The Act of Killing essay - is creativity as important as authenticity?

‘Creativity is as important as authenticity in documentary films.’ How far do you agree with this view? Discuss this in relation to examples from the documentary film you have studied. [35]

- The Act Of Killing

When documentary emerged as the first film form in the 1890s, filmmakers sought to document real life through short films called 'actualities' which became popular with audiences. Robert Flaherty was a pioneer in these, his 1922 film 'Nanook of the North' becoming worldwide success. Despite the expository onscreen narration and observational footage constructing a truthful account of the subject, many scenes were re-enacted for the camera's benefit, theatrically dramatizing a narrative for audiences to engage with the real subject matter, an approach that never drastically changed until the cinema verite movement of the 1960s which sought to represent reality in an unbiased way through the reflexive, interactive, and observational mode of documentary (in relation to Bill Nichols' theory). Particularly in the absence of sound in cinema, music, narrative, and aesthetic representations were and are still used to engage an audience and guide an emotional response, creating a blurry line between the objective truth and the 'creative treatment of actuality' as defined by John Grierson. Joshua Oppenheimer's 2012 documentary 'The Act of Killing' (TAOK) primarily uses the conventions of cinema verite to project a truthful and unbiased depiction of Indonesia's political history, though as I will argue, through a manipulated lens from the repeated use of poetic techniques that guide spectatorial perception of the subject matter. 

TAOK is seemingly faithful in presenting the horrors, ironies, and attitudes of its focused ‘characters’ – the fact that they are credited as characters raises the issue that the film treats their existence in the film as a function of some form of storytelling for spectator entertainment, relating to how documentary has an unreliable relationship between the truth and the filmmaker’s bias/intentions – through the use of interactive interviews, conversations, and observational footage of the characters explaining their history: how they were hired to capture ‘communists’, demonstrating how they killed them, the documentary based around the characters filming a fictional film intended to frame their own actions as heroic, while at the same time the documentary constructs a narrative for its protagonist, Anwar; a redemption arc for his murderous past. Oppenheimer lets the camera roll while the focused character Anwar 'proudly' demonstrates how he killed and captured communists, habitually cutting away from character when they have said something morally shocking or embarrassing - Often Herman who is constructed as a 'side-kick and comedic relief in the film. Anwar explains how he killed 'happily', with Oppenheimer cutting away to a chronologically altered scene where he is singing and drinking alcohol, marked by the change in clothes and hair colour. This is where a redemption arc is crafted as Anwar talks about his 'bad dreams' projected by Oppenheimer to be as a result of his murderous past. In the final scene, Anwar is shown to feel remorse for 'human beings' he 'took life' from', as he physically retches but fails to release anything. This scene is not useful in solving anything except Anwar's character arc, making it seem performative or misplaced in the 'narrative' to serve as a recompensing element for the spectator's time and interest; a complete emphasis on creatively representing the 'reality' of Anwar's 'remorse' fabricated into a linear narrative rather than authentically capturing the events. Some could argue that this is essential in making a documentary engaging for a spectator, the need for a narrative creating gratification for giving time and interest to an historical event; I agree in the need for creative representations of events in the name of engagement such as music and aesthetics, but the creation of narrative and characters of real people I find incautious and manipulative and of less importance that authenticity which is the ultimate function of documentary. 

The opening oneiric sequence of TAOK demonstrates a biased construction of the Indonesian people and perpetrators by Oppenheimer. In a saturated mise-en-scene and soft focus creating a dreamlike scape, traditionally dressed women dance in the foreground to a waterfall while an Indonesian director incessantly shouts for them to appear 'real' and that 'this isn't fake'. Thus Oppenheimer constructs these men to be liars from the start which anchors spectator perception of them, juxtaposing their satirical lies with the onscreen text of Oppenheimer as it details the men to 'proudly' guide the filmmakers through their corruptive history, shown against a gritty and 'realistic' depiction of Indonesia's 'third-world' poverty with capitalist advertisements and urban street life. This contrast creatively manipulates authenticity to the spectator; if the opening scenes of the Indonesian men in an oneiric representation are blatantly false, then the written words of Oppenheimer against a real background, the use of fading text symbolically representing the impossibility of 'erasing' past events, is the truthful guide of the film that the spectator should trust with handling a documentation of real events. Thus Oppenheimer blurs fact and fiction through poetic and expository modes of documentary. 

Creativity is made as important as authenticity in TAOK, using poetic techniques to engage the spectator with an inauthentic reality despite projecting it as the truth. For example, the Indonesian men make a film sensationalising and idolising Indonesia's corruptive political history, crafting dramatized scenes of their actions they frame as heroic. In one scene that Oppenheimer captures, Anwar, acting as the 'victim' in an interrogation, asks Herman to hit the table in order for his performance to seem more convincing. Juxtaposing their intention, Oppenheimer constructs a narrative through the emotional scope of the 'victim'; his camera, which the spectator identifies with, remains at a close MS of Anwar obscuring Herman's sudden hit so the spectator reacts with Anwar and thus identifies with his victimhood. Oppenheimer crafts this as a fictionized scene, creating a cinematic experience for the spectator that makes creativity as important as authenticity in engaging the spectator with a theatrical creation of 'reality' and thus respond negatively to the Indonesian men's corruption. This response is created again  when Pancasila youth perform a re-enactment of burning down a rural village. The youth members are framed in low-angles conventional to how villains are represented in fictionalised narratives and thus we identify with the victims of the scene – the women and crying children –while incessant shouts, cries, and screams dominate the non-diegetic sound, placed against theatrical shots of the burning, the camera seeing through the fire to performatively position the spectator to experience the destruction and pain. Slowly non-diegetic music fluctuates in a surreal pitch and rhythm which emphasises the shots and manipulates the spectator to engage with the 'creative treatment of actuality' over authenticity of the fictitious re-enactment - distancing from the reflexive and observational mode of documentary in favour of a theatrical experience. D.A Pennebaker was a pioneer in abstracting the observational camera during the cinema verite movement, his first 1953 documentary 'Day break Express' using a vivid aesthetic, sensationalised camerawork/editing, and music to abstract the reality he portrayed. Oppenheimer, while less aesthetically provoking, utilises the observational camera in a way that theatrically engages the spectator, wanting these re-enactments to serve as the truth, as the actual events that occurred in the 1960s.  Such handling of real and destructive events projected as the truth is incautious from its manipulative quality in receiving an emotional response from the spectator, of whom is likely to have little knowledge on the events shown and therefore cannot form a more constructive and individual perception. Therefore, in my opinion, I find creativity to be less important than authenticity.