taylor postscript

Volume 26, No. 3 90 Post Script

In a world saturated with an endlessstream, circulation, and recycling of images,there comes the moment when it mightseem impossible to determine what ispurely image and what is reality, because,in effect, they have become inseparable. Webecome uncertain about whether reality hascaused a particular image to exist, orwhether the given image has instead pro-duced the reality. What is cause, what ef-fect, and can the latter precede the former?Daniel J. Boorstin dealt with this themefrom a realist perspective in his classicstudy The Image in the early 1960s, well be-fore Baudrillard’s notion of the “agony ofthe real.” In the cinema one of the mostpowerful and mysterious treatments of thenature of images and their relationship toan independently existing, external realitywas presented by Michelangelo Antonioni’sBlow-Up (1966).

The question is particularly acute withimages of purportedly factual discourses.Hence, in recent years, the fake or mock-documentary—better known in theabridged form of mockumentary—has be-come increasingly popular and recognizedas a genre in its own right. Presenting fic-

MORE THAN A HOAX:WILLIAM KAREL’S

CRITICAL MOCKUMENTARYDARK SIDE OF THE MOON

HENRY M. TAYLOR

tion as fact, or at least to some extent appro-priating classical documentary techniquessuch as the Classic Objective Argument,and traditional documentary observationaltechniques including hand-held camera-work as well as characters’ direct address,in recent years there has been a growingsense of the codification and conventional-ization of these (often made-for-tv) fakes.

With precedents at least as far back asOrson Welles’ radio play of War of theWorlds of 1938, his “News on the March”spoof newsreel sequence in Citizen Kane(1941), notable examples of the form in-clude, among many others, Jim McBride’spseudo-autobiography David Holzman’sDiary (1967), Welles’ own classic of unreli-ability, F for Fake/Vérités et mensonges (1975),Woody Allen’s comedy-biography Zelig(1983), and Rob Reiner’s “rockumentary”This Is Spinal Tap (1984). There are also hor-ror-mockumentaries, such as Man Bites Dog/C’est arrivé près de chez vous (1992), or TheBlair Witch Project (1999), the first indepen-dent production to be successfully hypedby intensive internet marketing.

Jane Roscoe and Craig Hight trace theemergence of the mockumentary as a dis-


tinct form partly to the exhaustion andcommodification (or reification) of classicaldocumentary techniques, the requirementof feature fiction film for further productdifferentiation in a media-saturated marketincreasingly transforming factuality into“infotainment,” and the growing reflexiv-ity of documentary forms in postmodernity(Roscoe/Hight, 76–99). On a political con-tinuum ranging from conservative to pro-gressive, they distinguish three main

modes: the more or less unreflexive parodyas a nostalgic and conservative perspectiveon certain aspects of culture, largely uncriti-cal of its subject and the assumptions ofdocumentary in society, while appropriat-ing non-fictional techniques for purposes ofironic contrast and humor; the critiquewhich—like Tim Robbins’ political satireBob Roberts (1992)—is critical of its subjectmatter, and partly reflexive but still by andlarge endorses and reinforces the validity offactual discourses; and the most radical

form, finally, deconstruction, which critiquesthe assumptions of documentary, and op-erates reflexively with respect to filmic con-structions of and statements on reality. AsRoscoe and Hight observe, however, thislatter category is seldom explored by thegenre, most examples being either parodiesor satires (68–75). And indeed, the majorityof films labelled as mockumentary tend tobe quickly recognizable as fictional, the con-vincingly subtle hoax-documentary gener-

ally being the exception.One such exception is William

Karel’s 52-minute Dark Side of theMoon (Opération lune, France 2002), amockumentary co-produced by Pointdu Jour and the Franco-German tvchannel ARTE about the fake moon-landing of the Apollo 11 mission onJuly 21, 1969.1 Karel’s highly enter-taining and prize-winning2 spoof firstof all pays homage to the cinematiclegend and myth surrounding the lateStanley Kubrick, and in particular tohis cult film 2001—a Space Odyssey(1968). Karel set out to make a filmabout Kubrick, discovering in thelatter’s estate information about hiscollaboration with NASA during themaking of 2001, and then started toask “what if . . .?” questions, forminghypotheses about one of the 20th-century’s most dramatic events.3 Be-yond that, however, Dark Side of theMoon raises critical questions aboutdocumentary’s generic conventionsand viewers’ assumptions regardingfactual authority. It interrogates the

complex relationship between images andsounds in film generally, raises questions ofnarrative unreliability, and is, last but notleast, also about the nature of popularculture’s fascination with conspiracy theo-ries.

Beginning with secret documents fromKubrick’s estate accessed by his widowChristiane one year after his death in 1999,Dark Side of the Moon sets out to answer thequestion ostensibly plaguing film critics for25 years, why NASA had allowed Kubrick

William Karel, author of Dark Side of the Moon.


to borrow from them a one-off, top-secret,million-dollar Zeiss lens intended for pho-tographing spy satellites to shoot the stun-ning candlelight scenes in his period filmBarry Lyndon (1975)—only to unravel anamazing, far-flung plot with links betweenHollywood and NASA’s Apollo program,the White House, and Kubrick: highly im-pressed by the latter’s visionary 2001, andin order to forgo any potential risks of theApollo 11 mission failing or producing nousable footage, President Nixon decided tohave Kubrick shoot the moonlanding on theset of 2001 in London and to have the fakefootage broadcast for real; participants inthe scam were subsequently hunted downand eliminated, and Kubrick himself forcedto withdraw from public and live in seclu-sion. As a thank-you gesture, NASA yearslater allowed the solitary filmmaking ge-nius to use their one-of-a-kind spy lens forBarry Lyndon. Underscored by Chaplin-esque music, the end-credit sequence com-posed of outtakes then reveals that some ofthe interviewed people—including NASAexperts, astronauts, their family andfriends, Nixon’s advisers and staff (amongthem former Secretary of Defense, DonaldRumsfeld), CIA officials, a Hollywood pro-

ducer and other witnesses—are actors reading lines froma script, with statementsmade by White Houseinterviewees presented outof their original context; thefilm is shown to be a hoax,intended to be, as ChristianeKubrick confirms, just“good fun.”

