Sisters In Law Analysed

Cinematography

• A series of establishing shots of the village is used to provide context rather than relying entirely on narration or explanatory text. These shots also introduce us to an environment we are unfamiliar with and also shows the poverty of the village.
• Longinotto exclusively uses handheld camera which not only allows more portability so that she can move quickly and point the camera at whatever is interesting. Not only does this allow her to maintain her unobtrusiveness, it also allows the audience to feel like they are in the room with them.
• On multiple occasions the camera is used to give a broader understanding as she doesn’t focus on what is directly relevant
• Throughout the films there are lots of close-ups of the women and children involved in the cases/trials so that we are forced to look at them and see their upset thus furthering Longinotto’s female focus.
• When the camera moved towards the children, bewildered expressions can be seen on their faces. Their confusion is used to provoke a reaction and to fit the idea that Longinotto wants her subjects to be aware of the camera as we see from the genuine reactions of the children that they are.
• The people in the film are aware there is a camera but still appear to put on a bit of a performance. For example the lawyer takes on an authoritative and powerful front that she maintains throughout as if it is a character trait, in the divorce court later in the film several judges show exaggerated happiness for the woman who has just been granted a divorce despite making cruel comments earlier when they were less consciously aware of the cameras presence and during a sequence in which the auntie is told to apologise to the little girl she had beaten she plays up to the camera by crying and begging for forgiveness.
• Longinotto does not shy away from the emotional intensity of the events, she forces the audience to acknowledge the trauma by not cutting away and maintain long-held shots so we see the subjects anguish. This is an effect that wouldn’t have been possible if they were using film instead of digital technology as the length of time they could shoot for would be restricted.

Sound Design

• Whilst the sound design in this documentary is not used excessively, a cultural non-diegetic score is used to introduce us to the Cameroonian environment. The score is of a happy tone rather than a tragic one so that the daily lives of Cameroon’s people are not dramatized to seem like an unfortunate third world country, instead the music captures their spirits to increase audience familiarity with their culture.
• After the initial use of a non-diegetic score at the beginning, it fades out and we are left with diegetic sounds of the environment they are in and no score is used until the end credits. The lack of non-diegetic score allows the documentary to feel as naturalistic as possible.

Editing

• Writing can be seen on the bottom of the screen to provide information and context.
• Whilst the screen time is mainly given to the women, enough screen time is given to the positive male presences in the documentary to provide a balance.
• Although there are many long takes to immerse us in the stories of these women, there are edit points during their conversations which is clear due to the cut down version of conversations that would be longer in real life. It makes you wonder whether something else had happened between the parts we are shown.
• Subtitles are used when the local people are talking so that we can understand their language which is often a mixture of English and other languages.
• Editing is clearly only used for necessity, to take us from one place to another for the most part she lets the conversations take place and maintains her observational stance. Longinotto is deliberately selecting footage that will provoke a reaction in the audience, the events probably wouldn’t have an effect on the on looking local people in Cameroon yet the editing and selection of footage allows us to see the bravery of these women speaking out.

Filmmakers “Theories” – Kim Longinotto

Kim Longinotto is a British documentary filmmaker and cinematographer. Some of her most well known work include The Day I Will Never Forget (Kim Longinotto, 2002), which follows stories of Kenyan women struggling under the pressures of female genital mutilation, and Divorce Iranian Style (Kim Longinotto, 1998) which shows 3 couples carrying out the difficult process of divorce in the Islamic republic.

Longinotto is known for making films that highlight female victims of oppression and discrimination. Her documentaries can be classified as cinema veritè. She calls her body of work an “army of women” who she often refers to as ‘rebels’. Longinotto holds the belief that women are more interesting and passionate to film and often highlights that the only reason she gets asked why she focuses on women in her documentaries is because it is still an unfortunate unusual occurrence to have films centre around women.

She often says that “We make the films that are like the people we are” and as an observatory person her documentaries often reflect the way she prefers to work. In one interview she emphasises that she likes to make the people in the film feel as though it is more their film than hers. Whilst her documentaries often tells stories of women standing up against tradition, mostly lawful traditions, she argues that her aim isn’t to change laws but to change mindsets; she hopes her films will change the mentality of the viewer in the context of their own lives by learning and observing others lives in a different context. She says she prefers if her films don’t have conclusions and instead hopes they raise questions.

‘I don’t think of films as documents or records of things. I try to make them as like the experience of watching a fiction film as possible, though, of course, nothing is ever set up” – Longinotto

The main noticeable stylistic feature of her documentaries is her unobtrusiveness that enables the women on camera to claim their own voice and presence to tell their story the way they wish to. To maintain this style, Longinotto excludes using narration, staging or lighting and acts as a silent witness. This style is meant to encourage the impression that “no one is watching” Longinotto effaces their shooting style by communicating without words to provoke a gentle form of filmmaking.

Interestingly, Longinotto is very keen on subject awareness and specified that she prefers if the people on camera acknowledge her as they will therefore be talking to the audience as well as the people around them in their environment allowing them to get the points across that they wish to portray to the wider audience. She also has frequently expressed her dislike for the expression “fly on the wall” as it makes the filmmaker seem like a cold observer. Instead she prefers to see how the camera effects the actions of the subjects: for example, in Sisters In Law (Kim Longinotto, 2005) she comments on the fact that the men in charge of one of the women’s divorce forgot the camera was there momentarily and began to ridicule her however, when they took note of the camera once again after the divorce had been granted they took on a disposition of happiness for her and her case.

