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Ethics in documentary making. When should the makers intervene?

Started by sponk, April 16, 2019, 09:25:44 PM

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sponk

This thread idea was inspired by Hated but I thought that would be a pretty niche thread and  it would be interesting to make it more general. Do you ever watch documentaries and think it was a immoral for the makers to continue filming and not intervene, call the police or seek medical help?

Hated is, in my opinion, the most immoral, and probably criminal documentary I've ever seen. I find it baffling and infuriating that Todd Phillips has a successful career after making it. It starts with Todd admitting he sent GG a one way bus ticket to New York, allowing him to skip parole for "assault" as Phillips calls it, and evade arrest for several months. That "assault" actually involved GG falsely imprisioning, torturing and sexually assaulting a woman.

During the documentary we see GG committing several sexual and physical assaults and no member of the film crew ever try to stop it. They also used some of the assault footage in the TRAILER for the doc, which can only be seen as blatant profiteering. How can that be justified?

Are Todd and the other producers partly responsible for the crimes committed during the filming? If they'd done the right thing and told the police a convicted torturer was on the run, or handed over any of the footage of other crimes, he would have been jailed immediately, and future victims could have been spared their ordeal. In the #MeToo era when Weinstein's colleagues have been - rightly - turned into pariahs for knowing about, or suspecting of his alleged crimes, yet failing to stop him, how can someone like Phillips be given a free pace for this film?




PlanktonSideburns

Yea don't be filming rapes in your doco guys. Gutted that that I'd even a debate for these clowns. Your little show is unimportant

willpurry

"I know we're just here to make a documentary about this book depository but I can't help thinking that we should have stepped in just then".

"Yes you may certainly have all our footage, sinister guy in fedora".

Sebastian Cobb

[tag]Chris Eubank discusses filmmaking in the Home Counties[/tag]

Dr Syntax Head


mothman


Z

I think consistency is the only thing really. If you're gonna be going all in and having seriously iffy ethics then developing a conscience midway through seems like a detrimental move that'll just distort the overall vision.

PlanktonSideburns

(Tag)Louis theroux didn't know what was going on in this thread, but knew it was time to leave(tag)


sevendaughters

If you intervene in GG Allin's life then have you not prevented the world from knowing about GG Allin properly? Is exposing a wider truth more valuable? The photographer Kevin Carter went mad photographing the famine in Somalia - he wasn't allowed to intervene and took the famous shot of a malnourished child with a vulture on the sidelines. A photo or an image has more power than the best intentioned words. The photo alerted the world to what was happening. If he intervenes it doesn't happen.

Sebastian Cobb

I think photographing something like a famine is an inherently more passive experience than following someone round with a documentary crew, at that point you're basically part of an entourage.

sevendaughters

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on April 23, 2019, 10:15:07 AM
I think photographing something like a famine is an inherently more passive experience than following someone round with a documentary crew, at that point you're basically part of an entourage.

to clarify: this kid was literally dying in sight of a Red Cross feeding station and Carter wasn't allowed to help. that's not passive. that literally drove Carter to suicide.