Online Response #5 – The Participatory Mode

There is an interesting conundrum in the generational gap.  The desire for stories to be told from what many have deemed as “the greatest generation,” meets up with the resistance to sharing those stories; coupled with those to whom the stories belong passing away.  In Nobody’s Business, Alan Berliner faces an uphill battle in getting his father to share his past and his commitment to discovering his family.  

The interplay of dialogue between father and son was paramount in the piece, and one of the main justifications that this piece worked so well in the participatory mode.  His father vehemently explains: “There is nothing special about me. You are wasting your time.”  The collaboration and confrontation that Nichols describes in his book is imperative in a participatory piece such as this.  The filmmaker and the social actor’s interchange create an emotional roller coaster for the participants and the audience alike.  What his father deems as “terribly unimportant” (the making of this film) becomes a crucial matter for Allan; someone still struggling to make sense of his parent’s divorce and his crumbling relationships with them. 

Further, the questions upon which Nichols expounds on page 182, highlight the ethics of this line of questioning.  While it appears that the filmmaker is badgering his aged father, he feels a distinct obligation to use whatever methods necessary to get the story out of him.  Intermixing archival footage and interviews, Allan won't give up on his questioning.  He even finds clever metaphors to weave throughout the piece – like

the boxing footage or the house falling into the river to add both humor and imagery to the film; at the same time using those metaphors to give us direct insight into how he, as a filmmaker and a son, feels about this entire process.  By making his emotions accessible to us, he forms an empathetic partnership from which we can view the piece.  The negotiated relationship is created simply because there is a camera present.  Who knows if this could have even happened without the formal presence of the camera?

 

A few years ago, I started writing a play about my grandfather’s World War Two experiences.  He has an incredible story, but he felt like it wasn’t important enough to make a big deal out of it; that he wasn’t important enough.  It was like pulling teeth to get him to talk sometimes, and in the presence of a tape recorder, it proved almost impossible.  He passed away last October.  Reflecting on the interview experience which happened over many months, I doubt he would have dedicated the time necessary to the piece had I not been taking notes and recording the responses, genuinely interested in what he had to say.  While I still have the audio tapes, I really wish I had it on film.  Just as my voice emerged as I wove his story together in a cohesive piece, so did Allan Berliner’s in his exploratory journey of finding his roots and connecting with his father.