FALSE PREMISESThe power of Karel’s

documenteur4 resides ingenuinely appropriating theformat of regular televisiondocumentaries, and its be-ing a hoax deriving credibil-ity from so many exposés,half-truths, and popular

conspiracy lore of recent decades. Feedingon recent scandals during the Bush presi-dency, the film clearly benefits from publicdisillusionment with the current adminis-tration, anti-Bush sentiments in Europe,and much criticism on both sides of theAtlantic over how the public was hood-winked about the justification of the Iraqwar, especially in its difficult aftermath.Taking a wider view, the once-held belief in“the camera doesn’t lie” and in imagesindexically tied to their referents “outthere” (and hence authentic) has been se-verely undermined in the last 15 years or soby the proliferation and increasing sophis-tication of computer-generated imagery(CGI), with the now almost limitless possi-bilities of image manipulation, and, finally,the circulation and liberal use of archivefootage, especially on television newsshows.

The moon-hoax theories—suggestingthe Apollo moon landings in 1969–72 hadbeen shot on an earthbound studio set—had become widely known in the wake ofBill Kaysing’s bestselling book We NeverWent to the Moon in 1974, and were given afictionalized Hollywood gloss in the 1978conspiracy thriller Capricorn One (with the

“The smoking gun”: documents from Stanley Kubrick'sestate (from Dark Side of the Moon)


setting changed from the moonto Mars). Involving the usualsuspects from the 1970s, thefirst “Golden Age of Con-spiracy,” with the discreditedNixon administration, Water-gate and all the other politicalscandals and revelations of thatera, and extensions right intothe present Bush administration, Dark Sideof the Moon builds on an increasingly main-stream distrust of political authority(Goldberg 259), even authority tout court, ifin ironical fashion. It still relies on our be-lief in the authoritative commentary ofvoice-over and “experts,” only to subse-quently deconstruct that kind of authority,without providing us in its place with any-thing resembling the truth.

Made for the conventional tv docu-mentary slot, it carries all the paratextualmarkers of the genre, including slick voice-over (an anonymous, assertive male com-mentary), and a sophisticated blend of in-terviews and stock footage dramaticallyunderscored on the soundtrack. Cleverlycombining fact and fiction, it begins withcredible questions and initially followswhat appears to be a versimilitudinous tra-jectory, before bending reality to increas-ingly fantastic and ludicrous claims. Evenafter the film finally reveals itself as mocku-mentary, thereby disqualifying its mainclaim of the moonlanding hoax, viewersmay remain uncertain about many otherpoints made, such as the instrumentali-zation of the NASA space program for mili-tary and strategic purposes during the ColdWar, the relationship between NASA and

Kubrick regarding 2001, or the questionwhether Nixon actually had prepared andtaped a speech in case of failure of theApollo-11 mission and loss of the astro-nauts. Many issues concerning the facticityof the film cannot be resolved simply byrecourse to textual analysis, but requireextratextual (real-world) and intertextual(filmic) knowledge, and comparison with orresearch into factual sources. Hence it is in-teresting to see at what point individualviewers begin to distrust the narrative andrealize they’re being conned. Upon show-ing the film to an undergraduate audiencein a sociology seminar on conspiracy theo-ries,5 without informing them they weregoing to see a mockumentary, I was fasci-nated to see how “gullible” some partici-pants seemed to be, though of course thisassessment is somewhat unfair since theyweren’t film students alert to the medium’smore subtle powers of manipulation. In onecase, a student believed the film’s claimsright up to the mock end credits; otherswere more sceptical and had seen throughthe scam earlier on. But hardly any oneseemed to have realized that already thepremise concerning the Zeiss lens was false.

To be sure, Kubrick had shot BarryLyndon’s candlelight scenes using an ultra-

“Proofs of a Conspiracy”: strange reflections and a photoaccidentally forgotten on the fake moon.


fast Zeiss lens made for NASA; but Zeisshad originally manufactured ten such lensesfor NASA still-photography cameras, andKubrick was able to purchase two of themthrough traditional channels and had themsubsequently adapted for mounting on afilm camera; their existence was certainlynot, as Karel’s film asserts, top secret, andobviously nowhere near the “million-dol-lar” price range; indeed, a photo insert ac-companying the voice-over at the point inquestion shows a Zeiss lens which commer-cially sells for several hundred dollars.Thus, the film’s initial claim is only par-tially, if significantly false. But to a lay per-son, the premise may sound quite convinc-ing, requiring for its falsification extra-textual specialist knowledge. To check de-tails, I did a Google search, and then quicklycame up with contrafactual evidence. Butthis kind of claim, based more on half-truthsand exaggeration than on plain falsehood,is symptomatic of many of the assertionsmade in Dark Side of the Moon, especially inthe sequences prior to the major conspiracytheory put forward just before the nar-rative’s midpoint.

