« Back to IN FOCUS Truth or Faction Pages 1 | 2 | 3

One might reasonably ask the question, “Are all documentary filmmakers liberals?” Well, no, as demonstrated by Michael Wilson’s Michael Moore Hates America and Celsius 41.11. But the yearning to improve our world by shining a light on injustice and inequality is what initially attracted many doc makers to their profession. Those who are generally content with the status quo tend to seek other, better-paying careers.

Even among people drawn to make movies, there’s a difference. Filmmakers who, say, tout the improved yield of bioengineered corn plants, or the salutary effects of the revised Medicare drug bill, or the social benefits of real estate development, are making infomercials or corporate videos, not documentaries. What seems beyond dispute is that this year’s spate of political documentaries was fueled by the looming presidential election. Or, to be more blunt, by a loathing for the Bush Administration so keen that a number of filmmakers were impelled to take action the best way they knew how: using films to influence the hearts and minds of their fellow voters.

To that end, both Robert Greenwald’s Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraq War and Jeremy Earp and Sut Jhally’s Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear & the Selling of American Empire mount carefully researched cases against President Bush’s stewardship. Uncovered presents interviews with numerous members of the U.S. intelligence community dismissive of the Bush Administration’s rationales for deposing Saddam Hussein, while Catastrophe argues that the administration cynically used the events of September 11, 2001 to push through legislation and further an agenda, at home and abroad, that had little to do with national security.

Michael Paradies Shoob and Joseph Mealey’s Bush’s Brain represents a slightly different act of peering behind the curtain of power. Instead of focusing on the president’s acts and statements, it illuminates the career of the no-holds-barred political strategist, Karl Rove, widely credited with Bush’s electoral successes, campaign tactics and policy victories.

A key impetus for most of the films discussed here, and Uncovered, Hijacking and Bush’s Brain, in particular, is getting information and points of view to the American people that have been ignored by the mainstream media in general and television news in particular. Increasingly, moviegoers are looking to documentary filmmakers for the kind of investigative journalism and behind-the-scenes reports that were once the province of the networks. Relying on grants and television funding but in no one’s employ, independent filmmakers uncover and pursue stories without worrying about upsetting advertisers, embarrassing a board of directors or violating prime-time or parental guidelines.

Jehane Noujaim’s Control Room for example, provides a revealing glimpse of the way journalism was practiced at the Arabic television network Al-Jazeera both before and during the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The filmmakers provide a fascinating perspective on the run-up to the war, and then of the American military’s behavior in Baghdad in a few cases, that was simply unavailable on American television.

Afghanistan Unveiled, directed by Brigitte Brault and the AINA Women’s Filming Group, follows several Afghan women, newly trained as journalists, as they carry camcorders deep into their country to find out what life is really like, and what people are really thinking, at a time of great change.

Closer to home, Alison Maclean and Tobias Pearse’s Persons of Interest presents the testimony of a dozen Arab and Muslim immigrants in the New York City area who were detained, interrogated and, in the cases of some family members, deported in the wake of 9/11.

The Hunting of the President, directed by Harry Thomason and Nickolas Perry, is a straightforward journalistic exercise that traces the roots of the campaign to discredit President Bill Clinton through the so-called Whitewater real estate scandal.

All of these stories might once have aired on CBS Reports, a venerated and long-running investigative journalism series that tackled everything from coal mining in Appalachia to prison conditions in New York. The program vanished from the airwaves several years ago. The void has been filled, on both broadcast and cable networks, by a parade of inexpensively produced programs hosted and populated by talking heads. In lieu of reporting, these shows serve up endless opinion, analysis and punditry.

Television’s general disinterest—and its obvious inability to air works that favor one side over another—has been a key factor in the flood of politically themed documentaries turning up in theaters or selling DVDs through the Internet, as evidenced by the partnership between www.moveon.org and the producers of Uncovered. Of course, the amazing success of Fahrenheit 9/11 had a lot to do with convincing theater owners that booking political documentaries was a hot ticket this election year.  Read More

Truth or Faction Pages 1 | 2 | 3 top