Mirror

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WindowAutobiographical film and

its effects on the filmmaker

Written and designed byShinsaku Iwatachi

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Table of contents

Introduction

Autobiographical fi lm History and theories

Sarah PolleyStories we tell

Allan Stewart Konigsberg Woody Allen

Joshua OppenheimerThe act of killing

The power ofReenactments

Conclusion

Bibliography

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4 - 7

8 - 15

16 - 23

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32 - 35

36 - 37

38 - 39

6

Intr

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We all have an inherent need to tell stories. This is driven by a compulsion to make sense of our lives. Life, by its very chaotic nature, has no narrative, no theme, no overarching plot,

and certainly no satisfying resolution. This idea frightens us, so since the dawn of time we have been creating stories to give meaning to the things we do and the things that happen around us. Just as our ancestors told mythic stories so they could make sense of thunders, filmmakers today tell stories to make sense of our lives.

In this essay I will examine the ways in which we tell person-al stories in film and how the the process and outcome af-fects the filmmaker and the audience at large. I will explore the way stories are born from the filmmaker’s lives, and how the process and outcome can inform us of the friction between reality and fiction. The ways in which filmmakers reenact their lives, and how the very act of reenactment is vital in figuring out exactly what makes autobiographic films so potent, will be throughly explored as well. I will ex-amine how through the very process of telling a story may allow us to find a personal truth about ourselves.

I am going to focus specifically on autobiography in film, using films such as The Act of Killing (2012) by Joshua Op-penheimer, Stories we tell (2012) by Sarah Polley, and the films of Woody Allen as main avenues of exploration. Var-ious other documentarians and films will also be used to support the arguments along with books and articles on the subject of film as well as psychology and other relevant areas of interest.

Introduction

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Introduction

Dziga Vertov - The Man with a Movie Camera

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Autobiographical film

- History and theories

In the interest of clarity, it is important to first classify and define what exactly an “autobiographical film” is. Philippe Lejeune, a specialist on autobiographical works, defined autobiography to be,

“A retrospective account in prose that a real person makes of his own existence stressing his individual life and especially the history of his personality”, and that it must fulfil four dif-ferent criteria: 1.It must be a narrative or prose 2.The subject must concern an individual life or personal history 3.The author and narrator must be identical 4.The narrator and protagonist must be equal and that it must be retrospective. (1989, p193)

This is certainly a sound definition, but perhaps a little re-strictive. A better qualification perhaps, is that it is a autobi-ographic film if the characteristics, history, or circumstanc-es (or all three) of the author is a significant driving force in the narrative or theme of the film. Good enough, but this leads us into another question. If we are to then take the above qualification as a way of parsing whether a film is autobiographical or not, what happens in the case of films where the director has full authorial control and thus the film is a fully realised expression of the director. Would the end film be a form of autobiography? Even if none of the author’s personal life or history is present in the film would the fact that the author is expressing her/himself, and if we are to assume that the things she/he is trying to express is a factor of her/his character and history, then perhaps the film is going to be an autobiography in some way. Perhaps as François Truffaut (a film critic at the time) formulated in 1957,

“The film of tomorrow appears to me as even more personal than an individual and autobiographical novel, like a confes-sion, or a diary. The filmmakers will express themselves in the first person and will relate what has happened to them. . . . The film of tomorrow will resemble the person who made it”. (1957)

This leads to a notion that there is no easy way of dis-tinguishing a film as autobiographical. There are certainly tangible details that we can latch on to as evidence like, the protagonist being played by the filmmaker or use of certain cinematic techniques like using the camera as the literal point-of-view of the character, but is still inconclusive. A Film such as the animated Waltz with Bashir (Folman, 2008) is wildly different from the television series Louie (C.K, 2010), but both are equally achingly personal. So then, it is a situation where it can only be determined a film to be au ▶

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tobiographical until as much information is known about the fi lmmaker and the process and inspiration for making.

All of this has leads to a consideration that perhaps auto-biographical fi lm is less a genre of fi lm, but rather a mode or a process of fi lmmaking. Perhaps it is the desire to re-examine the past-self that is at the core of autobiographic fi lms. It is not the tangible details of the fi nished fi lm but the human need of the fi lmmaker to bring the past in to the present.

Autobiographical fi lms can be broadly divided into smaller subcategories. One are the fi lmic autobiographies, or “au-to-fi ctions” coined by Serge Doubrovsky in 1977. Filmic autobiographies are fi lms where story and characters are primarily based on the experiences and life of the fi lmmak-er (often times the director or in some cases the writer, or both). In fi lmic autobiographies, the characters and events are based on the author but does not mean it will be a direct one or even an obvious one. Filmic autobiographies can take many forms, and the ratio of fi ction to autobio-graphical elements is up to the author, but it is crucial that the core narrative or events or characters must be modelled after the fi lmmaker and that they have a signifi cant pres-ence in the fi lm (Gernalzick, 2006, p1-11).

