CINEMA VÉRITÉlivision by Will Lewis


Submitted February 23,2011 CINEMA VÉRITÉlivision By Will Lewis (Author bio below) In Aaron Sorkin's vastly underrated television show, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, Bradley Whitford, who portrays a writer/director, tells Amanda Peet, an overpowering vice president of a television network: “That's nice, but I have no reason to trust you and every reason not to.” She appears puzzled, and even asks, “why?” He quickly responds, “You work in television!” This social commentary on television, most accurately represents how the mode exists on the other side of the truth scale. “What is ‘truth,'” Filmmaker Allan King says, “is a problem that has puzzled philosophers ever since Plato. You do get a kind of truth with Cinema Vérité, but the only absolute truth is in logic” (Stone). With the advances in technology, the style of Cinema Verité has evolved from the mundanity in its representation of the subject and descended into entertainment in its narrative adaptation for reality television. CINÉMA VÉRITÉ King introduces a concept known as Cinema Vérité, which given the numerous denotative definitions, contains many different meanings. Overall, the concept “Vérité,” French for “truth,” branches from Observational Documentary, urges for a pure cinema, capturing the reality surrounding its subject, and although not completely objective, as close to an objective approach as possible. In the mid sixties, a wave of filmmakers took this unorthodox approach to documentary film and launched a movement. King, himself a pioneer in the Cinema Verité movement, claimed the newly innovative 16mm light-weight cameras and synchronized audio to portable tape recorders, were the two major technological advancements at the time that gave filmmakers the necessary boost. With this equipment, these filmmakers shot “long-uninterrupted takes with open-ended conclusions, and focused on the mundane aspects of the subject” (Feldman 1). Along with King, French filmmaker and anthropologist Jean Rouch contributed to the beginning of the movement with Chronique D'Un Été (1961), a film capturing the ordinary lives of Parisians as they exist in their own environment of Paris in the summer of 1960 (Nichols 118). In America, the ideas of Cinema Vérité were translated and transcribed as Direct Cinema, attempting to take more of the “eye on the wall” approach. Major filmmakers like Robert Drew, DA Pennebaker, Fredrick Wiseman and the Maysles Brothers created observational films that captured their subjects within their natural environment and the actions that occurred without a narrator or narrative to guide the viewers to a specific understanding. Without of a narrator, Robert Drew said, “the viewer must make the logical connections between shots and scenes. Verbal information is not carried by a carefully scripted narration recorded in a studio, but through sync-sound dialogue recorded ‘on the run'” (Hall 28). Drew's film Primary (1960) literally followed John Kennedy during his Presidential Primary in 1960, even so far as to tracking hand-held behind Kennedy as he walked through crowds, but also on and off the stage. D.A. Pennebaker's Don't Look Back (1967) followed Bob Dylan as he went on tour in England, and captured him in his most pure form. Especially in regards to this film, Pennebaker exclaimed, “film should not lecture. The moment I sense that I'm being TOLD the answer, I tend to start rejecting it” (Hall 28). Fredrick Wiseman made Titicut Follies (1967), a film exploring the lives of how mental inmates/patients were treated at Bridgewater State Hospital for the criminally insane. Wiseman challenged viewers not to look away, and “‘experience' the life of Bridgewater, to see and hear what it ‘is' and to figure out what it ‘means'” (Anderson 35). Albert and David Maysles filmed mother Edith Ewing Beale, and her daughter Edith Bouvier Beale in Grey Gardens (1975), as they lived in their secluded home, going through daily routines. Albert Maysels mentioned on the making of the film: “We were with them for six weeks and we still were waiting for some culminating moment perhaps, but if it didn't happen, okay, well, it didn't happen” (Stubbs 9). In Allan King's film Warrendale (1967), he focused on a day in the life of emotionally disturbed children coping with the notion of labeled indifference inside a facility. Allen showed the children in their environment and it was concluded that the kids were no different than any other. It is the rigid style in which these films work that help capture a sense of “mundanity” of the subject in the environment. The word “mundane” is typically attributed with a negative connotation; however, when used in this essay, the term describes actuality, which has absolutely nothing to do with one's evaluation of the film, but the accuracy of depicting reality. An evaluative description would be “boring,” which these films have been tagged by critics, however it is important to keep in mind they were not conveived for entertainment purposes. TELEVISION There has always been some interest in reality within Television. Even from the beginning, a show like Candid Camera, arguably the first reality television program, created a blur between the real and the fake “in an age of technological reproduction – and Cold War surveillance-anxiety” (Huff 16). The apparent trend to represent reality is shown through new technological innovation with television just as with cinema. A little background of societal chronology must be understood before describing further technological advancements. The timeline from the late forties through the last part of the fifties is vastly considered the “Golden Age of Television” (Huff 14). During this time, a wide range of show formats were popular, including everything from morning cartoons to variety and game shows, but also late night dramas. Whereas the sixties brought immediate change and focused on the “new,” the seventies swayed away and into the “epic” with a transition from films like Bonnie and Clyde (1967), and Easy Rider (1969), to the invention of the “blockbuster” with Jaws (1975) and Star Wars (1977). The industry built itself back up and used big-budgets and spectacles to attract attention and overall, entertain. In television, the industry went through the great Rural Purge in 1971, a term describing the cancellation of many classically formatted shows and called for a new combination that emphasized the new society and culture. One of the shows that came about by the “out with the old, and in with the new” mentality was An American Family (Huff 13). Revamping the ideology of Cinema Verité , the show strayed away from Leave it to Beaver utopias and centered its focus on controversial and realistic issues inside a real family. The constant filming of every minute in the family's life presented a notion of