EARLY MARKERS OF UNRELIABILITYAfter the premise and main titles (lit-

erally showing the dark side of the moon,with its left side gradually being illumi-nated, a metaphorical and conspiratorialplay of light and dark), the film flashes backin time to the archive footage of PresidentKennedy’s 1962 moon speech.6 As in therest of the film, soundtrack and voice-overcommentary weld the medley of stock foot-age and photo material together. Accompa-nied by pathos-laden, patriotic soundingmusic, we hear Kennedy declaring: “Wechoose to go to the moon in this decade anddo the other things, not because they areeasy, but because they are hard.” As thevoice-over declares with suggestive antici-pation, Kubrick’s borrowing of the top se-cret lens was “the culmination of a storythat had begun fifteen years before.” Thisinsinuates the dramatic structure of a para-noid thriller, in which typically a protago-nist of lowly status—here represented bythe filmmakers—stumbles upon and unrav-els a major conspiratorial network extend-ing “right to the top”; hence we are beingprepared for some major revelations.

At first, most of the claims beingmade—primarily by the narration—sound

quite convincing, thoughwe are already being ledastray; hence the commen-tary states that afterGagarin’s spaceflight, andthe “triumph” of the Sovi-ets in Korea, Berlin, andCuba, the Americans wereleft with the moon as a stra-tegic target, declared byKennedy to be the top pri-ority of his administration.This latter claim is partiallyfalse, as Korea and Berlinwere divided into Commu-nist and Non-Communistspheres of influence, andthe US “containment”policy would make sure in1962 that Cuba posed noLofty ambitions: Kennedy's 1962 moon speech (from Dark

Side of the Moon)


direct military threat; similarly, the spaceprogram was indeed part of the Cold Warrivalry between the two superpowers, butthat the “moon” had been Kennedy’s toppriority is an overstatement. Subsequentsequences cover the background of theApollo program, with former top CIA offi-cial Vernon Walters, NASA Technical Di-rector Farouk Elbaz, and astronaut JeffreyHoffman informing on the space project ininterviews. That Walters speaks Frenchthroughout the film is, however, a subtlemarker of unreliability, despite his reputa-tion of being fluent in a handful of foreignlanguages. We are then shown stock foot-age of top Apollo scientist Wernher vonBraun and his Nazi past, ruthlessly usingconcentration camp inmates for the con-struction of V2 rockets targeted at Britain—and NASA’s indifference to von Braun’scompromised biography.

With setbacks and loss of life in thespace programs on either side, and the fail-ure of the USSR to land a man on the moonon the fiftieth anniversary of the OctoberRevolution in 1967, we are told the moonlanding was given top priority in the WhiteHouse—an exaggeration, though mostviewers of this self-declared exposé will prob-ably “buy into” the assertion. There is even acertain amount of contradiction between the

voice-over and the statements of interviewees:according to Walters, the top priority was notthe space program, but military defence; thepoint of the program had not been to land aman on the moon, but the Americans’ fear ofthe Russians having “these huge rockets”(Elbaz); the military pressure had beenenormous (Hoffman), and the space projectpart of the military program, since moonrockets and ballistic missiles were more orless the same (Walters).

A semi-hoax claim, however, is subse-quently made, the voice-over declaring theApollo program to have been the first ma-jor step towards the “Star Wars” missileshield. To underscore this point and tomark the fiction increasingly entering thefilm’s discourse, the soundtrack at thispoint uses mystery motifs from BernardHerrmann’s score for Hitchcock’s Vertigo(1958), while we are being told that thespace program was part of a propagandaeffort to persuade the public to supporthuge public spending for what was, in ef-fect, the Cold War arms race. Again, we areconfronted with exaggeration and tenuous-ness of facts rather than outright falsehood.And when we are told by the commentaryin the next sequence that the spoils of thespace program were divided according to“classic mafia family rules” between Cali-

fornia, Florida, and Texas, NinoRota’s music from The Godfather(1972) is used to emphasize theillicit and conspiratorial ties ofBig Business to politics, assert-ing that later PresidentsJohnson, Nixon, Reagan, Bushsenior and junior received sub-stantial campaign financingfrom the big corporations thatbenefited from the space pro-gram. This is visually sup-ported by a conspiratorial aes-thetic: Johnson and Nixon asshadowy, silhouetted figures inthe White House, a photo insertof George Bush senior in theback of a limousine, and a shotof a “for sale” placard support-

Hush-Hush: Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon in theWhite House (from Dark Side of the Moon).


ing the claim that the moon was simply analibi to persuade the public of the peacefulintentions of space exploration, while in ef-fect a gigantic apparatus serving militaryand political interests was put together.This is reminiscent of the sinister implica-tions of the “military-industrial complex”insinuated by Oliver Stone’s JFK (1991). Aheterodoxy of images, taken out of theiroriginal contexts and suggestively coloredby Rota’s music, are anchored by the rela-tive speed of the montage and the unifyingforce of the commentary.

ONLY IMAGES:HOLLYWOOD TAKES CHARGESo far, Dark Side of the Moon is a rela-

tively straightforward documentary withonly implicit markers of unreliability. Therelationship of NASA, space and Cold Warstock images and anonymous voice-over isprimarily illustrative, with relatively closecorrespondences between sound and im-age. As the claims in the second half of thenarrative get more grandiose and absurd,the relations between text and visualsloosen, becoming associative to the point ofcomplete tenuousness.