Another substantial category are the auto-biopics, or the documentarian approach. Exemplifi ed by fi lms like Portrait Werner Herzog (1986) by Werner Herzog or JLG/JLG: Self portrait in December (1995) by Jean-Luc Godard, the auto-bi-opics take a relatively straight forward (but, they can be as complex and layered as any other type of fi lms) approach where the focus of the fi lm is the author himself and her/his life or thoughts and in many cases the author appears on-screen or is narrated by one. These fi lms can be most readily described as autobiographic documentaries.Although the term “Autobiography” was not used until the late 1790s (The fi rst instance was seen in 1797 in the Eng-lish periodical Monthly Review by William Taylor), people have been telling their life stories since we learned how to communicate via written text (and arguably much earlier with spoken words and paintings). Autobiographical fi lms¹, however, is a much recent occurrence, where it only start-ed to take form in the 1940s with ethnographic fi lmmak-er Jean Rouch exploring with the documentary fi lm form (Eaton, 1979)².

The introduction of light weight and relatively inexpensive 16mm cameras, coupled with social changes led to a fl our-ish in autobiographical fi lmmaking in the late 1960s to the

early 70s.(Gernalzick, 2006, p2-3)

Directors such as, Federico Fellini and Jean-Luc Godard were early pioneers and revolutionaries of autobiographi-cal fi lmmaking. Apart of the French New Wave, their fi lms, like Godard’s Vivre Sa Vie (1962) and Fellini’s 8 ½ (1963), were not only exceptional in their fi lmmaking but were also intensely personal and introspective. By the 1970s fi lm-makers across the globe were splicing moments and experi-ences of their lives directly on to fi lm. In the United States, perhaps the most prominent (and defi nitely the most prolif-ic) autobiographic fi lmmaker was Woody Allen. With fi lms like Stardust Memories (1980) and Husband and Wives (1992) he often inserted his neurotic world views and bitter life ex-periences and wrapped it up in up-scale-New York-jewish wit. The cinematic shift of perspective to the fi rst person was not limited to fi ction fi lms, but also to documentaries³. Autobiographical fi lms span the whole spectrum of cine-ma, from fi nding lost memories in Waltz with Bashir to fi lms such as Family aff air (Colvard, 2010) and Stories we tell that explore familial secrets, to even deconstructing the very act of autobiographical fi lmmaking in The Act of killing.

1. Although there were some early attempts like Men who have made love to me by Arthur Berthelet in 1918me by Arthur Berthelet in 1918me

2. Also called auto-biopics, direct cinema, essay fi lms, camera-pen, etc.

3. Actually, documentaries have been the go-to medium for telling per-sonal stories. One can argue that the earliest uses of cinema was for doc-umentation of the self.

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Autobiographical film

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Louis C.K - Louie

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A film that acutely explores the effects of autobio-graphic filmmaking is Sarah Polley’s Stories we tell. Stories we tell is a 2012 Canadian documentary film that examines the filmmaker’s familial se-

crets through intimate interviews and reenactments, all the while exploring the elusive nature of truth and the power of telling stories. On the week of her 11th birthday, Polley’s mother; stage actress Diane Polley died of cancer, leaving her husband Michael Polley (an actor turned insurance agent) and her two sons and three daughters behind. Polley later has suspicions that her mother had an affair with a fellow actor and that she was a product of the affair. To confirm her suspicion she meets with film producer Harry Gulkin, a close friend of her mother. When pressed with the question he reveals that her mother did not have an affair with the actor because it was actually him, and that she was his daughter. Through DNA testing they later con-firm this fact.

The film unfolds with Michael Polley’s narration of his memoir and incorporates interviews (Polley call it an “in-terrogation process”) with her family members and close

friends. The interviews and narration are often accompa-nied by home videos and, in an interesting choice, is inter-spersed with reenactments of events made to look like one of the home videos. On first viewing the recreations and the genuine home videos are very difficult to tell apart.

Watching the film it becomes increasingly clear that each person wants to tell their version of the story and by doing so to take ownership of it. The individual stories do not always match up but intriguingly this incongruity is nev-er pointed out or refuted. One close friend of the family claims that while Michael Polley was a very private per-son, Diane Polley was very much not and that she shared everything with everyone. However, another friend says that although she was always chippy and spry, she had an impression that Diane always kept some things very close to her. Another apparent incongruity concerns Diane’s willingness in having their third child. Each person close to her has their own interpretation of her ultimate decision.

What these discrepancies illuminate is not that each person is lying or has falsely recollected their memories (although

STORIES WE TELLsarah polley and her theory

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“My intention was I wanted people to constantly question what they were seeing and if it was real or if it wasn’t, because that was my experience.”

