make it impossible to figure out how we might prevent these things.
My father's family was mostly obliterated in the Holocaust, and I grew up very much with the sense that the central moral and political question is how do we prevent these things from happening again.
I went looking for embodiments of pure evil, but found ordinary people.
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I think 'The Act of Killing' forced people to look at the problem, but the problem is actually a state run by thugs, or a shadow state, a part of the state that's run by thugs, and a military that enjoys complete legal - not just impunity, but immunity.
I paint what cannot be photographed, that which comes from the imagination or from dreams, or from an unconscious drive.
To understand bad taste one must have very good taste.
Style is wearing an evening dress to McDonald's, wearing heels to play football. It is personality, confidence and seduction.
You make a movie that is about what you want it to be about and let people have their reaction to it.
Music can lift us out of depression or move us to tears - it is a remedy, a tonic, orange juice for the ear.
Authors and actors and artists and such - Never know nothing, and never know much.
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