the average American family turning on the television to invite confrontation into the living room, where a preexisting confrontations developed. With television progressing in the same direction as cinema, newer technology created even more opportunities for changes within both mediums. As the shuttle took off, so did MTV, which launched its first televised music video, “Video Killed the Radio Star” (A self-explained analogy) on August 1 st , 1981. This marked the birth of a new age in television and audience. The technological advancement with the creation of video, outdated many other forms of media, specifically film and radio. Taking the concept of radio's disc jockeys, the network created video jockeys (VJ's), forcing the emphasis away from sound, and placed it on the image. Now audiences could see a human being introduce a song visually in their living room. Independent artists also saw video as an outlet to make films at a lower cost. Once Albert Maysles began shooting on video, he began preferring it to film, saying in an interview: “I can serve all the purposes that I've always had much, much better” (Stubbs 11). While video was helpful for those independent filmmakers who could get their hands on this new technology, the advancement as a phenomenon was primarily used by television executives to capitalize on profits. Along with video, the late eighties saw the emergence of AVID technology: taking videotaped footage and converting it to digital hard disks. This new technology allowed editors to inspect shots, cut, and alter sequences quicker than any other form. This style, which they coined, “nonlinear editing,” revolutionized the entertainment industry and is still the dominant form of editing (Corporate Profile). With this technology, ABC premiered its show, COPS, in 1989. COPS was a show, taking the visual aesthetic of Cinema Vérité, and gave a moment-to-moment account for the appearance of police officer's daily routines (Murphy). The show's content and production operated on a quick pace, one that was quickly shot, edited and distributed right into the living room for viewing pleasure. This show marked the first step away from the representation of reality and into entertainment by giving the illusion of realism. The eighties saw another rise in technology with the invention of synthesizers. The synthesizer was a machine used to create an electronic sound represented through the recreation of an actual sound. Therefore, a synthesizer could fill a room with the sound of a full orchestra by the mere push of a button. This one invention was the perfect analogy for what happened to the ideology of Cinema Vérité. The actual sound of the instrument or the record player that transmitted the sound is connected to Cinema Vérité, and the digitally-reproduced false representation of the instrument by the synthesizer is connected to television taking the visual aesthetics and creating a new product. Moving into the nineties, MTV remained one of the major television networks, leading them to create The Real World , what most consider the very first reality television program. Every show began with the same overhead narration, “Seven strangers – picked to live in a house – to find out what happens when people stop being polite and start getting real” (Huff 12). The emphasis was on the claim of the “real.” This led viewers to literally take the television's claim as truth, and accept every action in the house as reality. Throughout the house, multiple cameras were used to capture footage, later neatly edited and packaged. Everything from sexual intercourse to fueled arguments, led to swearing and fighting, but most importantly were all captured on video and shown to audiences all over the country (Huff 13). The major component of the show was the “talking head.” This interview technique gave viewers subjected access into the mind of each member in the house and were able to apply it to scenes constructed with the appearance of realistic situations. Robert Drew was exceedingly opposed to interviews, claiming they can “establish a control over the subject, or can introduce your propulsion into the subject to such an extent that from then on, you won't get what that character would have done without the interview” (Hall 28). By gaining the subjective access to the thought process of an individual in the house, the show focused more on the audience's interpretation rather than the representation of the individuals in the house. The show was a major success and turned the seven strangers into celebrities (Huff 18). Seven years later, with the success of The Real World , Fox took the concept, however instead of isolating strangers in a house, they stranded them on an island with Survivor . Playing off the concept of The Real World , Survivor added a game show aspect, splitting the group into two teams, with the inclusion of organized competitions for prizes. If Survivor failed, Executive Producer Mark Burnett said, “it would ring the death knell for reality shows” (Huff 18). The exact opposite happened. Survivor proved that reality television would soon dominate the airwaves. The shows were cheap to produce with using real people over actors, and shot with handheld digital video cameras (Huff 19). Nearly all of the aesthetic characteristics that helped create Cinema Vérité, were fully exercised in the production of reality television, however were not subject focused, but audience focused, which contradicts the process completely. Like most successes in television, the industry caught on and moving into the 2000's, nearly all major networks were running reality television programs (Huff 20). The industry became a production assembly line for reality programming. With the misguided term “reality television” being used as a marketing ploy, every program turned out by the networks moved further and further away from the mundanity of reality that was once represented in the films of Wiseman and Drew. Being that the focus was turned onto the viewer, they themselves were soon credited with being a participant in a show like American Idol . The rapid growth in percentages of people using cellular phones was researched and FOX created a way for viewers to alter a contestant's fate on American Idol by calling or texting to vote and decide the outcome (Huff 124). By giving the audience this opportunity, it disrupts the environment within the show and the “reality” that exits. Not to mention the idea of representing reality was slowing being diminished to the point where style superseded substance. In 2004, MTV premiered Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County , a show that consisted of “highlighting” the reality of teenagers growing up on the California coast. The show opened with a disclaimer that read, “The following program was shot over an eight month period in the city of Laguna