- Sarah Polley

Sarah Polley - Stories We Tell

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that can certainly be true) but that they were all true, that Diane was at once forthright but secretive, worried but op-timistic. Each person saw only a side of her and construct-ed a “story” to fi t their own experiences. Not only do the individual stories reveal another side of Diane, they reveal their relationship to her and their perspective of her. Polley crucially does not attempt to refute or point out the contra-dictions but rather allows each story to exist side by side.

At the beginning of the interviews, she asks each person to tell the whole story, “from beginning to end”. Although she is the director and she can dictate the structure and narrative of the fi lm, she is adamant in keeping it as demo-cratic as possible. This is Polley’s theory of autobiography, as Leah Anderst (Assistant Professor of English at Queens-borough Community College, CUNY) put it,

“Autobiography and documentary fi lmmaking, however, are most often constructed following a hierarchical notion of au-thority which positions the writer/director at the top followed by those others she decides to include and privilege based on expertise. Polley, on the other hand, sets out to create a true chorus where she gives equal weight to each piece of information and opinion, to each version of the story, and to each kind of telling. Hers is a radically democratic project, but a project that nonetheless shines a light on her own very personal and very intimate history.”(2013)

Polley is not just making her own autobiography but also

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“It’s only afterwards that it becomes anything like a story at all, when you’re telling it to yourself or to someone else.”

- Margaret Atwood

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of others. Polley’s deconstruction of the documentary form extends further into the construction of the film as well. Peppered throughout the film are reconstruction of events from the family’s life. Members of her family, including her mother and father, are portrayed by actors. This fact is not revealed until later in the film, and adds a significant layer to the film as a result. When we watch a documentary film, we as au-diences expect the film to comply with the silent agreement that it is being truthful. By including these “fake” scenes, she forces the audience to pull back and question the ap-parent truth-ness of the film. She explains her decision in an interview with Slashfilm.com, “My intention was I wanted people to constantly question what they were seeing and if it was real or if it wasn’t, because that was my experience.” (Lussier, 2013)

The film also explores ownership of story. There was a reporter who wanted to publish the story. Polley was ex-tremely upset by this as she had still not told her father (initially she had planned to never tell him) about the reve-lation, and begged for them to not publish it until she was able to tell it herself. Harry Gulkin, her biological father, on the other hand felt that only the people who had been direct participants in the events should tell the story; that it would “dilute the story”. Harry wants it to be “his” story while begrudgingly agreeing that it was Polley’s film and that she should dictate the course of the narrative. Each person, to a degree wants to have control and take owner-ship; i.e. Polley making her documentary, Harry writing a book, and Michael writing his memoir.

All of this reveals a certain truth about story. As Paul De Man theorises in his essay Autobiography as defacement,

“We assume that life produces the autobiography as an act produces its consequences, but can we not suggest, with equal justice, that the autobiographical project may itself produce and determine the life and that whatever the writer does is in fact governed by the technical demands of self-portraiture and thus determined, in all its aspects, by the resources of his medium?” (1979, p920)

Michael Polley thinks the same as he quotes Margaret At-

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wood’s novel, Alias Grace (Atwood, 1996) in the opening of the film, “When you’re in the middle of a story it isn’t a story at all but only a confusion, a dark roaring, a blindness … it’s only after-wards that it becomes anything like a story at all, when you’re telling it to yourself or to someone else.”. Perhaps, as he was writing his memoir he began to see the past in a new light. It shows how when faced with new information, one traces the past and unearths new insight and clarity to the muddle of life.

So, in the end, is Polley by making this film trying to create “her” story woven with the stories and narratives of her families and friends? As she observes in her interview with Lussier, she feels that the truth is never singular but plural, and one can only come close to the truth is through multi-ple points of view. She says,

“I got really transfixed by this idea that it was so necessary for us to be able to tell this story to make sense of some kind of basic confusion we had in our life. I just started thinking of storytelling as a really basic human need and wanted to make a film about that, I think.” (Lussier, 2013)

The film suggests that she still has unresolved feeling about her identity and that she is taking this plural approach to explore the complexity of that feeling. As the final reel of the film suggests, the story goes on.

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Just as Sarah Polley used the process of fi lmmak-ing as a way to work out her confl icting feelings, a fi lmmaker in New York had been doing the same in a career spanning more than 45 years, having

written and directed over 46 feature fi lms. The fi lmmaker is Woody Allen, the Brooklyn born comedy writer turned stand-up comedian, turned actor, turned fi lmmaker, has been directing theatrical fi lms since 1969.

At fi rst glance his fi lms may not seem autobiographical in the strictest sense; but it is clear that his life experiences had shaped the fi lms. After all, he writes, directs, and in many cases stars in his fi lms and crucially has fully autonomy from studios and so everything we see on screen his genu-ine product. Throughout his fi lms, he again and again goes back to recurring themes; childhood woes, troubling rela-tionships, and the very act of fi ctionalising personal tales.