The stakes of the game the film is play-ing with the viewer are raised in the set ofsequences dealing with how Kubrick’sstunning 2001 convinced NASA officials toturn the Apollo 11 mission into a spectacleto enthral the masses, and of how, in effect,2001 was instrumentalized as propagandafor the space program. (This despite the factthat Kubrick’s epic was initially rejected bymany critics and only later became the cultfilm it is today).7 To a photo of Wernher vonBraun with Walt Disney, the commentarytells us that von Braun had been the first torealize that only Hollywood could turn abanal rocket launch into a spectacular—atwhich point Johann Strauss’ “The BlueDanube” fades in. Upon its first screeningin the White House, 2001 supposedly be-came an instant sensation. “The film isclearly a tremendous PR exercise for

NASA,” asserts Jan Harlan, Kubrick’sbrother-in-law and executive producersince Barry Lyndon. Astronaut JeffreyHoffman tells us how overwhelmed he hadbeen upon seeing 2001, seconded by DavidScott, Apollo 15 crew member.

According to Farouk Elbaz, Kubrick’sfilm influenced the designers and engineersworking on the Apollo program, telling usthat 2001’s spaceship “Discovery” andApollo looked almost identical, “it had apointed top, it went down [straight], and ithad the engine in the back”—a ridiculousstatement not only contradicted by imagesfrom the film, but all the more hilariousbecause one wonders where else the pro-pulsion should be on a rocket if not at thebottom? And indeed, during this entire dis-course interviewees aren’t quite able tokeep a straight face. Fascinated byKubrick’s imagery, the voice-over claimsthat NASA technicians changed the astro-nauts’ suits and made everything more col-orful, while a shot from 2001 reveals theastronauts’ outfit in the film to be quite dif-ferent (orange as opposed to white) fromthe Apollo suits. But despite these intra-textual contradictions, Dark Side of the Moonis confident in its thrust towards the exposéthat not all viewers will become aware ofthe unfolding hoax dropping hints about itsown unreliability.

Gradually Karel’s film ups the ante. Inthe following sequence we get to hear thememories of a middle-aged man walkinghis dog in New York, with the Statue of Lib-erty in the background, introduced asformer Paramount producer “Jack Tor-rance” (Jack Nicholson’s character in TheShining). Since the moon race was a war ofimages between the Soviets and the US, andNASA’s Cape Canaveral installations were“laughable,” it was decided to pep up thespace program and turn it into a Hollywoodshow. Interlaced with shots of the launchsite, “Torrance” recalls how “all Holly-wood” interrupted their regular work todescend on Cape Canaveral with sevenhundred technicians, designing new spacesuits, altering the rockets, relocating the


launch site to line up with the sun, and, lastbut not least, decorating the rocket enginewith gold leaf “of absolutely no use.” In re-turn, Hollywood was promised that in oneof the next elections, one of theirs wouldbecome President. And indeed, RonaldReagan became President of the UnitedStates!

To stock footage in color of the launchof Apollo 11, the soundtrack features theupbeat folksy song “We guard our Americanborder, we guard the American dream”—taken straight from Barry Levinson’s politicalconspiracy satire Wag the Dog (1997), anotherhint of unreliability and media-savvy ma-nipulation of the public not all viewers willunderstand as such. In the following se-quence, we encounter ostensible NASAground crew member “Dave Bowman” (theprotagonist’s name in 2001), recollectingNeil Armstrong’s reaction to having tospeak the pre-scripted historical line “Onesmall step for man . . .” (“Who wrote thiscrap?”), as well as the jokes Armstrongmade before entiring the capsule (where theduty-free shop was?), and his sex-talk onthe moon (“With Betty it’s safe, but with

Samantha it’s the unknown, anadventure”), apparently un-aware that two hundred staff inmission control were listeningin, as we are shown black-and-white images of astronautsskipping and stumbling on themoon and of laughing groundcrew members. Arguably, thisis the crudest kind of humor inKarel’s otherwise sophisticatedspoof.

CONSPIRACY THEORYThe major plot point of the

film—that the moon landingnever took place—is carefullyset up by building on testi-mony of authentic witnesses,Buzz Aldrin and his wife Lois,seconded by statements of fic-tional characters played by ac-

tors. After the astronauts’ return to earth,being cheered by the masses and in the mis-sion center, and being greeted by PresidentNixon (illustrated by authentic footage),Buzz Aldrin, the second man on the moon,so we are told, suddenly fell into a severedepression. Aldrin’s wife confirms he be-came an alcoholic (which he actually did),backed up by Aldrin acquaintance “MariaVargas” (Ava Gardner’s character in TheBarefoot Contessa), claiming that Aldrin hadbeen “stumbling about, raving” around. Hehad supposedly been shaken up by Presi-dent Nixon preparing and taping a speechto the nation in case of Apollo 11’s failure,supported visually by footage of Nixon sit-ting at a White House desk with cameras infront, saying that on the previous day hehad laid down a wreath in memory of thesebrave men. The punch line is delivered byAldrin himself: “Did people go to the moonor not?”

Using Nixon’s former secretary “EveKendall” (Eva Marie Saint’s character inNorth by Northwest) as an entree, we are sub-sequently treated to what is in many waysthe film’s crucial “setpiece,” a wonderful

Stanley Kubrick on the set of 2001—A Space Odessey(from Dark Side of the Moon).


