mitchmagic
Registered User
The way he dialogues and narrates a lot of his films, purposely directs you to his opinions rather than just objectively giving you the facts and allowing the viewer to form their own opinion. I feel that documentaries that accomplish this the best are usually stronger films.
It's kind of like writing a paper in school. It's always stronger when you provide both sides of the argument, show what you think and leave an ample oppotunity for the reader to form their own opinion on the matter.
I do not feel he doe sthis well, whether by design I'm not sure. But he's bad for it in my eyes. (Michael Moore is a lot like this as well)
No documentary is unbiased. Every documentary has an agenda and a point of view of a director. Every cut a director or editor makes in a documentary will point the viewer in a specific direction. Every camera placement changes something in the viewer's brain, even subconsciously. Viewers can read an encyclopedia if they want pure facts. Even Cinema Direct has choices from a director.
If documentaries weren't stylized by a director's personality and bias then we wouldn't have groundbreaking work by Errol Morris/Herzog/Maysles.
Certainly some directors hide the bias better than most, but I think theres a great integrity in Herzog telling his subject (and the audience) at the beginning of the Into the Abyss that he "doesn't agree with the death penalty."
Be transparent as a director. You're making a movie after all, whether it's doc or fiction.