Beach, California. The people, the locations and the drama are real” (Laguna Beach). Laguna Beach went against everything Cinema Vérité had accomplished. Executive producer Tony DiSanto openly admitted, “I've always wanted to try to do a reality show that would use the visual language of a narrative like in feature films and dramas, instead of the visual language of a documentary” (Dehnart). His comment right away points out the obvious contradiction with claiming truth, however doing so with a narrative structure. The show begins with Lauren/LC giving an overhead narration about her and her friend's precise character descriptions. By doing so, she identifies her and her friends as fictitious characters. In Warrendale , the kids are not seen as characters with specifically tailored traits, but as human begins whom contain many, even contradicting traits. Music is used is to not only illicit specific reactions, but blatantly a tool for manipulation. The only music played in Titicut Follies occurs when it is played diegetically within the actual environment – the space in which the subject and the camera both share. The music used in Laguna Beach is inserted while in post-production. Captions are given for diegetic locations, transitions in time, and for individuals when they speak. Through captioning, the show reacquaints the audience with the structured individuals and locations, but also states the obviousness in transitioning to future points in time. This correlates to Pennebaker's quote, because in this show, the audience is not required to do any self-interpretation since everything is already interpreted for them. On the other hand, Don't Look Back blurs the lines between the identification of locations and time. Laguna Beach's shaky handheld camerawork and sense of “nonacting” might convince fans of reality television that it is indeed real, however Disanto also said the show “used at least two or three cameras for every shot” (Dehnart). By keeping two the three cameras on a situation, the reality is compromised. The only goal accomplished by this is giving the audience multiple viewpoints of a situation. Different perspectives may have been obtained, however the scenes in the show are completely skewed to a specific conflict. When that many cameras are used in production, specifically in documentary production, the subjects are pressured with an even more awareness of the camera and forced to shell themselves internally or attempt to pass an artificial persona on the viewer. The fact DiSanto considers the situations “scenes” reaffirms an argument that capturing reality is the last concern next to adjusting the look of the image itself to reflect specific, episodic moments of realism, but editing out the mundanity. Along with Digital Video and the Synthesizer, another technological advancement revolutionized television, but also the perception of reality, and that was the Internet. The creation of the Internet was made possible through interconnecting wires together in hope to establish a mass-communication network (Gralla 47). Information is sent through these wires at lightning speed, giving the ability to retrieve any piece of data instantly. In doing so, this provides the entertainment industry, but also independent filmmakers with the opportunity to distribute and exhibit their films, television programs, and any other forms of products virally for everyone across the world. On the Internet, sites like Youtube, Netflix, and the recent Hulu, have completely reworked the structure of the system and provided a complete change in medium. People are provided with the opportunity to watch their favorite shows via Hulu, rather than cable TV. The technological advancement had reworked the idea of television's definition. Certain questions are posed, such as: Is it still television if it is viewed online? American Idol executive producer Simon Cowell created a new show at the beginning of 2010 with the name If I Can Dream , the first show broadcasted primarily on Hulu (Miller). The Internet also opened another door for the show through its intertwined community of networks and combined with virtual reality, a computer-simulated experience, created Cyberspace, a term coined by science fiction writer William Gibson in his 1984 novel, Neuromancer (Friedman 18). Using The Real World as a template, If I Can Dream brings several individuals together in a house, but unlike most shows where judges exist and rewards are given to a winner, the contestants merely live in the house and venture off to make their various dreams come true. Throughout the house, 56 H.264 cameras are located all throughout the house from the bedrooms to the bathrooms, a process sending live feed from the cameras to 13-15 servers, which transmit virally (Miller). The show operates on two separate levels with the viewer: entertainment and participation. The first level, entertainment, is done through the episodes featured on Hulu, that consist of thirty minutes of complied footage, forming a sense of coherent narrative. This level represents the old way in which a television show is presented to the viewer. On the other hand, the other level allows the audience to act as a participatory figure with the show. On the show's website, a specifically detailed template gives a layout of the house. The viewer is given the choice to access any room in the house, and is not only granted access to the room at one angle, but given the option of six different angles provided by different cameras places throughout each room. Upon a click of the mouse from one angle to another, frames are transitioned instantly, providing a change in space and continual time. In theory, this grants the responsibilities of the editor to the viewer. If the choice is made to stay at one angle, the subjects will act, in the sense of going through daily routines, interact with the other individuals inside the house, or exist outside the frame since a single frame of space had been selected for viewing. On the overall surface, the method of the show's reception contains many similarities to the notion of realism. The cameras that are randomly placed throughout the house, fail to capture the individuals evenly framed at the center. If one felt the desire to choose an unoccupied room, they could view hours upon hours of nothing happening. Since the action, or in this case non-action is transmitted live, there exists no narrative, merely whatever occurs. However, while this may seem to present an objective view inside the house, once must realize the capability to intercept anything virally and alter its actuality within the speed of light before transmitted to the viewer. Therefore, what may appear to be a transition from one angle to the next could actually be a reconstructed fabrication of what executive producers want to distribute. It is important to keep in