It is important to qualify that Allen himself is often ada-mant in saying that his life has not shaped his fi lms, and

that his private life is separate from his fi lms. Marshall brickman, co-writer of Annie Hall (Allen, 1977) corrobo-rates this, “The perfect fi t between Allen and his movie persona is illusionary” (Mccan, 1990, p137).

In light of recent controversies, it is understandable that Allen wishes to separate his public and private persona, but it is pretty fair to see the fi lms as being at least on some level based on his life. He has on many occasions said that many of events that happened in his fi lms are partially au-tobiographical(i.e the bulk or Radio days (Allen, 1987))and that his relationship to the women in his life has helped him to write better from a female perspective (Robert B, 2011). In the documentary Wild Man Blues (Kopple, 1998), his mother, when asked if his onscreen persona is based on himself, responds cryptically“Not much no,…but in some ways yes” (Kopple, 1998).

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“My one regret in life is that I am not someone else.”

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WOODY ALLENa cinematic doppelgänger

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Allen has always had a contentious relationship with the audience. No other fi lm in his entire oeuvre, was received with more vile upon release than Stardust memories. An hom-age to Fellini’s 8 ½¹, the fi lm follows established fi lmmaker Sandy Bates, played by Allen, as he visits the Stardust Ho-tel to attend a retrospective of his fi lms.

Stardust memories was received with much fervour as many viewed the fi lm as showing disdain for Allen’s critics and fans. Film critic Roger Ebert wrote of the fi lm, “Stardust Memories is a disappointment. It needs some larger idea, some sort of organising force, to pull together all these scenes of bitching and moaning, and make them lead somewhere.” (Ebert, 1980). Again and again Sandy Bate’s fans, who “are portrayed as being rabid, cloying and worse, ugly” (Gilks, 2012) come up to praise him, only to say, “I like your fi lms, especially the early funny ones”; mirroring some public sentiment about Allen’s ca-reer. Similarities such as this has led critics to believe that Allen was attacking his fans and critics through this fi lm. Notable fi lm critic Pauline Kael wrote in her scathing re-view, “If Woody Allen fi nds success very upsetting and wishes the public would go away, this picture should stop him worrying” (Kael, 1987, p87).

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Woody Allen - Manhattan

▶ After having looked at the two fi lms and examining the ways Allen draws from his life experiences to write his sto-ries,one begins to suspect that he has been using his fi lms as an alternative to therapy (he fi rst attended a psychiatrist’s consultancy when he was 24 years old. He has been going ever since until his marriage with Soon-Yi Previn (Flori-ano, 2007)).

Although Allen denies his fi lms being autobiographical, his writings do not; as he himself acknowledges that it is within an artist’s tendency to inject their personal lives into their art. In Hannah and her sister a character writes a script that is blatantly lifted from her sister’s troubling marriage; while Deconstructing Harry (Allen, 1997) is essentially about an art-ist’s (Harry Block, a novelist played by Allen) compulsion to retell his life experience in fi ction, and how one can only function through art. In an interview he has said,

“I like to observe the little idiosyncrasies in people. I under-stand, I think, what makes people stand alone. I suppose in that way acting has been therapeutic to me. It sort of satisfi ed some deep protectiveness in my nature. A wish, perhaps, to insulate myself against the hurts I have suff ered. Through my screen characters, I have grown a skin over my own skin.”{hot press, may 1988}(Mccann, 1997, p246)

What all of this points to is the autobiographic fi lmmak-ing’s unintended consequence of blurring the line between one’s public and private personas. The fi lms have created a “Woody Allen”; a cinematic doppelgänger of Allan Stew-art Konigsberg (Allen’s birth name). His repeated presence in fi lm over the years has led to his public and private per-sona to merge. “Once the fi lm is over, the actor becomes an actor again, the character remains a character, but from their union is born a composite creature who participates in both, envelops them both: the star.” ({Morin,1960, p38-9}Mccann, 1990, p140)

12 years later, Allen would go on to make another contro-versial fi lm Husband and Wives. In the fi lm, Judy (Mia Far-row) and Gabe (Allen) after a long marriage realises that they have run the course of their relationship. The separa-tion is further exasperated by Judy’s aff air and Gabe’s infat-uation with one of his students. The fi lm feels raw and im-mediate, with an unrelentingly cynical view on marriage.

The fi lm was released the same week as the infamous scan-dal broke out. Allen says he innocently fell in love with Soon-Yi Previn, the adopted daughter of his ex-girlfriend Mia Farrow; and explained the situation with, “the heart wants what the heart wants” (interview on TIME, 2014). Mia Farrow on the other hand accused him of being an abusive pedophile, and had an relationship with her daughter to stir her up. The truth is up in the air², but one thing is cer-tain; the fi lm was understandably tainted by the scandal, and remains to be the last fi lm in which they would appear together.

