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Author Topic: Filmspots 2018: Personal Ballots  (Read 6548 times)

Jeff Schroeck

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Re: Filmspots 2018: Personal Ballots
« Reply #20 on: February 07, 2019, 10:43:09 AM »
I saw Minding the Gap, which was okay, I guess. I'm just notoriously hard to please when it comes to my docs. However you want to think about it, they're the type of films I find the most problematic and the most prone to me asking questions about while watching that brings me out of the film.

Like how much of a doc just happens because you put a camera there and then people start performing for the camera? How much is just dumping info on us? How much is idly filming stuff and then just trying to assemble something that feels profound in the editing room? Is this film emotionally manipulating me into feeling things I wouldn't feel in say a persuasive essay? Is there such a thing as truth in documentary? Why am I just not rewatching Close-Up at this point? That film at least doesn't presume to avoid these questions. Is this doc better than Close-Up? Yea, I didn't think so.

I like how Liu addresses this question, which I thought during all the scenes of fighting, at least when I remembered that a camera operator was always there, by keeping in a shot of Zach saying something like "Is this one of the ones where I pretend you're not here?"