Alex Rivera: “Documentarians play the most crucial role when they question the official story” by Alex Rivera (July 5, 2009)
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Let’s put “Bananas!*” aside for a moment, and look at the big picture. One of the things documentarians do - often - is question the justice system. Look at “The Thin Blue Line,” an obvious example. Errol Morris uses the film to present evidence that counters a conviction a court delivered, and ultimately, by releasing the film, Morris proves the inmate’s innocence. But what if someone told Errol he should not make the film because the case was already settled? That would be absurd. Or what if Errol made the case for innocence in the film, but after releasing the film a judge disagreed with the evidence the film presented? Would he be asked to re-cut the film to square his version of events with the judge’s? Of course not. The situation of filmmakers and others pushing for a re-cut of “Bananas!*” is no less absurd. A community of filmmakers here is telling a documentarian that a court ruling should compel him to doubt his subjects, and re-cut his film. The problem here is the filmmaker doesn’t agree with the recent ruling. Gertten believes that Juan Dominguez did not likely commit fraud, that the farm workers’ cases have merit, and that Judge Chaney’s ruling must be seen as a triumph of Dole’s team of paid investigators and corporate lawyers (who produced all of the evidence of the alleged fraud, using testimony gathered from anonymous witnesses). At the “Bananas!*” premiere no one asked Gertten if he still believed in his story. When the lights went up the conversation began with the participants implicitly accepting the truth behind the new ruling from the judge, and asking Gertten how he would deal with his presumably tainted film. It would have been hard to imagine a better post-screening discussion, from Dole’s point of view – no one even mentioned the pesticide. I was bewildered, and left wondering if the group was falling into a trap: reading the Ferrari-driving lawyer who has his face on billboards as a sleazy stereotype – a mercenary trial lawyer at best and fraudulent Latino hustler at worst. One way or another, many participants were more willing to assume that Judge Chaney (and Dole) had found real fraud, than to assume that Juan Dominguez and filmmaker Gertten had found the real truth.
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Sorry, I only skimmed the first portion of the article…the film is not by Rivera so my apologies. I think the criticism is still justified, so take from it as you like, removing the fact that the film is not by Rivera. The justifications are specious.
Your reasoning is specious and frankly disappointing. You compare your film to the Thin Blue Line, but there is a big difference between that film and yours. While Morris made his film AFTER a ruling by the court had been made final, you made yours WHILE the legal process was still proceeding. In essence, none of the information you present in your documentary addresses the question of whether the case brought against Dole was fraudulent. Had the judge found against Dole, you would be touting that as the “truth” without bothering to find out if it really was. It simply supports your position, and so it must be true. That is the worst kind of documentation in any media or discipline.
It also has nothing to do with whether Dole committed the acts in dispute. Personally, I’m quite prone to believe the company has always acted against the health and interests of the people of the third world—but that has very little to do with the merits of this case. If the lawyer was dirty, then he was dirty. And if the court found him dirty, you simply can’t say that they’re wrong WITHOUT PROVIDING A SHRED OF EVIDENCE to support your conclusion to the contrary. The court found once in favor of your subject, and then not only found against him, but initiated charges of fraud and attempted to disbar him. That is one or two levels removed from simply having the case over turned.
Having sat through my fair share of documentaries which have only one of two goals—to disseminate the opinion of the film maker, or to create art—I can tell you that its high time that documentarians started having this conversation. If I were you, I’d salvage what little self-respect I have left and join in with sincerity.
Dominguez seems a shaky soap box.
On the other hand, the soon-to-be-reassigned judge making the ruling smacks of the tobacco lawsuit against CBS’ Sixty Minutes, and how they caved and later re-told their excellent story. The wind had been knocked out of the story when it finally aired, however, because of the caution of CBS.
What happens now? Is Dominguez appealing the case? I’d like him to appeal and trade his Ferrari in for a Prius.