Kuleshovian montage of creative geogra-phy involving present-day statements byDonald Rumsfeld, Henry Kissinger,Lawrence Eagleburger, Alexander Haig, allof them former advisers and staff membersof the Nixon administration, as well as thenDirector of Central Intelligence, RichardHelms. The setting is an office in the Penta-gon. By using short snippets from inter-views and outtakes gleaned from his previ-ous three-part documentary on “The Menin the White House” (Les hommes de laMaison-Blanche),8 director William Karelcreates the impression of all of them—in-cluding the fictitious “Eve Kendall”—sit-ting in the same room and reacting to eachother’s statements. The mood is relaxed andjovial, the “bad guys” coming across as hav-ing a good sense of humor.9 After Kissingerrecalls that this was “a long, complicatedstory,” Rumsfeld promises to tell “a fasci-nating story, off the record.” In a montageof statements never showing two of thepeople present in the same shot, with con-tinuity purely the effect of editing, and withactual references to the moon plot onlymade by “Eve Kendall,” none of Nixon’sformer staff explicitly refer to the con-spiracy and hence do not incriminate them-selves. We are told that Helms had beenalarmed at the time that the Russians wouldbe able to land a man on the moon first.Nixon had applied pressure to speed up theApollo program.

With NASA informing the Presidentthat possibly there might be no pictures tobroadcast, the President had urgently in-sisted on the whole world wanting to see anAmerican on the moon. And this is thepoint where the film makes that “paranoidleap into fantasy,” that “leap in imaginationthat is always made at some critical pointin the recital of events” typical of the “para-noid style” (Hofstadter 11, 37). Accordingto “Eve Kendall,” either Helms or Rumsfeldhad suggested to Nixon to shoot the firststeps on the moon in a studio. Nixon hadfinally told his staff they had two weeks toprepare everything. Rumsfeld (“it was a bigidea”), Haig, and Kissinger (“he was the

President, and he deserves respect”) sup-ported Nixon’s “difficult decision.”

The voice-over provides the cruciallink to Stanley Kubrick: with principal pho-tography in the London studio of 2001wrapping up (we see a black-and-whitephoto of the famous director behind thecamera), why not use the existing set, espe-cially as —following the logic of symbolicexchange governing this conspiratorialyarn—the Pentagon had given Kubrick ac-cess to top secret Pentagon rooms when hewas shooting his previous film, Dr. Strange-love (as we see Ken Adam’s studio set of thelatter film’s War Room)? Credibility for theploy is offered by having Vernon Waltersrecall his warning the President that pre-senting the public with such a fake (we seea photo insert of Nixon sitting at a desk) wasvery risky and inadmissible in a democracy.But Nixon had told him to go ahead with itnonetheless. As the commentary explains,Rumsfeld suggested to get in touch withKubrick (“Now that is someone, impres-sive!”), had flown to England withKissinger and talked to Kubrick about theidea, who had found it amusing but wasinitially sceptical. Finally Kubrick had givenin. The fake moon landing was shot in theMGM Borehamwood studios, with a mini-mal crew of two technicians and two extras,all four CIA agents (as we see dissolvingphotos of the MGM studio tower, the filmset, and of Kubrick). Being a perfectionist,and dissatisfied with the CIA agents’ lackof technical skills (!), Kubrick himself super-vised the reshoot over a weekend.

The two subsequent sequences detailthe various would-be-scientific conspiracyclaims regarding the images of men on themoon as we see footage of an astronautskipping on its surface. First, the credibil-ity of these claims is bolstered through re-pudiations by NASA employees Hoffmanand Elbaz, the former calling these con-spiracy theories utter nonsense, the latterdenying them more diplomatically. We arethen introduced to “Dimitri Muffley”(named after the Russian premier and USpresident in Dr. Strangelove), a former So-


viet agent, spelling out the various mistakesthe American plotters had apparentlymade, interlaced with well-known archivephotos: the American flag on the moonmoving in the wind (there is no wind on themoon); the Hasselblad 500 camera used totake the pictures that could not have oper-ated properly under the extreme lunar tem-peratures; peculiar light sources and shad-ows actually caused by studio lighting, etc.The hoax mode is made most explicit whenwe are shown a picture of the “wrong stu-dio moon” surface on which someone hadcarelessly dropped a photo depictingStanley Kubrick . . . Incidentally, NASAhad planned to publish a book by Jim Obergin which every single one of these con-spiracy claims was to be refuted scientifi-cally, but cancelled the publication late in2002, “based on the possibility of an outcryraised by people who felt such a bookwould ‘legitimize’ the very belief it wouldhave debunked.”10

AFTERMATH: GOING ALL THE WAYBy now the claims of Dark Side of the

Moon have become so gross that the hoaxnature of the film should be evident to mostviewers. As the voice-over tells us, formerCIA agent “Ambrose Chapel” (the spies’center in Hitchcock’s The Man Who KnewToo Much) had refused to take part in theplot, and had become a pastor in Baltimore,as we see present-day shots of a church in-terior. After 30 years, with Kubrick havingpassed away, “Ambrose Chapel,” sitting inone of the pews and addressing the cameradirectly, is ready to inform us about theconclusion of this amazing story. While allparticipants were payed off handsomely,and had to vow eternal silence, being pro-vided with new identities, new appear-ances, and new lives in remote spots, Nixonand his advisers started panicking, thinkingthe witnesses should disappear for good. Tonocturnal shots of the White House, we aretold that Nixon talked to his military attachéColonel “George Kaplan” (the nonexistantdecoy in North by Northwest) about having

top CIA agents eliminate the witnesses. Wehave entered the familiar territory of thepolitical thriller. In the present-day Penta-gon office, Nixon’s former staff and advis-ers recall their agitated discussions at thetime. The descriptions of a restless, fearfullypreoccupied, paranoid Nixon (Eagleburger:“Nixon drank”) tie in neatly with ourknowledge about Watergate, and filmictreatments of his personality such as Rob-ert Altman’s satiric chamber piece SecretHonor or Oliver Stone’s controversial biopicNixon. The President finally decided to re-voke the assassinations: to stock footage ofNixon on the phone, we hear him (in super-imposed dialogue) addressing someone as“George,” and making sure that saidGeorge has made an agreed-upon tele-phone call.

