In his article, “Ethics in Making a Documentary” Hampe discusses the relationship between a documentarian and those being filmed. There are legal rights that a person included in the filming of a documentary has, and the filmmaker is responsible for how he or she represents those involved. Despite what one may expect, it is not always typical for the people included in a documentary to fill out a release form allowing their images to be used however the filmmaker chooses. In many cases, such as the ambush type interviews done by Michael Moore, the individuals being filmed give no consent at all. This brings into question whether the documentarian is actually documenting truth or reality. Hampe defines this “Journalistic Objectivity” as “seeking to separate fact from opinion, assumption, and evaluation, and to make clear which is which.” Again the emphasis here is upon the decisions of the filmmaker, and the responsibility lies with them regarding what is seen in their films.
This is an interesting concept to think about in regard to Born Into Brothels, because Zana Briski enters the brothels and films a whole city of people. Briski becomes close with the children of the brothel, and films them and their families in a very intimate way. The lives, fights, sexual interactions, alcohol and drug use of these people are made public through Born Into Brothels. While Briski’s intent was to create awareness for the children forced to grow up in this environment, viewers may question the level of awareness that the people of the red light district had about their lives being seen around the world. This may be questioned not only in the visuals of the film, but also in the recorded conversations with the children, who may not have been aware of the impact upon their families and lives this documentary would have. I would be curious to find out whether or not these people did give Briski permission to make their private lives so public.
Chris Miller
ReplyDeleteHampe does an excellent job of starting out “Ethics in Making a Documentary.” The way he asks a question and gets his readers to think about something even before they have read it is an excellent way to start an article. In the opening section, Hampe lays it out for us straight forward, “What is the responsibility of the documentarian to these people.” Hampe tells us that the most popular way to get people’s permission is to get a signed release form. However, this is not always the case and many people don’t even have forms. After Hampe tells us about the release forms, he states that the only real way NOT to be filmed is to get up and leave, or verbally say you do not want to be filmed. Mostly, throughout the article he describes many of the various types of people in documentaries, and how they were viewed. He tells us that one of the important things is how the actual person feels about how the director or filmmaker portrays them in the film.
These are very interesting points when talking about Born into Brothels. Many of the times when you see horrible images or vivid pictures that stick out in your mind, I caught myself wondering, wow I cannot believe that they let them film this. I also started to wonder how the kids maybe felt about all of this. If they watched it did they like it? Did they see themselves as being correctly depicted? I think that Zana Briski made the kids look fun and interesting enough to blind out the thought that some of them would actually continue to grow up in the brothels. Briski almost made the good outweigh the bad throughtout the film, until we get to the end when the audience is still left with that depressed, sad feeling that we had at moments during the film.
Matt Murray
ReplyDeleteIn Hampe's "Ethics in Making a Documentary", I believe that the reader can find a direct relation to the documentary "Born Into Brothels" in that Hampe believes in ethically respecting the subject of the documentary (usually, the people being filmed) and also those people being aware of their rights, and the fact that they are capable of resisting any type of exposure to their lives that they may feel uncomfortable with, if they choose to do so at any time. In the documentary Born Into Brothels, Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman do a wonderful job in following these respectful guidelines when it came to dealing with the children of the brothels. They are two young documentarians that are exposing the poor and unfair lifestyles of young children who are raised and brought up in brothels. Throughout the film, the two film makers addressed the situation properly, in dealing with younger children, but it may also seem to the viewer that, while the children were shown in a good light, the older people of the brothels may have been unfairly exposed, in that they were represented as drug addicts or poor parents. It is with this realization that a viewer may believe that Briski and Kauffman didn't follow proper documentary ethical guidelines. The children clearly had no problem being filmed and put on a video, because the thought of that to a young child sounds fun and exciting and they have no serious thoughts about the situation, but seeing how the older people of the brothels were presented throughout the film may lead and viewers of the documentary to question wether or not Briski and Kauffman actually did request any sort of permission for these people to not only be filmed, but also exposed to the public in the way that they were.
Dominique says,
ReplyDeleteHampe's article Ethics in making a Documentary was very well written and highlighted various important aspects in regards to the amount of ethic responsibility in this type of film. Most importantly how all of the ethic responsibility lies with the filmmaker and not the participants. There are numerous examples of documentaries where the people are portrayed in a completely different way then what they had imaged it would have came out to be. The participants do not get a understanding on what harm this fifteen minutes of fame could have on their life. Potentially the way the very image of the people presented in the film is completely up the filmmakers and the editing team.
In regards to this article and the documentary Born into Brothels, it is my opinion that the even though Briski and Kauffman had very good intentions in making the film, they did not follow proper protocol. When they were editing this film, they need what kind of image they wanted the Brothels and India's government to portray. They knew by including in scenes where it took eight hours to get Avijit's passport, would make the audience angry that she had to stand in line so long just to help this child better himself.
There were also no consent forms given to the parents of these children and the way that they were portrayed in the film. The fact that hidden cameras were used to convey how uncaring, neglectful and mean the children's parents were, was unethical. She completely ignored them in the film and the only time they were referenced was in a negative connotation.
The children themselves in the film were used as objects to shed light on a bigger problem. The children who were innocent and acted as they normally would laugh, playing and crying had no idea what effect this film would have on their lives being good or bad. This documentary is a good example of how actuality is confused with reality. Even though the urgent message expressed in the film was great and unsheathed a problem known only to a few, it still presented in a way that was not completely truthful.