The movie predictably was viewed as mirroring what was transpiring in his life. Allen has stated that any similarities to his life is pure coincidence, but the parallels are diffi cult to ignore. Lest we say of the fact that Allen and Mia Farrow were playing on screen couples, but also the fact that he played a novelist that writes stories based on his personal life, much to chagrin of his wife; all of the similarities un-wittingly creates the impression that through making the fi lm he was trying to work out some of the issues he was having at the time. In his book, Graham Mccann observes,

“The woody image is so powerful and so popular that the mo-ment Allen appears on the screen, people expect him to conform to the familiar identity. This immediacy will also continue to have its eff ect on Allen’s private life” (Mccann, 1997, p174)

1. Appropriately this is Allen’s ninth feature fi lm and also, the working title for the fi lm was “Woody Allen no.4”; implying that he is half the director that Fellini was.

2. They both have compelling arguments, but as of now all charges against Allen has been dropped due to lack of evidence

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THE ACT OF KILLING

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From the last two fi lmmakers, we have learned that making an autobiographical fi lm can have a pro-found eff ect on the fi lmmaker, but can a fi lm have a tangible eff ect on a way that a nation talks about

its history? A fi lm that challenges this notion is Joshua Op-penheimer’s 2013 documentary The Act of killing. The fi lm focuses on the perpetrators of the Indonesian mass killings of the 1965-1966 where more than 500,000 people were killed in the name of a “communist purge.” The govern-ment, which is still in power, prompted local gangster to lead the death squads. The fi lm follows Anwar Congo¹, a leader of one such death squads, who was responsible for the death of more than 1000 people. Oppenheimer asked him and others to make a fi lm about their killings; to recre-ate and reenact their actions and to dramatise their memo-ries and feelings. As such, this fi lm is not an autobiography of the director but rather a study of the eff ects of autobio-graphical fi lmmaking.

Oppenheimer gives the men an opportunity to narrate their story, and by doing so allows them to refl ect on their pasts. In this instance, the camera not only records but it provokes a reaction. These men never had to answer for their actions, but are instead hailed as heroes by the gov-ernment² and the media. The fi lm shows a clip from their appearance on a local TV show Dialogue Khusus where the hosts thanks them for “purging the communists”; the au-dience cheers³. By not only turning the camera on them but also having them be behind it as well, Oppenheimer allows them to construct their past as a series of narratives. In a strange paradox, by allowing them to create fi ction he brings out the truth within them. Documentary fi lmmak-er and co-producer of the fi lm, Errol Morris writes in an essay,

“But there is method to Oppenheimer’s madness—the idea that by re-enacting the murders, he, the viewers of the movie, and the

various perpetrators recruited to participate could become recon-nected to a history that had nearly vanished into a crepuscular past.” (Morris, 2013)

Throughout the fi lm the men insist on being sincere and true. In one scene Congo previews an earlier footage of his reenactments and comments that he would of never wore white pants when he was doing the killings, and criticises his own acting, saying that he doesn’t appear “detached” enough. One of the crew member who was a journalist for the local newspaper and was directly responsible for incriminating dozens of communists (they made up fake confessions); repeatedly said that he had no idea that the killing took place in his offi ce. To this, the crew including Oppenheimer says that he is lying and that he knew very well what was going on. The men who have high regard for fi lmmakers, feel that there is an unspoken pact to tell the truth as artists.

The fi lms that the men create in the documentary take the form of their favourite genres; fi lm noir, slapstick comedy, musicals, and horror. As Linda M. Shires and Steven Co-han writes, “the story is mediated by its telling-its medium of com-munication-so that the two are inseparable” (Cohan/Shires, 2002, p2), the men tell their story using the language of cinema.

Cinema has always played a large role in the men’s careers. Before the “communist purge” they made a living by scalp-ing cinema tickets and were known as the “movie theatre gangsters”. After being recruited by the government, they would often reenact killings from their favourite fi lms. Con-go and his crew would step out of the cinema raptured by Elvis, and would walk across the street to their offi ces and execute the communist and do so “happily”. This stag-gering contrast was perhaps only possible as they in a way “acted” as their favourite characters and distanced them-selves from their actions.

“Nonfi ction fi lm ought to be a way of making visible the fi ctions that constitute our facts.”

1. Now a founding father of Pemuda Pancasila, a right wing para-military organisation; eff ectively a government sanctioned gang

2. The fi lm references a piece of Indonesian propaganda fi lm that all grade school children are forced to watch called, Pengkhianatan G 30 S PKI (Noer, 1984). Diff erent people react diff erently to the fi lm. Congo says that it make him feel good about his acts and makes him feel brave, while another(Adi Zulkadry) says that he his critical of it and calls it out for its apparent propaganda, and that the communist are only depicted like that because they have lost.

3. Important side note; the audience is mostly composed of members of Pemuda Pancasila and we see that the crew members are highly critical of these men.

