The Self Conscious Documentary

This weekend, I saw the thought-provoking documentary My Kid Could Paint That. The movie could've been a straight-forward presentation of the story of Marla Olmstead, a 4 yr old whose paintings sell for several thousand dollars. That subject alone is enough to get people talking for hours. Instead, the documentary turned into a story about the manipulative nature of non-fiction narratives. In fact, there were odd parallels between this movie and The Insider: both films centered on one story but gradually became about the coverage of the story, in particular the coverage provided by 60 Minutes. In The Insider, the producers of 60 Minutes are portrayed as objective heroes fighting big network honchos who are in the pockets of corporations while MKCPT portrays them as spin-meisters who are so intent on making a compelling story that they don't mind ruining the career of a young artist.

Things get really interesting towards the end of MKCPT when the documentarian includes himself as one more person profiting from presenting a certain, inevitably distorted version of the events surrounding Marla's rapid rise to prominence. In this respect, it reminded me of Some Kind of Monster, the oddly entertaining documentary about Metallica and their relationship with psychologist Phil Towle. In both cases, the audience gets to sit back, analyze, pass judgment, and laugh at the subjects of the documentary. Then, suddenly, shockingly, the subjects talk back, accusing the filmmakers of profiting from their real emotional turmoil. The audience feels implicated, too. I'm sure there are other instances of this mini-genre in which documentary makers acknowledge their own construction of reality.

In MKCPT, New York times art critic Michael Kimmelman articulates a point that I'd been trying to make for awhile: there's something manipulative and deceptive about all documentaries (in fact, Kimmelman quotes someone who says that even all photos are an assault on the subjects). Kimmelman says that there might be a real physical event that takes place, but in the retelling of that event, things must be left out, thereby skewing the depiction in a certain way. I suppose you could give a viewer a lot of raw footage and allow them to construct their version of an event, but no matter what, the viewer's version of reality is limited by an intermediary (the documentarian).

We may laugh at aboriginal people who refuse to have their picture taken b/c they believe that the photographer is stealing their soul, but I'm beginning to think that they might have it right. Once you begin to tell another person's story, you're using their existence and their actions for your own ends. As soon as the camera starts rolling, the subject lends some authenticity to the person behind the camera who may then make claims about who the subject is. Its a power balance that is all around us, given the number of camera phones and online photos and videos.

At the center of this particular documentary is the controversy over whether or not Marla's parents helped her paint. The evidence that is used to refute that claim is a DVD recording of Marla creating a painting, unassisted. The message of the film is clear: film is the ultimate evidence. The documentary is also looked upon by many as evidence. It casts itself as getting "the real scoop" behind the smear campaign that 60 Minutes launched against Marla, but ultimately, the documentary maker realizes that the mere fact that he is editing, that he is telling a story about someone else and is profiting from how compelling the drama is (and all good drama needs conflict, heroes, and villains), puts him on the same level as 60 Minutes.

In a wonderfully revealing moment near the end of the film, the mother, after beginning to cry about the fact that she had let so many people use her daughter for their stories, says exactly what I was thinking: "documentary gold." Tears are documentary gold, and its good that the documentary maker is able to recognize that and leave it in the movie. Does that let him off the hook? I was surprised to read that A.O. Scott thinks it does not let him off the hook.

Really, there are degrees of manipulation. The fact that a good chunk of the film emphasized the the turmoil in Marla's family, instead of the heady questions raised about the nature of art, is what made it something worth apologizing for.