mind all of this presented reality is accessed through Cyberspace. The manipulation of the actuality through fantasy can most likely be equated to Laguna Beach 's, Survivor 's The Real World 's or COPS ' presentation of reality. Just as one trusts reality television to give a depiction of the real world, the Internet establishes itself to take the viewer away from it and present an alternate one, moving from the “actual” to the “virtual.” Slovenian philosopher, Slavoj Žižek, presents an explanation to how far reality has come in its representation through this medium and how viewers digest it. He says: “In so far as the Virtual Reality (VR) apparatus is potentially able to generate experience of the 'true' reality, VR undermines the difference between ‘true' reality and semblance.” ( Žižek 133 ). The “apparatus” in which Žižek refers to, represents the show's narrative, and the “experience” is the overall grasped false concept of the show's reality. In this case, it is the new process that makes this possible, thus creating the impossibility to differentiate between what Žižek refers to as the “true” reality and semblance. For Cyberspace, it is all about creating the appearance of realism through mental persuasion, but it is through the combination of a “simulated reality” projected by VR, with the connected entity supplying the capability for admittance from the Internet that creates the possibility for deception. CINEMA VÉRITÉlivision Beginning with the opportunities provided by hand-held lightweight cameras and sync-sound of the 1960's Cinema Vérité films and progressing technologically to 2010 with the rise of video and the Internet, one cannot deny the fact that the definition of “reality” went through drastic changes. It was through these technological advancements of the 80's, 90's and 2000's that the industry provided a border and not a bridge to conserving Cinema Vérité's ideology of reality. The films by these documentarians in the 60's sought to discover “truth” in the real world, however reality television, with its existence relying on ratings, explored the fantasy through deception. In this world, it is now almost nearly impossible to find a situation where technology does not dictate what occurs in reality, since so much of reality operates through technology. The distinction between Cinema Vérité and reality television can be explained through the suture/lacerate theory. The concept of “suture” originates from the surgical process of stitching up a wound. To suture, theoretically, in the case of film/television is the finely tuned, pre-digested comprehension of a narrative's ability to pull the viewer into the fabrication of the film/television's diegesis. Combining the surgical process with film/television, the open wound represents reality, one side of the skin represents the viewer and the other represents the screen. In the theoretical definition, suturing is the act of bringing the viewer and the screen together and concealing the gap of realism. Ever since the establishment of the Classical Hollywood system, suturing remained the dominant form in film/television. With documentary, it was Rouch, King, Drew, Pennebaker, and the Maysles brothers who opposed the form, and exercised the theory of laceration. Classical Hollywood opted to suture, whereas these filmmakers chose to lacerate, or break the suture, distancing the viewer from the screen, and exposing the reality. Both Cinema Vérité and reality television were created by a progression of technological advancements, however it was in the treatment of story that separated the two. With Cinema Vérité, there exited a progression of technology, but a regression in story, however, with reality television, there exited a progression of technology, and a progression of story. The rise in technology created an opportunity for Vérité filmmakers to produce something new, which they successfully accomplished, but the same opportunity was presented to individuals in television who on the other hand, strove to capitalize off of the style by not exploring the mundanity of reality, but showcasing it as entertainment. Works Cited Anderson, Carolyn, and Thomas W. Benson. Reality Fictions: The Films of Fredrick Wiseman. Chicago: Southern Illinois University, 2002. “Corporate Profile.” Avid.com/US/about-avid/corporate-profile. Avid Technology, Inc. n.d. Web. 23 March 2010. Dehnart, Andy. “MTV Reinvents Reality TV.” Realitybured.com. Reality Blured , 28 September 2004. Web. 21 April 2010. Feldman, Seth. Allan King: Filmmaker . Indiana: Toronto International Film Festival in conjunction with Indiana University Press, 2002. Print. Friedman, Ted. Electric Dreams . New York, NY: NYU Press, 2005. Print. Gralla, Preston. How the Internet Works . Indianapolis, IN: Que Corporation, 1998. Print. Hall, Jeanne. “Realism as a Style in Cinema Verite: A Critical Analysis of Primary.” Cinema Journal 30:4 (1991). Print. Huff, Richard M. Reality Television . Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc., 2006. Print. Miller, Liz Shannnon. “Inside the If I Can Dream House.” NewTeeVee.com. New Tee Vee, 1 March, 2010. Web. 25 April 2010. Nichols, Bill. Introduction to Documentary . Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2001. Print. Stone, Tammy. “The King of Cinéma Vérité: An Interview with Allan King.” Northern Stars : 2009. 20 March 2010. <http://www.northernstars.ca/directorsal/king_allan_interview.html> Stubbs, Liz. Documentary Filmmakers Speak . New York: Allworth Press, 2002. Print. Žižek, Slavoj. “Cyberspace, Or, The Unbearable Closure of Being.” The Plague of Fantasies . London: Verso, 1997: 127-166. Print. About the Author ~ William Lewis I fell in love with cinema when I was a child. The spectacle of viewing astonished me beyond all belief. After graduating high school I went to college and studied acting and stage design at Gordon College. Since I grew up in a small town in Georgia, the closest college did not have a film program, however offered one in Theatrical Arts. Once I transferred to Georgia State University, I was finally able to study my true obsession, but also was introduced to the various fields of Film Studies; specifically, Analytical Film Theory. While surrounded by other like-minded cinephiles, I took every film class I could get my hands on, whether I needed it to graduate or not. I was a presenter at the 2010 Georgia State University Research Conference, where I read my essay "Le Mépris: Cinema as Art or Commodity?" It wasn't until taking a class instructed by documentary filmmaker Daniel Robin that I found my passion for production. In that class I completed my first experimental short, entitled WINE FILM on 16mm. After graduating in the Fall of 2010, I relocated to Greensboro, NC, where I am currently working on various experimental films, writing criticisms daily, and preparing for graduate school.