It is interesting to note here how imageand sound are married together and situ-ated in a narrative context. As Noël Carrollpoints out, visual representations in filmencompass three modes: an image of ClarkGable in Gone with the Wind is first of all aphysical portrayal of Gable; but it also depictsa class of objects, i.e. an adult male; and fi-nally, in its nominal function, it shows us thefictional character of Rhett Butler. Whilephysical portrayal has been especially sig-nificant in documentary filmmaking, his-torically, the nominal function has been thedominant mode of fiction films; nonfiction,however, regularly makes use of thedepictional mode, too, and in some cases,also of the nominal function (Carroll 240–241). Hence, in Dark Side of the Moon, we finda gradual shift from images of physical por-trayal to depictional and—especially in thesecond half—increasingly nominal uses ofstock footage completely taken out of itsoriginal context and placed in new, ficti-tious contexts with increasingly tenuousimage-sound relations.

When we are told that “GeorgeKaplan” had snapped and gone ahead withthe assassination plan, we see a crowdedsidewalk, a man in a dark suit carrying abriefcase, accompanied by the dramaticmusical leitmotif from North by Northwest.


Black-and-white footage shows militaryofficers examining the model of a Vietnam-ese village, as we learn that the witnesses,all Vietnam veterans, have escaped toSoutheast Asia, pursued by a CIA assassi-nation team. In what appears to be present-day Vietnam, local inhabitants recall theAmericans entering their village—and it isnot clear to us whether they are referring tothe escapees or the killers sent after them.Here the bawdy humor in the vein of

Armstrong’s moon jokes sets in again, withone villager remembering the newcomersas indiscreet, leaving behind empty beercans and McDonald’s bags; being pureamateurs, one of them had accidentally shothimself while cleaning his gun; accordingto other villagers, they were sex-maniacs,smoking pot all day long, and destroyingthe village life; the amused tone of the ac-counts contradicts the content of their nar-ratives. Back in Washington, both Eagle-burger (“sort of amateur CIA”) and a cheer-ful Helms admit that “some of this was notdone very well.”

The definitive self-revelation comeswhen we are told that Nixon, desperatelydetermined to silence all witnesses, orders150,000 troops and “half the Sixth fleet” tohunt down the escapees, accompanied by

extremely heterogenous images showingtroops boarding a plane, paratroopers de-scending, aircraft carriers at sea, planes tak-ing off and landing, helicopters over theEgyptian pyramids, Marines disembarking,etc. As “Ambrose Chapel” recalls, all of thefilmmaking crew were ultimately hunteddown and killed: an assistant director wasdrowned in his swimming pool (as we seea dog being thrown into a lake), the direc-tor (not Kubrick, obviously) being found in

the Antarctic, the cynical CIAcrew filming his killing (as we seehunters landing by helicopter ona remote island and one of themfiring a shot into offspace). In aNew York synagogue, “Rabbi W.A. Koenigsberg” (a reference toWoody Allen’s real name, AllenStuart Koenigsberg) remembershiding and teaching one of the es-capees, “Bob Stein,” but the latterhad not been very religious andbelieved that eating pork wasonly taboo in certain restaurants;then he had been beaten up by agang and later died in MountSinai hospital.

Returning to StanleyKubrick’s estate, we are informedthat, living in seclusion, Kubrick

had been worried that he, too, was on theCIA’s assassination list, with his telephonebeing tapped and mail scanned. Suggestingto the filmmakers that this topic was toosensitive and to be kept under wraps,Alexander Haig refers them to VernonWalters, at the time the CIA’s number 2.Making cryptic comments on the issue ofwhether Kubrick himself was to have beenassassinated, Walters apparently offeredthe filmmakers to continue the interviewthe subsequent day, but unexpectedly diedthe very same evening of a brain embolism.Prior to the outtakes of the epilogue, thenarrative concludes with an obituary onGeneral Walters in the French newspaperLibération. According to Karel and his crew,Walters had seemed to be in perfect health,hence suggesting that there may have been

Presidential honors for the APollo 11 crew members(from Dark Side of the Moon).


some form of foul play involved in hisdeath.

CONCLUSIONSThe concepts of unreliable narration

and of the unreliable narrator were first in-troduced in literary theory in 1961 byWayne C. Booth. Consider his classic defi-nition:

I have called a narrator reliable whenhe speaks for or acts in accordancewith the norms of the work (which isto say, the implied author’s norms),unreliable when he does not. . . . The[unreliable] narrator is mistaken, orhe believes himself to have qualitieswhich the author denies him. . . .Unreliable narrators thus differ mark-edly depending on how far and inwhat direction they depart from theirauthor’s norms . . . (Booth 158–159)

The examination of Karel’s fake docu-mentary indicates, however, that the theoryof unreliable narration is not only appli-cable to fiction, but also to nonfiction. Themockumentary, indeed, could be said toturn unreliability into a genre in its ownright, with the corresponding paradox thatunreliability then becomes highly reliable,especially as, in the case under consider-ation, the fake declares itself as such at theend—while in a further turn of the screwcasting doubt on its very unreliability, as weare unsure of what specifically is reliable ornot. The riddle can be solved if we regardunreliability not with respect to the work asa whole, but to narrative and film viewingas a process, in the course of which the ques-tion of unreliability poses itself forcefully,and with a distinctively paranoid edge(who can you trust?). Furthermore,unreliability cannot be reduced to textualimmanence or intratextual strategies, as inmany instances of Dark Side of the Moon theviewer requires extratextual, and to someextent specialist knowledge to verify or fal-sify claims and statements made within thenarrative. Booth’s definition is therefore

insufficient and requires the additional con-sideration of the viewer’s extra- and inter-textual knowledge. This is particularly thecase with the verisimilitudinous mocku-mentary, building on a careful blend of factand fiction, on widespread cynicism andpublic distrust in (political) authority, andon “pre-sold” conspiracy thinking.

