Online Response #4 – The Observational Mode

The term voyeurism is a perplexing one.  It generates feeling of conflict.   But that is so much of our entertainment programming today; both in fiction and documentary productions: a pleasure in looking at the most intimate moments of a person’s life.  Though consent might be obtained, in documentary form, the feeling of looking in on someone’s private life – their own behind the scenes in the cinema of attractions – is difficult to compartmentalize.  While we are used to observing movie and music stars, and their lack of privacy due to tabloids and news programs, do we still have any right to see one in his underwear as he hurries to change for a concert, trying to ignore the camera that it interfering his space?  This candid look generates a version of the star that he might normally try to keep private. 

 

But isn’t that what the filmmakers of Lonely Boy were trying to do?  They revealed what life is like for Paul when the camera is there and when it isn’t.  Though there were moments where they tipped their hands and let us see the behind the scenes of their filmmaking process as well.  This “fascination of lived experience” keeps the film and television industries (even YouTube) alive.  We desire to look and are drawn to the opportunities to do so.

Recently, the television program, What Would You Do? filmed a segment in my home town.  My father is the head of the Police Department there, so they had to go through him to get both security and permits to film their hidden camera program.  He was on site during the filming, but not in the actual space where the encounter was being filmed.  In this particular case, they chose a small town café in a predominately Mormon community, and staged (with professional actors) a teenage boy coming out to his parents.  The parents rejected the boy and caused quite the scene in the restaurant.  The goal was to observe the reactions of the other patrons of the restaurant and see if they would get involved with the boy’s predicament.  The “pleasure of looking” took on an entirely new meaning for my father.  The patrons in the café tried to look away, but couldn’t.  In the control room, the filmmakers, eagerly looked at the reactions of the social actors involved, deciding on what footage would be best to show the audience who would then also have pleasure in looking.  The unsuspecting participants, many of whom were people my family knows, felt duped.  Though those that chose to get involved were actually content with their performance (for lack of a better term), those who watched and hid their faces were none too thrilled about being involved with this production. 

Though a hidden camera project like this might not be explicitly an observational mode, it carries the same feel of the every-day real.  These people were not puppets, directed by the filmmakers.  Their involvement was, however, carefully constructed by the filmmakers.  Nichols talks about the move wherein filmmakers choose to observe spontaneously and not add voice over commentary, calling this a “look in on life as it is lived.”  When this is done in the observational mode, the viewer must take “a more active role in determining the significance of what is said and done.” (Nichols, 174)  My neighbor’s lives were, in many ways, constructed by the filmmakers.