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film, breaking a 47 year silence on the genocide. They sent jour-nalists all over the country and found that everywhere the killers were boastful. They published 75 pages of killers’ boasting, showing that the film was a repeatable experiment and could have been made anywhere in Indonesia.” (Oppenheimer, 2014)

Perhaps, in helping the men make an autobiography of themselves, Joshua Oppenheimer has made an autobiog-raphy of a nation that has yet to openly acknowledge its past. He observes the film’s lasting effects,

“The perpetrators in general hate it. Anwar is moved by it, and stands by it, saying “The film shows what it it’s like to be me.” The military hates it. Herman loves it, has left Pancasila Youth out of disgust, and is one of the only people to have the courage to screen the film publicly in Medan, the city where it was made.” (Oppenheimer, 2014)

In their films, the men would not only act as the killers but also as the victims. It becomes clear that the process of making their films is having a profound effect on them-selves. In one scene, as Congo is playing a victim, he tells his friends to stop, saying that he cannot continue. Later, when reviewing the footage (with his grandchildren no less; perhaps as a witness), he asks Oppenheimer, “Did the people I tortured feel the way I did here?”. He responds, “Actually the people you tortured felt much much worse”. Oppenheimer looks back on this scene, “He is forced to realise that he will never be able to bridge the gap between his fictional self, and his fictional accounts of what he has done, and the real unimagi-nable horror he has made others experience.” (Oppenheimer, 2014)

However, not all of the perpetrators seem to fully allow guilt to overcome them. In one illuminating conversation between two of the men, Congo confesses that he has re-curring nightmares of the victims haunting him. The other man, Adi Zulkadry tells him that he must not feel guilty, as it will drive him insane. Later he tells Congo that “Killing is the worst crime there is, the key is to find a way not to feel guilty, its all about finding the right excuse”. Oppenheimer writes,

“The men who were praised as heroes faces a paradox. The claim to be heroes and the very non-heroic actions that they have performed. The victims were all powerless so they had to invent a narrative of the supernatural where the ghosts of the victims were resisting and tormenting them”. (Brink/Oppenheim-er, 2013, p296)

Congo says that he often has nightmares because he didn’t close the eye of man he once beheaded. Later on he reen-acts this but this time he is the man being beheaded. The scene is reenacted over and over agin, in different settings, with different dialogue. He wants this scene to be the final scene in his film; as if to show that is his karma, to show that he has repented. The film ends where we first met Congo, on a roof where he personally killed hundreds of men. We see him retching and trying to vomit, but nothing comes out.

Through the autobiographical filmmaking process, Op-penheimer has forced the men to confront their past. The effects of the film however, is just not contained within these men, but has had a significant impact on the way the country talks about its troubled past.

“Shortly after the film premiered Indonesia’s leading news mag-azine, Tempo, published special double edition inspired by the

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The enabling power of reenactments in finding truth has been acknowledged for quite some time. One of the early examples in fiction is in Hamlet, by William Shakespeare. The play within the play

(Hamlet reconstructs his father’s death as a play to con-firm Claudia’s guilt), shows Shakespeare’s understanding of the power of reenactment and how it can trigger reac-tions that can otherwise be difficult to attain. In the realm of film, Jean Rouch; French documentary filmmaker and anthropologist has been exploring the power of reenact-ment since the 1940s. His films are notable for, radically (also criticised as being inauthentic) at the time, having “di-rected”his subject. He saw the camera not just as a record-ing device but as a catalyst. In many of his films he would introduce fictional elements and ask participants to react as they normally would. Looking back on his films he has observed,

“Being in a film can have a certain effect on a non-professional performer…its quite troubling to put people in a film, forcing them to play their own role-either because they feel guilty after-wards or because they become exhibitionists.”(Eaton, 1979, p18) ▶

François Truffaut - The 400 Blows

THE POWER OFREENACTMENTS

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In Once More... with Feeling: Reenactment in Contemporary Art and Culture Robert Blackson quotes Rod Dickinson, “Reenactment is well equipped to address moments of collective trauma and anxiety. It operates as the uncanny of the spectacle”(Blackson, 2007, p37). Studies have shown that reenacting past traumatic events can have a therapeutic effect; Michael S. Levy writes for the Journal of psychotherapy practice and research,

“Re-experiencing the feelings of grief, telling stories about a lost loved one, and repeatedly confronting every element of the loss until the intensity of the distress has remitted can enable the individual to assimilate the event and to work through the feelings surrounding the trauma”(1998, p2).