Submitted February 23,2011

CINEMA VÉRITÉlivision

By Will Lewis (Author bio below)

In Aaron Sorkin's vastly underrated television show, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, Bradley Whitford, who portrays a writer/director, tells Amanda Peet, an overpowering vice president of a television network: “That's nice, but I have no reason to trust you and every reason not to.” She appears puzzled, and even asks, “why?” He quickly responds, “You work in television!” This social commentary on television, most accurately represents how the mode exists on the other side of the truth scale. “What is ‘truth,'” Filmmaker Allan King says, “is a problem that has puzzled philosophers ever since Plato. You do get a kind of truth with Cinema Vérité, but the only absolute truth is in logic” (Stone). With the advances in technology, the style of Cinema Verité has evolved from the mundanity in its representation of the subject and descended into entertainment in its narrative adaptation for reality television.

CINÉMA VÉRITÉ

King introduces a concept known as Cinema Vérité, which given the numerous denotative definitions, contains many different meanings. Overall, the concept “Vérité,” French for “truth,” branches from Observational Documentary, urges for a pure cinema, capturing the reality surrounding its subject, and although not completely objective, as close to an objective approach as possible. In the mid sixties, a wave of filmmakers took this unorthodox approach to documentary film and launched a movement. King, himself a pioneer in the Cinema Verité movement, claimed the newly innovative 16mm light-weight cameras and synchronized audio to portable tape recorders, were the two major technological advancements at the time that gave filmmakers the necessary boost. With this equipment, these filmmakers shot “long-uninterrupted takes with open-ended conclusions, and focused on the mundane aspects of the subject” (Feldman 1).

Along with King, French filmmaker and anthropologist Jean Rouch contributed to the beginning of the movement with Chronique D'Un Été (1961), a film capturing the ordinary lives of Parisians as they exist in their own environment of Paris in the summer of 1960 (Nichols 118). In America, the ideas of Cinema Vérité were translated and transcribed as Direct Cinema, attempting to take more of the “eye on the wall” approach. Major filmmakers like Robert Drew, DA Pennebaker, Fredrick Wiseman and the Maysles Brothers created observational films that captured their subjects within their natural environment and the actions that occurred without a narrator or narrative to guide the viewers to a specific understanding. Without of a narrator, Robert Drew said, “the viewer must make the logical connections between shots and scenes. Verbal information is not carried by a carefully scripted narration recorded in a studio, but through sync-sound dialogue recorded ‘on the run'” (Hall 28). Drew's film Primary (1960) literally followed John Kennedy during his Presidential Primary in 1960, even so far as to tracking hand-held behind Kennedy as he walked through crowds, but also on and off the stage. D.A. Pennebaker's Don't Look Back (1967) followed Bob Dylan as he went on tour in England, and captured him in his most pure form. Especially in regards to this film, Pennebaker exclaimed, “film should not lecture. The moment I sense that I'm being TOLD the answer, I tend to start rejecting it” (Hall 28). Fredrick Wiseman made Titicut Follies (1967), a film exploring the lives of how mental inmates/patients were treated at Bridgewater State Hospital for the criminally insane. Wiseman challenged viewers not to look away, and “‘experience' the life of Bridgewater, to see and hear what it ‘is' and to figure out what it ‘means'” (Anderson 35). Albert and David Maysles filmed mother Edith Ewing Beale, and her daughter Edith Bouvier Beale in Grey Gardens (1975), as they lived in their secluded home, going through daily routines. Albert Maysels mentioned on the making of the film: “We were with them for six weeks and we still were waiting for some culminating moment perhaps, but if it didn't happen, okay, well, it didn't happen” (Stubbs 9). In Allan King's film Warrendale (1967), he focused on a day in the life of emotionally disturbed children coping with the notion of labeled indifference inside a facility. Allen showed the children in their environment and it was concluded that the kids were no different than any other. It is the rigid style in which these films work that help capture a sense of “mundanity” of the subject in the environment. The word “mundane” is typically attributed with a negative connotation; however, when used in this essay, the term describes actuality, which has absolutely nothing to do with one's evaluation of the film, but the accuracy of depicting reality. An evaluative description would be “boring,” which these films have been tagged by critics, however it is important to keep in mind they were not conveived for entertainment purposes.

TELEVISION

There has always been some interest in reality within Television. Even from the beginning, a show like Candid Camera, arguably the first reality television program, created a blur between the real and the fake “in an age of technological reproduction – and Cold War surveillance-anxiety” (Huff 16). The apparent trend to represent reality is shown through new technological innovation with television just as with cinema. A little background of societal chronology must be understood before describing further technological advancements.

The timeline from the late forties through the last part of the fifties is vastly considered the “Golden Age of Television” (Huff 14). During this time, a wide range of show formats were popular, including everything from morning cartoons to variety and game shows, but also late night dramas. Whereas the sixties brought immediate change and focused on the “new,” the seventies swayed away and into the “epic” with a transition from films like Bonnie and Clyde (1967), and Easy Rider (1969), to the invention of the “blockbuster” with Jaws (1975) and Star Wars (1977). The industry built itself back up and used big-budgets and spectacles to attract attention and overall, entertain. In television, the industry went through the great Rural Purge in 1971, a term describing the cancellation of many classically formatted shows and called for a new combination that emphasized the new society and culture. One of the shows that came about by the “out with the old, and in with the new” mentality was An American Family (Huff 13). Revamping the ideology of Cinema Verité , the show strayed away from Leave it to Beaver utopias and centered its focus on controversial and realistic issues inside a real family. The constant filming of every minute in the family's life presented a notion of the average American family turning on the television to invite confrontation into the living room, where a preexisting confrontations developed.

