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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The essence of style is how you live your life
Francie was ten years old when she first found an outlet in writing. What she wrote was of little consequence. What was important was that the attempt to write stories kept her straight on the dividing line between truth and fiction. If she had not found this outlet in writing, she might have grown up to be a tremendous liar.
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Art is the most beautiful deception of all!
The radio makes hideous sounds.
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