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Documentary Popularity

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Recently, with the introduction of directors such as Michael Moore and Morgan Spurlock, the general purpose of documentaries has seemed to change. Is it immoral to have an agenda when filming a documentary? Should the agenda of the filmmaker be obvious when viewing a documentary, obscured, or nonexistent? Why? Historically, documentaries are seen as factual representations of life. Do you feel this is still the case? Is a documentary still a documentary if any aspects are staged? Do you think the presence of filmmakers have increased or decreased the popularity of documentaries? Why?

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Solution Summary

The presence of filmmakers which have increased or decreased the popularity of documentaries are examined.

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It is not immoral to have an agenda for your documentary. Documentaries can speak of morality, but to have a point of view is not necessarily immoral. As a form, this type of film making allows for points of view, and often radical points of view. Moore and Spurlock have become famous by being extreme in their messages. They do extreme events that no one in their right mind would ever do! That's just silly at worst, and somewhat interesting at best. Morality is something one feels inside oneself when watching these films, It is deliberate to provoke the audience into thinking either the same way, or finding how they feel differently than the film maker.

If the agenda is not clearly obvious, the documentarian is doing something wrong. My father did one on an island off Korea, but he was not direct enough in the story he was telling, so it was not a success. Beautiful to look at, but we as viewers never got the main idea, which was females controlling the economy. It is important for any documentary to be showing us news, history, cultural info, all about dogs, my bad experience, etc.... The change you feel is that nowadays documentaries often have a political point of view and an extreme way to show it. To obscure your point or simply not to have one will mean that fewer audiences can feel the film is accessible. It would be more abstract ...

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