With television progressing in the same direction as cinema, newer technology created even more opportunities for changes within both mediums. As the shuttle took off, so did MTV, which launched its first televised music video, “Video Killed the Radio Star” (A self-explained analogy) on August 1 st , 1981. This marked the birth of a new age in television and audience. The technological advancement with the creation of video, outdated many other forms of media, specifically film and radio. Taking the concept of radio's disc jockeys, the network created video jockeys (VJ's), forcing the emphasis away from sound, and placed it on the image. Now audiences could see a human being introduce a song visually in their living room. Independent artists also saw video as an outlet to make films at a lower cost. Once Albert Maysles began shooting on video, he began preferring it to film, saying in an interview: “I can serve all the purposes that I've always had much, much better” (Stubbs 11). While video was helpful for those independent filmmakers who could get their hands on this new technology, the advancement as a phenomenon was primarily used by television executives to capitalize on profits.

Along with video, the late eighties saw the emergence of AVID technology: taking videotaped footage and converting it to digital hard disks. This new technology allowed editors to inspect shots, cut, and alter sequences quicker than any other form. This style, which they coined, “nonlinear editing,” revolutionized the entertainment industry and is still the dominant form of editing (Corporate Profile). With this technology, ABC premiered its show, COPS, in 1989. COPS was a show, taking the visual aesthetic of Cinema Vérité, and gave a moment-to-moment account for the appearance of police officer's daily routines (Murphy). The show's content and production operated on a quick pace, one that was quickly shot, edited and distributed right into the living room for viewing pleasure. This show marked the first step away from the representation of reality and into entertainment by giving the illusion of realism.

The eighties saw another rise in technology with the invention of synthesizers. The synthesizer was a machine used to create an electronic sound represented through the recreation of an actual sound. Therefore, a synthesizer could fill a room with the sound of a full orchestra by the mere push of a button. This one invention was the perfect analogy for what happened to the ideology of Cinema Vérité. The actual sound of the instrument or the record player that transmitted the sound is connected to Cinema Vérité, and the digitally-reproduced false representation of the instrument by the synthesizer is connected to television taking the visual aesthetics and creating a new product.

Moving into the nineties, MTV remained one of the major television networks, leading them to create The Real World , what most consider the very first reality television program. Every show began with the same overhead narration, “Seven strangers – picked to live in a house – to find out what happens when people stop being polite and start getting real” (Huff 12). The emphasis was on the claim of the “real.” This led viewers to literally take the television's claim as truth, and accept every action in the house as reality. Throughout the house, multiple cameras were used to capture footage, later neatly edited and packaged. Everything from sexual intercourse to fueled arguments, led to swearing and fighting, but most importantly were all captured on video and shown to audiences all over the country (Huff 13). The major component of the show was the “talking head.” This interview technique gave viewers subjected access into the mind of each member in the house and were able to apply it to scenes constructed with the appearance of realistic situations. Robert Drew was exceedingly opposed to interviews, claiming they can “establish a control over the subject, or can introduce your propulsion into the subject to such an extent that from then on, you won't get what that character would have done without the interview” (Hall 28). By gaining the subjective access to the thought process of an individual in the house, the show focused more on the audience's interpretation rather than the representation of the individuals in the house. The show was a major success and turned the seven strangers into celebrities (Huff 18). Seven years later, with the success of The Real World , Fox took the concept, however instead of isolating strangers in a house, they stranded them on an island with Survivor . Playing off the concept of The Real World , Survivor added a game show aspect, splitting the group into two teams, with the inclusion of organized competitions for prizes. If Survivor failed, Executive Producer Mark Burnett said, “it would ring the death knell for reality shows” (Huff 18). The exact opposite happened.

Survivor proved that reality television would soon dominate the airwaves. The shows were cheap to produce with using real people over actors, and shot with handheld digital video cameras (Huff 19). Nearly all of the aesthetic characteristics that helped create Cinema Vérité, were fully exercised in the production of reality television, however were not subject focused, but audience focused, which contradicts the process completely. Like most successes in television, the industry caught on and moving into the 2000's, nearly all major networks were running reality television programs (Huff 20). The industry became a production assembly line for reality programming. With the misguided term “reality television” being used as a marketing ploy, every program turned out by the networks moved further and further away from the mundanity of reality that was once represented in the films of Wiseman and Drew. Being that the focus was turned onto the viewer, they themselves were soon credited with being a participant in a show like American Idol . The rapid growth in percentages of people using cellular phones was researched and FOX created a way for viewers to alter a contestant's fate on American Idol by calling or texting to vote and decide the outcome (Huff 124). By giving the audience this opportunity, it disrupts the environment within the show and the “reality” that exits. Not to mention the idea of representing reality was slowing being diminished to the point where style superseded substance.

In 2004, MTV premiered Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County , a show that consisted of “highlighting” the reality of teenagers growing up on the California coast. The show opened with a disclaimer that read, “The following program was shot over an eight month period in the city of Laguna Beach, California. The people, the locations and the drama are real” (Laguna Beach). Laguna Beach went against everything Cinema Vérité had accomplished. Executive producer Tony DiSanto openly admitted, “I've always wanted to try to do a reality show that would use the visual language of a narrative like in feature films and dramas, instead of the visual language of a documentary” (Dehnart). His comment right away points out the obvious contradiction with claiming truth, however doing so with a narrative structure.