Secondly, Dark Side of the Moon per-fectly illustrates how conspiracy theories tiein with the mockumentary genre andunreliability, and how they typically func-tion: beginning with a minor detail or riddle(the Zeiss lens), and ultimately leading tothe exposure of a vast, systemic and—in thiscase—world-spanning conspiracy. The at-traction of conspiratorial lore in the currentconspiracy culture (Knight) can not be ex-plained merely as the questioning of au-thority in light of so many political, eco-nomic and environmental scandals sincethe 1970s; nor alone as a form of cognitivemapping of a too-complex world system(Jameson), in the light of new insecuritiesand anxieties (Vail/Wheelock/Hill; Par-ish/Parker) caused by “late capitalism’s”displacement of the symbolic order by thelogic of the market (ZizËek 1999). The appealof conspiracy can not be reduced topostmodern and New Age “irrationality”lending new credence, among other things,to various forms of esoteric, pre-Enlighten-ment knowledge (Wheen). Neither can it befully explained as the mainstream’s increas-ing attraction to forms of stigmatized knowl-edge (Barkun 2–38), in what may appear tobe a kind of class conflict in which “thepeople” of popular culture are opposed toan elitist “power bloc” (Fiske) attempting tosecure its authority through institutional-ized definitions of historical reality. All ofthese aspects are involved in conspiracytheories, but one has to add to them the fic-tional desire akin to the folklore of urban leg-ends, the pleasure of yarn-spinning, theendless desire of an “Other of the Other”(Ziz Ëek 1997), of a reality behind reality.Running through the conspiracy machine, allloose threads are woven into a wonderfulnarrative of historical potentiality indica-


tive of the “powers of the false” (Deleuze126–155).

The overall effect of Dark Side of theMoon on viewers is therefore less likely toreenforce existing beliefs in the moon hoaxas such, but rather of self-reflexively ques-tioning the reliability of factual discourses,especially those on television. Just imagineif all news programs were fabricated in thisway (and to some extent, they are)? Particu-larly the convention of the trustworthyanonymous voice-over commentary, themain source of unreliability in Karel’s film,is subverted here, alerting viewers to film’spowers of manipulation. This also extends,of course, to the use of images, the mean-ing of which always depends on their con-text and narrative embedding. Karel’s filmsuggests a certain playfulness, not only ofthe filmmakers with stock and interviewfootage, but also of the film with its view-ers: depending on their knowledge of poli-tics, history, and, finally, of film history, willthey be able to verify just claims and ferretout the bogus ones? Will they recognize thevarious allusions to other movies and film-makers? And will they be intrigued enoughto do some extratextual research on eventsand personalities featured in this mocku-mentary? Will there be some questions—already hinted at—that remain partly unan-swered? It is in this fashion that Dark Sideof the Moon extends the game it is playinginto our reality.

Notes1Thanks to Georg Janett (Zurich) for

alerting me to Dark Side of the Moon, and forour lively discussions of unreliable narra-tion.

2Winning Germany’s Adolf GrimmeAward and an Award for Excellence in TVor Film at the “Go Figure!” festival inMontreal, Canada, both in 2003. See thewebsite of the production company Pointdu Jour: http://www.pointdujour-international.fr (11/24/2005).

3Point du Jour website.

4Literally, “lying documentary.” Karelhimself uses this term in an interview withARTE in reference to Agnès Varda’s com-edy drama Documenteur: an Emotion Picture(Documenteur, USA/France 1981); cf.http://www.arte-tv.com/fr/histoire-soci-ete/archives/operation-lune/William-Karel/385476.html (11/24/2005).

5“Bilder des Konspirativen: Verschwö-rungstheorie und Film” (“ConspiratorialImages: Conspiracy Theory and Film”),seminar at the University of Lucerne (Swit-zerland), 2004/5.

6Speech made at Rice University Sta-dium, September 12, 1962.

7See Jerome Agel, ed. The Making ofKubrick’s 2001. New York: New AmericanLibrary, 1970.

8Karel in ARTE interview.9Personal communication by Fred van

der Kooij (Zurich).10Cf. “Apollo moon landing hoax accu-

sations” in the internet encyclopedia Wiki-pedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_moon_landing_hoax_accusations(1/16/2006).

Works CitedAgel, Jerome, ed. The Making of Kubrick’s

2001. New York: New American Li-brary, 1970.

“Apollo moon landing hoax accusations.”Wikipedia. Jan. 16, 2006 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_moon_landing_hoax_accusations>.

Barkun, Michael. A Culture of Conspiracy:Apocalyptic Visions in ContemporaryAmerica. Berkeley: U California P, 2003.

Baudrillard, Jean. Selected Writings. Edited,with an Introduction, by Mark Poster.Stanford, California: Stanford UP,1988.

Boorstin, Daniel J. The Image: A Guide toPseudo-Events in America. New York:Vintage Books, 1992.

Booth, Wayne C. The Rhetoric of Fiction. 2nded. Chicago: U Chicago P, 1983.

Carroll, Noël. Theorizing the Moving Image.


Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1996. 224–252.

