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1981

Shirley Clarke's and the Event of (Fake) Documentary

image of Shirley Clarke's The Connection and the Event of (Fake) Documentary

As a fake documentary, Shirley Clarke's 1961 film enacts a radical interrogation of both the evidentiary authority of the documentary form and the particular power dynamics that subtend and structure documentary filmmaking. The film not only destabilizes the line between nonfiction and fiction film and refutes the notion that documentary film could ever objectively reproduce “the real” but also demonstrates through both its formal and narrative structures how marginalized subjects may “seize the means of production” and subvert the established power structures through filmmaking. Moreover, the film demands that viewers confront not only the power relations inherent in the act of documentary filmmaking (recording others) but also in the act of documentary viewing (watching others), in which viewers of are obviously and actively implicated. The gaze of both the documentary filmmaker and the documentary spectator are both stained red and put under ethical investigation by this fake documentary film.

Keywords: documentary reception ; ethics ; Fake documentary ; power relations ; self-reflexivity ; Shirley Clarke

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References

  1. Azoulay, Ariella (2015), Civil Imagination: A Political Ontology of Photography, London and New York: Verso Books.
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  2. Cotkin, George (2016), Feast of Excess: A Cultural History of the New Sensibility, New York: Oxford University Press.
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  4. Juhasz, Alexandra and Lerner, Jesse (2006), ‘Introduction: Phony definitions and troubling taxonomies of the fake documentary’, in A. Juhasz and J. Lerner (eds), F is for Phony: Fake Documentary and Truth's Undoing, Minneapolis, MN and London: University of Minnesota Press, pp. 1–35.
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  5. Koutsourakis, Angelos (2011), ‘From post-Brechtian performance to post-Brechtian cinema: Shirley Clarke's adaptation of The Living Theatre's production of The Connection’, International Journal of Performance and Digital Media, 7:2, pp. 141–54.
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  6. Leacock, Ricky ([1961] 2016), ‘For an uncontrolled cinema’, in J. Kahana (ed.), The Documentary Film Reader: History, Theory, Criticism, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 490–91.
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  7. Massood, Paula J. (2021), ‘Blurring boundaries, exploring intersections: Form, genre, and space in Shirley Clarke's The Connection’, in P. J. Massood, A. D. Matos and P. R. Wojcik (eds), Media Crossroads, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, pp. 67–81.
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  8. Project Shirley (2012), The Connection, press kit, Milestone Films, http://www.projectshirley.com/press/connection.pdf. Accessed 27 June 2024.
  9. Sayad, Cecilia (2016), ‘Found-footage horror and the frame's undoing’, Cinema Journal, 55:2, pp. 43–66.
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  10. Winston, Brian (1988), ‘The tradition of the victim in Griersonian documentary’, in L. Gross, J. S. Katz and J. Ruby (eds), Image Ethics: The Moral Rights of Subjects in Photographs, Film, and Television, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 34–57.
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References

  1. Azoulay, Ariella (2015), Civil Imagination: A Political Ontology of Photography, London and New York: Verso Books.
     [Google Scholar]
  2. Cotkin, George (2016), Feast of Excess: A Cultural History of the New Sensibility, New York: Oxford University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  3. Davis, Ben (2012), ‘The Bleecker Street Cinema: From repertory theater to independent film showcase’, Cineaste 38:1, pp. 14–19.
     [Google Scholar]
  4. Juhasz, Alexandra and Lerner, Jesse (2006), ‘Introduction: Phony definitions and troubling taxonomies of the fake documentary’, in A. Juhasz and J. Lerner (eds), F is for Phony: Fake Documentary and Truth's Undoing, Minneapolis, MN and London: University of Minnesota Press, pp. 1–35.
     [Google Scholar]
  5. Koutsourakis, Angelos (2011), ‘From post-Brechtian performance to post-Brechtian cinema: Shirley Clarke's adaptation of The Living Theatre's production of The Connection’, International Journal of Performance and Digital Media, 7:2, pp. 141–54.
     [Google Scholar]
  6. Leacock, Ricky ([1961] 2016), ‘For an uncontrolled cinema’, in J. Kahana (ed.), The Documentary Film Reader: History, Theory, Criticism, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 490–91.
     [Google Scholar]
  7. Massood, Paula J. (2021), ‘Blurring boundaries, exploring intersections: Form, genre, and space in Shirley Clarke's The Connection’, in P. J. Massood, A. D. Matos and P. R. Wojcik (eds), Media Crossroads, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, pp. 67–81.
     [Google Scholar]
  8. Project Shirley (2012), The Connection, press kit, Milestone Films, http://www.projectshirley.com/press/connection.pdf. Accessed 27 June 2024.
  9. Sayad, Cecilia (2016), ‘Found-footage horror and the frame's undoing’, Cinema Journal, 55:2, pp. 43–66.
     [Google Scholar]
  10. Winston, Brian (1988), ‘The tradition of the victim in Griersonian documentary’, in L. Gross, J. S. Katz and J. Ruby (eds), Image Ethics: The Moral Rights of Subjects in Photographs, Film, and Television, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 34–57.
     [Google Scholar]

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