Zeitgeist

Even if you have seen films like "Loose Change", did the film segment make you question or challenge your beliefs about 9/11? Explain.

My original beliefs towards the 9/11 incident were fairly two-dimensional to begin with. They were as limited as a news headline is brief. "Hijacker Flies Into Twin Towers" was pretty much all I knew about the incident until films such as Loose Change, and more recently, Zeitgeist. The use of conventions such as archival footage, and their technique involving hammering away at individual ideas in the paragraph shown to the audience certainly planted the possibility of an inside job scenario in my head (but it hasn't caused a change of heart towards what the real story could be).

What documentary conventions did this film employ?

Zeitgeist used film conventions such as archival footage and talking heads. Many video clips from news reports and witness accounts were used. Footage from some of Bush's presidential speeches were included, as well as some made by others of governmental office.

What aspects of the film make its assertions seem true? List three facts that support their claim that 9/11 was authored by the US.

“All the World’s a Stage”, attempts to prove that the US government plotted the 9/11 attacks in New York and contracted the dirty work to international resources. Provided evidence includes a mixture of the apparent “TV clips of witnesses describing a second explosion”, the questionable “government efforts to hide any conclusive evidence of a Boeing 757 hitting the Pentagon” and the perplexing “the demolition-like accuracy with which the buildings collapsed”.

What would make you think that the film's assertions are false?

The second part of the film opens with a paragraph detailing the "myth" of the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001 (called 9/11 from here on). The film maker has already reached a predetermined conclusion, and assumes you have as well, that the attacks on 9/11 were an inside job or something to that affect. Therefore this calls his entire analysis into question, however we will go on anyway, discussing each piece of evidence.

Why are critical thinking and research skills important when viewing a film like Zeitgeist?

If film-maker Peter Joseph can be credited for one thing, it’s flawlessly utilizing Dale Carnegie’s yes-yes technique to influence the viewer. Like any good conspiracy theorist, he starts with information that is true (yes #1), follows with information that is apparent enough to make the viewer question previous dogma (yes #2) and inserts his interpretation of what is driving those occurrences (in this case, that the US government intentionally detonated the twin towers). One major distinction between a conspiracy theory and a valid explanation is that conspiracy theories rarely work inversely as deduction.

War Tapes

1) What does Deborah Scranton mean by the “disconnect” she hopes to “bridge” with her documentary?
Scranton refers to how distant the War in Iraq is in relation to our lives. We tend to see the war as an event that occasionally comes to our attention and nothing more. The mainstream media only brings to our attention the death of a soldier or the aftermath of a bombing. With her film, Scranton hopes to make us aware that war is a daily reality for not just the soldiers, but for the civilians of Iraq who live in constant fear and panic. Scranton also wants to document the individual lives of the soldiers. People tend to completely disregard the value of a soldier’s service. Scranton wants to portray these soldiers as real people facing real obstacles in a real warzone.

2) How does media (television, news, documentaries, film) contribute to creating this disconnect?
The mainstream media is often impersonal. The mainstream media does not portray the soldiers as real people. The media only seeks out the facts and forego the experience of a soldier. Media has managed to turn death into a mere statistics. A reason they stay impersonal would be to avoid as much bias as they can (putting aside political agendas).

3) How can a documentary like "War Tapes" help remedy or bridge this disconnect?
War Tapes brings to us the human element of the war by bringing us face to face with the soldiers, and showing us the war through the eyes of the soldiers.

Hearts of Darkness

Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse, shot by Eleanor Coppola, is a film that reveals many of the hardships that filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola faced while filming Apocalypse Now. The film Apocalypse Now, despite its great success, was not an easy film to write, direct and produce. The film shows all of the obstacles that Francis Coppola had to navigate through, nearly costing him his career and even his life. There is an innate parallel of Apocalypse Now to the Vietnam War itself. Hearts of Darkness begins with the beginning of Coppola's filming. The documentary follows the film’s descent into chaos through the 18 month filming period. The film is a chronological summary of Apocalypse Now’s filming; from their arrival to the Philippines to Marlon Brando’s arrival and the conception of Coppola’s film’s ending. The audience is shown the anticipation and worry that gradually builds up from Coppola’s point of view.

Hearts of Darkness was an expository documentary. Throughout the film, there were interviews with people involved in the making of Hearts of Darkness, especially Francis and Eleanor Coppola. In fact, most of their interviews are used as narration for the documentary. Eleanor Coppola even included clips of conversations with her husband that she had secretly recorded for narrative effect. Quoting some of these: “I tell you from the bottom of my heart that I am making a bad film.” and “We are all lost. I have no idea where to go with this.” Much of Coppola’s ideas were undermined. An example would be Marlon Brando arriving on set completely out of shape, contrasting the storyboard depiction of Kurtz, a gaunt, almost skeletal figure. Evidence of these various shortcomings are shown using talking heads (interviews), voiceovers and archival footage.

Hearts of Darkness was comprised of a healthy combination of behind-the-scenes footage, footage from Apocalypse Now, archival footage, interviews, still images (some derived from Apocalypse Now’s storyboard/playbook) and audio of secretly recorded conversations. I enjoyed how “honest” the documentary seemed. Nothing about it was polished and pretty like some documentaries can be. Eleanor Coppola managed to get as much footage as possible, instead of being selective in what she wanted to film. A scene (or rather, two) that I found really thought provoking involved the caribou being slaughtered as a ritual. Although people know of indigenous races and the ways their cultures function, it’s a different experience altogether witnessing an even like this as close to live as possible. It was also effective in revealing how the symbol of the caribou was meant to foreshadow the death of Kurtz in the film. Another scene in Hearts of Darkness that caught my attention was Martin Sheen’s drunken improvisation in the hotel. The scene made me think about reasons why the room would be charged with the possibility of Sheen attacking Coppola or the crewmembers. I was also impressed to learn that Coppola chose to film Sheen while intoxicated, aiming for something as natural as possible to film – the real thing.

There really isn’t much that I could critique about Hearts of Darkness. There was a variety of different camera angles, a diverse abundance of content, and a truly intimate look of the film. The only thing that I could think of that could have been added were more shots without voice-overs, but even then this is such an insignificant loss.

Much like Apocalypse Now, Hearts of Darkness is about far more than its subject matter. As we join Martin Sheen in his quest to assassinate a madman in the jungle, we see human nature, how it clings to order, how it may embrace chaos. In this film, we see more than a movie being made. There’s the struggle against commercialism, the drive to create, and the inner battle that is the artistic process made manifest. Watching Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse, we can feel for once that we’re eye-witnesses to the true story of how a phenomenal film was made.