Psychoanalyst Jean Laplanche theorises that reenactment can have the effect of weaving the past and present togeth-er, that it has the effect of temporary bringing back the past and to lessen the pain of what is now lost. (Nicholas, 2008, p76) It has been observed that shortly after major disasters, like in the case of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan; children are seen recreating the events. This is seen as a way for them to deal with the shock of the event, and by incorporating it in to play they are dissolving their fears and anxieties. Bill Nichols says in the journal, Documentary Reenactment and the Fantasmatic Subject,

“As pathos or logos, reenactments enhance or amplify affective engagement. Reenactments contribute to a vivification of that for which they stand. They make what it feels like to occupy a certain situation, to perform a certain action, to adopt a par-ticular perspective visible and more vivid. Vivification is neither evidence nor explanation. It is, though, a form of interpretation, an inflection that resurrects the past to reanimate it with the force of a desire.” (2008, p88)

Reenactment, may then be one of the best ways that we can deal with our issues and traumas by reengaging with the past. With this illuminating perspective, looking back at the three filmmakers it becomes evident that they are all engaging in a form of reenactment. In the case of Stories we tell, Sarah Polley asks her family members to “tell the whole story.” They do so by verbally narrating the events, but in key moments they inhabit the people that they are talking about; they put themselves in other’s shoe, and in doing so are able to occupy their point of view.

The painstakingly filmed recreations of events from mo-ments in Polley’s life are another example of how reenact-ment can be used effectively to tell a “lost” story. The rec-reations help to uncover truths that are otherwise difficult for the audience to see. In one scene, we see a recreated footage of her father living a life of disarray after his wife’s

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“its quite troubling to put people in a film, forcing them to play their own role,either because they feel guilty afterwards or because they become exhibitionists.”

Jean Rouch

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passing. His room is a mess and he looks disheveled. The film then cuts back to present day, and although he is clean-er looking, his room is still a mess; signifying that he is still reeling from his loss.

The two films of Woody Allen both contain elements of reenactments. In Stardust memories fans (and a group of al-iens) repeatedly come to Sandy Bates to tell him, with a condescending tone, that they prefer his earlier funny films. Allen himself has said that he wanted to break away from just making comedic films and branch out into making more serious ones; and that he “…put a higher value on the tragic muse than the comic muse” (Weide, 2012). He feels that tragedy confronts reality head on and that he gets more gratification from his serious failures than his comedic suc-cesses. By reenacting a public sentiment, he is able to both acknowledge and dismiss them.

In Husband and Wives Allen uses reenactment to achieve a different effect. The scene where Mia Farrow and Allen’s character acknowledges their dissolving relationship feels real and visceral, quite unlike any scene from his other films. The writing is naturalistic and there is a palpable sense that the Allen is trying to recapture their real failed relationship. In a moment of catharsis, he has Farrow say

“It’s over and we both know it”; perhaps a sign of him truly acknowledging that their relationship has come to an end and that it was his fault.

The men in The Act of killing are perhaps living testaments of the power of reenactments. Much like how reenactment is a way of briefly bringing back loved ones, these men bring back the people they have killed. As a result, they are haunted by their past actions and victims alike. The pro-found effect of this can be felt throughout the documenta-ry, and a pattern begins to emerge. The films that show the brutality of the men are shot and made in a almost realistic documentarian fashion, while those that glorify their ac-tions and paint themselves as heroes are the most surreal and detached from reality. It becomes clear then, that the to the men, the version of events where they are heroes are fantasy, and the one where there are killers is reality. ■

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Leos Carax - Holy Motors

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Conclusion

The human need to tell stories has compelled film-makers to reach deep within their selves. It is through this introspective process that exposes a certain truth about themselves. The result is often

messy but are nevertheless illuminating. As Jean Rouch says,

“Very quickly I discovered the camera was something else; it was not a brake but let’s say, to use an automobile term, an accelerator…It’s a very strange kind of confession in front of the camera, where the camera is , let’s say, a mirror, and also a window open to the outside”(Eaton, 1979, p51)

Examining the three filmmaker and their work, it became clear that the power of autobiographical filmmaking lies in its ability to allow the filmmaker to revisit the past and to reengage with it. Whether it is Sarah Polley creating fake home-videos to explore her “lost” history, or the men in Joshua Oppenheimer’s film resurrecting their cruel pasts, it is through this process of reenactment that enables them to reach deeper, to find clarity; to find truth.

Many are sceptical that a film can make a deal difference in the world; that art is powerless against fantasy. However, these three filmmakers have managed to do just that. The scale may be small, but it can not be denied that their films has made a tangible difference. So, perhaps it is as Werner Herzog told Oppenheimer, “Joshua, art does not make a differ-ence …until it does.”(Oppenheimer. 2014)

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8½. (1963). [DVD] Italy: Federico Fellini.

Act of Killing, The. (2012). [DVD] Denmark: Joshua Oppenheimer.

Adaptation. (2002). [DVD] USA: Spike Jonze.

A Moment of Innocence. (1997). [DVD] Netherlands: Mohsen Makhmalbaf.

Annie Hall. (1977). [DVD] USA: Woody Allen.

Battle of Orgreave, The. (2001). [DVD] USA: Mike Figgis.