The show begins with Lauren/LC giving an overhead narration about her and her friend's precise character descriptions. By doing so, she identifies her and her friends as fictitious characters. In Warrendale , the kids are not seen as characters with specifically tailored traits, but as human begins whom contain many, even contradicting traits. Music is used is to not only illicit specific reactions, but blatantly a tool for manipulation. The only music played in Titicut Follies occurs when it is played diegetically within the actual environment – the space in which the subject and the camera both share. The music used in Laguna Beach is inserted while in post-production. Captions are given for diegetic locations, transitions in time, and for individuals when they speak. Through captioning, the show reacquaints the audience with the structured individuals and locations, but also states the obviousness in transitioning to future points in time. This correlates to Pennebaker's quote, because in this show, the audience is not required to do any self-interpretation since everything is already interpreted for them. On the other hand, Don't Look Back blurs the lines between the identification of locations and time. Laguna Beach's shaky handheld camerawork and sense of “nonacting” might convince fans of reality television that it is indeed real, however Disanto also said the show “used at least two or three cameras for every shot” (Dehnart). By keeping two the three cameras on a situation, the reality is compromised. The only goal accomplished by this is giving the audience multiple viewpoints of a situation. Different perspectives may have been obtained, however the scenes in the show are completely skewed to a specific conflict. When that many cameras are used in production, specifically in documentary production, the subjects are pressured with an even more awareness of the camera and forced to shell themselves internally or attempt to pass an artificial persona on the viewer. The fact DiSanto considers the situations “scenes” reaffirms an argument that capturing reality is the last concern next to adjusting the look of the image itself to reflect specific, episodic moments of realism, but editing out the mundanity.

Along with Digital Video and the Synthesizer, another technological advancement revolutionized television, but also the perception of reality, and that was the Internet. The creation of the Internet was made possible through interconnecting wires together in hope to establish a mass-communication network (Gralla 47). Information is sent through these wires at lightning speed, giving the ability to retrieve any piece of data instantly. In doing so, this provides the entertainment industry, but also independent filmmakers with the opportunity to distribute and exhibit their films, television programs, and any other forms of products virally for everyone across the world. On the Internet, sites like Youtube, Netflix, and the recent Hulu, have completely reworked the structure of the system and provided a complete change in medium. People are provided with the opportunity to watch their favorite shows via Hulu, rather than cable TV. The technological advancement had reworked the idea of television's definition. Certain questions are posed, such as: Is it still television if it is viewed online?

American Idol executive producer Simon Cowell created a new show at the beginning of 2010 with the name If I Can Dream , the first show broadcasted primarily on Hulu (Miller). The Internet also opened another door for the show through its intertwined community of networks and combined with virtual reality, a computer-simulated experience, created Cyberspace, a term coined by science fiction writer William Gibson in his 1984 novel, Neuromancer (Friedman 18). Using The Real World as a template, If I Can Dream brings several individuals together in a house, but unlike most shows where judges exist and rewards are given to a winner, the contestants merely live in the house and venture off to make their various dreams come true. Throughout the house, 56 H.264 cameras are located all throughout the house from the bedrooms to the bathrooms, a process sending live feed from the cameras to 13-15 servers, which transmit virally (Miller). The show operates on two separate levels with the viewer: entertainment and participation. The first level, entertainment, is done through the episodes featured on Hulu, that consist of thirty minutes of complied footage, forming a sense of coherent narrative. This level represents the old way in which a television show is presented to the viewer. On the other hand, the other level allows the audience to act as a participatory figure with the show. On the show's website, a specifically detailed template gives a layout of the house. The viewer is given the choice to access any room in the house, and is not only granted access to the room at one angle, but given the option of six different angles provided by different cameras places throughout each room. Upon a click of the mouse from one angle to another, frames are transitioned instantly, providing a change in space and continual time. In theory, this grants the responsibilities of the editor to the viewer. If the choice is made to stay at one angle, the subjects will act, in the sense of going through daily routines, interact with the other individuals inside the house, or exist outside the frame since a single frame of space had been selected for viewing.

On the overall surface, the method of the show's reception contains many similarities to the notion of realism. The cameras that are randomly placed throughout the house, fail to capture the individuals evenly framed at the center. If one felt the desire to choose an unoccupied room, they could view hours upon hours of nothing happening. Since the action, or in this case non-action is transmitted live, there exists no narrative, merely whatever occurs. However, while this may seem to present an objective view inside the house, once must realize the capability to intercept anything virally and alter its actuality within the speed of light before transmitted to the viewer. Therefore, what may appear to be a transition from one angle to the next could actually be a reconstructed fabrication of what executive producers want to distribute. It is important to keep in mind all of this presented reality is accessed through Cyberspace. The manipulation of the actuality through fantasy can most likely be equated to Laguna Beach 's, Survivor 's The Real World 's or COPS ' presentation of reality.

Just as one trusts reality television to give a depiction of the real world, the Internet establishes itself to take the viewer away from it and present an alternate one, moving from the “actual” to the “virtual.” Slovenian philosopher, Slavoj Žižek, presents an explanation to how far reality has come in its representation through this medium and how viewers digest it. He says:

“In so far as the Virtual Reality (VR) apparatus is potentially able to generate experience of the 'true' reality, VR undermines the difference between ‘true' reality and semblance.” ( Žižek 133 ).

