Front Row Documentary Special
Did anyone hear Front Row's documentary special on Radio 4 last night? It was put together as a mockumentary, complete with narrator and audio diary from Mark Lawson as he explored some of the issues surrounding the form on TV and at the cinema. The hook was the critical success of , but the recent discussions about trust in factual programmes also loomed large, and the tone seemed to be downbeat. To what extent should filmmakers flag up reconstruction? What are the ethics of making a factual programme where people are clearly courting the camera? and both spoke about the responsibility of representing subjects honestly and of retaining distance, but they seemed frustrated at the extent to which the media has conflated the recent scandals in entertainment TV with documentary television. was resistant to Mark Lawson's probing about his choices in making the documentary and appeared to interpret it as an attack on his integrity. This sensitivity seemed to me to be understandable, but a couple of key factors seemed to be missing.
The vogue for a more personal voice in documentary filmmaking has coincided with the popularity of the memoir, and this is another area that has suffered scandals where people have been accused of invention and distortion. It's not only documentary film's truthfulness that is being questioned. Another element that seemed to be missing from the Front Row discussion was the role of the internet. People have far less trust than they used to in media of all sorts, and this is partly because of the ease with which the web allows us to question motives and methods, and to find people who agree with our interpretation. Most programmes and articles now exist on the internet indefinitely and can be dissected and criticised to an extent that would have been unthinkable 10 years ago. As an audience we are more cynical, but it's important to remember that we are also discriminating. It only takes a short wander around sites like , and to see that there is not only a wealth of material, but also communities of people sifting it for gold.
Reality TV may be the factual equivalent of a soap opera, but films like , , and suggest to me that great factual documentaries are being made and, all importantly, watched.
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