Deleuze, Gilles. Cinema 2: The Time-Image.Trans. by Hugh Tomlinson and RobertGaleta. London: Athlone Press, 1989,126–155. Originally published as L’image-temps. Cinéma 2. Paris: Minuit, 1985.

Fiske, John. Understanding Popular Culture.London: Routledge, 2001.

Goldberg, Robert Alan. Enemies Within: TheCulture of Conspiracy in Modern America.New Haven: Yale UP, 2001.

Hofstadter, Richard. The Paranoid Style inAmerican Politics and Other Essays.Cambridge, Massachusetts: HarvardUP, 1996.

Jameson, Fredric. The Geopolitical Aesthetic:Cinema and Space in the World System.Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1995.

Karel, William. “Interview.” ARTE-TV. Nov.24, 2005 <http://www.arte-tv.com/fr/histoire-societe/archives/operation-lune/William-Karel/385476. html>.

Knight, Peter. Conspiracy Culture:From theKennedy Assassination to the “X-Files”.London: Routledge, 2000.

Point du Jour. Nov. 24, 2005 <http://www.pointdujour-international.fr>.

Roscoe, Jane and Craig Hight. Faking It:Mock-Documentary and the Subversion ofFactuality. Manchester: Manchester UP,2001.

Vail, John and Jane Wheelock and MichaelHill, eds. Insecure Times: Living withInsecurity in Contemporary Society. Lon-don: Routledge, 1999.

Wheen, Francis. How Mumbo-Jumbo Con-quered the World: A Short History of Mod-ern Delusions. London: Harper Peren-nial, 2004.

Z Èiz Ëek, Slavoj. “The Big Other Doesn’t Ex-ist.” Journal of European Psychoanalysis,5, Spring/Fall 1997. Nov. 24, 2005<http://www.psycho media.it/jep/number5/zizek.htm.>.

ZÈizËek, Slavoj. The Ticklish Subject: The AbsentCentre of Political Ontology. London:Verso, 1999.

DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

(OPÉRATION LUNE)France 2002, 52 minutes, color and b/wIn French and English, French voice-over

spoken by Philippe FaureUS distributor: Filmakers Library, New

York (2004)Produced by: Luc-Martin Gousset for Point

du Jour, Thierry Garrel and PierreMerle for Arte France (broadcast in Oc-tober 2002 and April 2004)

Directed by William KarelCinematography: Stéphane SaporitoEditing: Tal ZanaCast: as themselves: Stanley Kubrick (archive

footage), Richard Nixon (archive foot-age), Buzz Aldrin, Lois Aldrin, LawrenceEagleburger, Farouk Elbaz, AlexanderHaig, Jan Harlan, Richard Helms, JeffreyHoffman, Henry Kissinger, ChristianeKubrick, Donald Rumsfeld, David Scott,Vernon Walters;

Actors: Tad Brown (David Bowman), Ber-nard Kirschoff (Dimitri Muffley),Binem Oreg (W. A. Koenigsberg), Bar-bara Rogers (Eve Kendall), John Rogers(Ambrose Chapel), Jacquelyn Toman(Maria Vargas), David Winger (JackTorrance).

Films CitedThe Barefoot Contessa. Joseph L. Mankiewicz.

United Artists, 1954.Barry Lyndon. Stanley Kubrick. Warner

Brothers, 1975.The Blair Witch Project. Daniel Myrick/

Eduardo Sanchez. Haxon Films, 1999.Blow-Up. Michelangelo Antonioni. MGM,

1966.Bob Roberts. Tim Robbins. Paramount, 1992.Capricorn One. Peter Hyams. Warner Broth-

ers, 1978.Citizen Kane. Orson Welles. RKO, 1941.David Holzman’s Diary. Jim McBride. Para-

digm, 1967.Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop

Worrying and Love the Bomb. StanleyKubrick. Columbia, 1964.


F for Fake (Vérités et mensonges). OrsonWelles. Janus Films, 1975.

The Godfather. Francis Ford Coppola. Para-mount, 1972.

Gone with the Wind.Victor Fleming. MGM,1939.

Les hommes de la Maison-Blanche. WilliamKarel. France, 2000.

JFK. Oliver Stone. Warner Brothers, 1991.Man Bites Dog (C’est arrivé prez de chez vous),

Rémy Belvaux/André Bonzel/BenoîtPoelvoorde. Les Artistes Anonymes,1992.

The Man Who Knew Too Much. Alfred Hitch-cock. Paramount, 1956.

Nixon. Oliver Stone. Buena Vista Pictures,1995.

North by Northwest. Alfred Hitchcock.MGM, 1959.

Secret Honor. Robert Altman. Cinemcom,1984.

The Shining. Stanley Kubrick. Warner Broth-ers, 1980.

This Is Spinal Tap. Rob Reiner. Spinal TapProductions, 1984.

2001—A Space Odyssey. Stanley Kubrick.MGM, 1968.

Wag the Dog. Barry Levinson. New LineCinema, 1997.

Zelig. Woody Allen. Warner Brothers, 1983.

HENRY M. TAYLOR is Research Fellow in Film Studies at the University of Zurich.He is the author of a book on biographical films (Rolle des Lebens. DieFilmbiographie als narratives System, Marburg: Schueren Verlag, 2002), and onFranco-Argentinian filmmaker Edgardo Cozarinsky (Der Krieg eines Einzelnen.Eine filmische Auseinandersetzung mit der Geschichte, Zurich: Chronos Verlag,1995). His current research deals with conspiracy culture and the history ofthe paranoid thriller in film and television.

taylor postscript

Documents

particular image

given image

ispurely image

documentary forms

recent years

post scripttinct form

theabridged form

classic of unreli