The “apparatus” in which Žižek refers to, represents the show's narrative, and the “experience” is the overall grasped false concept of the show's reality. In this case, it is the new process that makes this possible, thus creating the impossibility to differentiate between what Žižek refers to as the “true” reality and semblance. For Cyberspace, it is all about creating the appearance of realism through mental persuasion, but it is through the combination of a “simulated reality” projected by VR, with the connected entity supplying the capability for admittance from the Internet that creates the possibility for deception.

CINEMA VÉRITÉlivision

Beginning with the opportunities provided by hand-held lightweight cameras and sync-sound of the 1960's Cinema Vérité films and progressing technologically to 2010 with the rise of video and the Internet, one cannot deny the fact that the definition of “reality” went through drastic changes. It was through these technological advancements of the 80's, 90's and 2000's that the industry provided a border and not a bridge to conserving Cinema Vérité's ideology of reality. The films by these documentarians in the 60's sought to discover “truth” in the real world, however reality television, with its existence relying on ratings, explored the fantasy through deception. In this world, it is now almost nearly impossible to find a situation where technology does not dictate what occurs in reality, since so much of reality operates through technology.

The distinction between Cinema Vérité and reality television can be explained through the suture/lacerate theory. The concept of “suture” originates from the surgical process of stitching up a wound. To suture, theoretically, in the case of film/television is the finely tuned, pre-digested comprehension of a narrative's ability to pull the viewer into the fabrication of the film/television's diegesis. Combining the surgical process with film/television, the open wound represents reality, one side of the skin represents the viewer and the other represents the screen. In the theoretical definition, suturing is the act of bringing the viewer and the screen together and concealing the gap of realism. Ever since the establishment of the Classical Hollywood system, suturing remained the dominant form in film/television. With documentary, it was Rouch, King, Drew, Pennebaker, and the Maysles brothers who opposed the form, and exercised the theory of laceration. Classical Hollywood opted to suture, whereas these filmmakers chose to lacerate, or break the suture, distancing the viewer from the screen, and exposing the reality.

Both Cinema Vérité and reality television were created by a progression of technological advancements, however it was in the treatment of story that separated the two. With Cinema Vérité, there exited a progression of technology, but a regression in story, however, with reality television, there exited a progression of technology, and a progression of story. The rise in technology created an opportunity for Vérité filmmakers to produce something new, which they successfully accomplished, but the same opportunity was presented to individuals in television who on the other hand, strove to capitalize off of the style by not exploring the mundanity of reality, but showcasing it as entertainment.

Works Cited

Anderson, Carolyn, and Thomas W. Benson. Reality Fictions: The Films of Fredrick Wiseman. Chicago: Southern Illinois University, 2002.

“Corporate Profile.” Avid.com/US/about-avid/corporate-profile. Avid Technology, Inc. n.d. Web. 23 March 2010.

Dehnart, Andy. “MTV Reinvents Reality TV.” Realitybured.com. Reality Blured , 28 September 2004. Web. 21 April 2010.

Feldman, Seth. Allan King: Filmmaker . Indiana: Toronto International Film Festival in conjunction with Indiana University Press, 2002. Print.

Friedman, Ted. Electric Dreams . New York, NY: NYU Press, 2005. Print.

Gralla, Preston. How the Internet Works . Indianapolis, IN: Que Corporation, 1998. Print.

Hall, Jeanne. “Realism as a Style in Cinema Verite: A Critical Analysis of Primary.”

Cinema Journal 30:4 (1991). Print.

Huff, Richard M. Reality Television . Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc., 2006. Print.

Miller, Liz Shannnon. “Inside the If I Can Dream House.” NewTeeVee.com. New Tee Vee, 1 March, 2010. Web. 25 April 2010.

Nichols, Bill. Introduction to Documentary . Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2001. Print.

Stone, Tammy. “The King of Cinéma Vérité: An Interview with Allan King.” Northern

Stars : 2009. 20 March 2010. <http://www.northernstars.ca/directorsal/king_allan_interview.html>

Stubbs, Liz. Documentary Filmmakers Speak . New York: Allworth Press, 2002. Print.

Žižek, Slavoj. “Cyberspace, Or, The Unbearable Closure of Being.” The Plague of

Fantasies . London: Verso, 1997: 127-166. Print.

About the Author ~ William Lewis

I fell in love with cinema when I was a child. The spectacle of viewing astonished me beyond all belief. After graduating high school I went to college and studied acting and stage design at Gordon College. Since I grew up in a small town in Georgia, the closest college did not have a film program, however offered one in Theatrical Arts. Once I transferred to Georgia State University, I was finally able to study my true obsession, but also was introduced to the various fields of Film Studies; specifically, Analytical Film Theory. While surrounded by other like-minded cinephiles, I took every film class I could get my hands on, whether I needed it to graduate or not. I was a presenter at the 2010 Georgia State University Research Conference, where I read my essay "Le Mépris: Cinema as Art or Commodity?" It wasn't until taking a class instructed by documentary filmmaker Daniel Robin that I found my passion for production. In that class I completed my first experimental short, entitled WINE FILM on 16mm. After graduating in the Fall of 2010, I relocated to Greensboro, NC, where I am currently working on various experimental films, writing criticisms daily, and preparing for graduate school.