Beaches of Agnès, The. (2008). [DVD] France: Agnès Varda.

Being John Malkovich. (1999). [DVD] USA: Spike Jonze.

Capturing the Friedmans. (2003). [DVD] USA: Andrew Jarecki.

Chile, Obstinate Memory. (1997). [DVD] Canada/France: Patricio Guz-mán.

Dance of Reality, The. (2013). [DVD] Chile: Alejandro Jodorowsky.

Family Affair. (2010). [DVD] USA: Chico Colvard.

Holy Motors. (2012). [DVD] France: Leos Carax.

JLG/JLG: Self-Portrait in December. (1994). [DVD] France: Jean-Luc Godard.

Little Dieter Needs to Fly. (1998). [DVD] USA: Werner Herzog.

Louie. (2010). [DVD] USA: Louis C.K.

Love and Death. (1975). [DVD] USA: Woody Allen.

Man with a Movie Camera, The. (1929). [DVD] Kiev: Dziga Vertov.

Men who Have Made Love to Me, The. (1918). [DVD] USA: Arthur Berthe-let.

New York Stories. (1989). [DVD] USA: Woody Allen.

Portrait Werner Herzog. (1986). [DVD] Germany: Werner Herzog.

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Superstar:The Karen Carpenter Story. (1987). [DVD] USA: Todd Haynes.

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The aim of this dissertation is to explore the ways in which filmmakers tell their life experiences through the medium of film, and to analyse how and why the process has an effect on the filmmakers.

The book format was chosen as the creative work, in part due to requiring films stills to compliment the writing, as well as the need to include the complete text. The aim of this dissertation is to explore the ways in which filmmak-ers tell their life storiess through the medium of film, and to analyse how and why the process has an effect on the filmmakers. The title of the book Mirror and Window was inspired by a quote from Jean Rouch,

“Some of the public who saw the film[Chronique] said the film was a film of exhibitionists. I don’t think so. It’s not exactly exhibitionism: it’s a very strange kind of confession in front of the camera, where the camera is , let’s say, a mirror, and also a window open to the outside” (Renov/Suderburg, 1996, p83).

The inference that the camera acts as both a mirror and window for the filmmaker was spot on and I felt that it en-capsulated the themes of the book. The logo of the book is an abstraction of the title; the circle as a mirror and the square as a window.

For the overall design of this book, I was heavily influenced by film magazines, mainly Little White Lies (Jenkins, 2005) and Birth. Movies. Death (Faraci, 2013). In both of these magazines, each issue has a specific theme, usually on a single film or a filmmaker, and the design throughout re-flects that particular theme. I took a similar approach to my design process where each section has its own colour palette and design approach. In the case of the three case studies, I approached it as if they were their own issues; with its own cover and a distinct style. However, I was also careful to keep certain elements consistent throughout the book, such as font sizes and adherence to a set grid.

The image on the cover of the book is a still from the film Man with a movie camera by Dziga Vertov. I chose this image as it reflects the title of the film as well as the themes of the book. It can be seen that the eye is looking through the camera lens, or that an eye is being reflected on the surface of the lens.

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The introduction and argument (history and theories of autobiographical films) section has a black and white pal-ette to reflect the era of the films being discussed. The section begins with the earliest example of autobiographic filmmaking, Men who made love to me, and ends with a frame from Louie one of the most recent examples.

The contrast from the black and white pages to the bright colours of the case studies was deliberate. The use of bright and contrasting colours for these sections was an attempt to show the intensely personal nature of the filmmakers and their films. On page 11, I mixed stills from both the fake home videos with authentic ones to convey the nature of uncertainty in Sarah Polley’s film.

The Woody Allen section begins with two pages dedicated to showing the breadth of his career. The intent was to not only show his prolific nature but to also show how similar he appears in each of his roles. In a way, it is a visualisation of the quote,

“The woody image is so powerful and so popular that the mo-ment Allen appears on the screen, people expect him to conform to the familiar identity. This immediacy will also continue to have its effect on Allen’s private life” (Mccann, 1997, p174).

The order in which the images appear in The act of killing section mirrors the general arc of the film. In the begin-ning, the men are deluded and are using fantasy to blind themselves to their reality. At the end of the film, they come face to face with their inner demons. This is reflected by the final image in the section of Adi Zulkadry starring blankly in the mirror.

The analysis and conclusion section shares the basic design with the first two sections of the book. This was a way to tie it back to the ideas introduced in the very beginning. The conclusion is accompanied by a still from Leos Carax’s film Holy Motors, showing an audience in the darkened cinema.

To compliment the written text and still images, I have in-cluded a DVD with clips from the discussed films. The text is written in a way that it is self contained, but I believe watching the DVD will give a better sense of the look and sound of the films.

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“Joshua, art does not make a difference …until it does.”

- Werner Herzog

Joshua Oppenheimer - The act of killing