Loninotto also takes on the role of cinematographer and camera operator in her work as she believes it is more pragmatic and allows her to make films exactly how she envisions them rather than attempting to tell someone else what to do. She tends to put together clips as she’s shooting them. Her camerawork avoids zooms or pans in order to create the illusion that the camera is the ‘eyes’ of the audience.

A noticeable feature of her documentary Sisters In Law is the lack of context context provided to the audience. The absence of details about the court procedure in Cameroon allows to focus of the cases and the power of the women in authoritative positions within the environment. Longinotto avoids any interview scenarios and this is clear in sister In Law; although there is one sequence in the film in which an off-camera question has been asked although this is not heard and the audience only sees the woman answering whilst looking at the off-camera presence.

Despite her individualistic style, Longinotto is rarely referred to as an auteur. Perhaps this is due to her lack of filmmaking persona on-screen that male documentarians like Nick Broomfield and Michael Moore, filmmakers whom Longinotto herself has expressed admiration for, do.

 

Resource

Sisters In Law (Kim Longinotto, 2005)

Sisters In Law (Kim Longinotto, 2005) follows real events taking in place in Cameroon following four cases in which women seek justice against the violence they have suffered. The film aims to display the lives of women and children living in Cameroon facing the lack of equality they face on a day to day basis.

The film is directed by Kim Longinotto and Florence Ayisi, 2 british filmmakers, who provide a observatory perspective to create a “fly on the wall” style (although Longinotto hates that expression). Whilst it could be argued that they maintain an unbiased perspective, the documentary is clearly celebratory of the female lawyers, judges and social workers as they fight for the rights of women after 17 years of no convictions surrounding spousal abuse.

The most influential story told within the documentary for me followed 6-year-old Manka who ran away from her abusive auntie after she beat her leaving scars all over her body. Other stories told included: Amina seeking a divorce from her abusive husband despite being told to stay quiet and Sonita who has accused her neighbour of rape.

Filmmakers’ “Theories” – Louis Theroux

Louis Theroux is a well-known British documentary filmmaker and broadcaster. His series “When Louis Met…” and “Louis Theroux’s Weird Weekends” are his most popular works.

Theroux’s documentaries are heavily participatory and performance based as he has become the driving force in all of his films/series. The documentaries he makes star him as the reoccurring on-screen personality throughout thus making the contents just as much about him as the subject. This style has allowed him to become a recognisable tv personality as well as a documentarian.

Theroux tends to use his documentaries as a way to allow him to explore areas of life he would not usually be exposed to. This is evident in his documentaries Under the Knife, following plastic surgery patients in LA, and Gambling in Las Vegas, following the addictive pastime of gamblers, both of which feature Theroux joining the day to day lives of regular people and watching as he becomes more educated on the topics resulting in the audience learning simultaneously. The fact the Theroux is put in the same position as the audience ostensibly not knowing much about the subject and learning from them as the filming progresses continues allows his films to carry a personal and natural essence.

It is evident in multiple of Theroux’s documentaries that he doesn’t shy away from allowing the process to become personal. He appears to build relationships which the subjects of his film and uses these new bonds to ask personal questions during interviews. In his documentary “Louis and the Brothel”, he stays at the brothel for a week getting to know the working girls and the owners on and off screen; the episode features multiple scenes of him and the subjects hanging out in an informal manner carrying out their day-to-day tasks and it is in these moments that he tends to interview them. Theroux started off as a journalist which is evident in his interviews as he attempts to dive deeper than the surface value of the situations the subjects are in.

Theoux has done multiple ‘follow up’ documentaries, his most popular probably being his documentary Savile (2016) which saw Louis talk to those who knew TV celebrity and sexual abuser Jimmy Savile following his death as he attempts to understand how his crimes went unseen and how he himself never knew something was off after his developing friendship with Savile that formed after their first documentary together When Louis met Jimmy (2000). Similarly, in 2011 he revisited the family he studied in his documentary The Most Hated Family in America (2007). Theroux’s ability to revisit past documentaries and subjects to catch up and reflect is another example of the audience investment in his subjects’ stories as we are made to feel invested in their lives enough to want to watch a revisited version of their situations.

Filmmakers’ “Theories” – Errol Morris

Errol Morris is an American film director best known for his documentaries including Thin Blue Line (1988) and Mr Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter (1999).

His documentaries are often associated with the Participatory documentary mode due to his involvement and the presences of reconstructions however, reflexive elements as well due to his exploration of historical subjects being joint with exploration of the problems/issues of representing it as well. This can be seen subtly in his documentary Mr Death as he interview Fred Leuchter and therefore gets his side of the story that could be bias.

Morris’s documentaries, including Mr Death, often feature interviews with the subjects. His interviewing technique is unique, he actually invented the machine he uses to conduct them. It is called the Interrotron and it enables Morris and his interviewee to talk through the lens of the camera almost like they are video calling each other so that when the audience watches it appears that the subject is talking straight to the camera answering questions.

“Teleprompters are used to project an image on a two-way mirror. Politicians and newscasters use them so that they can read text and look into the lens of the camera at the same time. What interests me is that nobody thought of using them for anything other than to display text: read a speech or read the news and look into the lens of the camera. I changed that. I put my face on the Teleprompter or, strictly speaking, my live video image. For the first time, I could be talking to someone, and they could be talking to me and at the same time looking directly into the lens of the camera. Now, there was no looking off slightly to the side. No more faux first person. This was the true first person”

– Morris

Morris’s documentaries avoid using an authoritative voice over to give his documentaries an essence of naturalness and cinematic truth; this is called the catalyst style.

He also uses reconstructions alongside his interviews and inserts of archive footage. For example in Mr Death there are various recreations of the equipment invented by Leuchter including an electric chair being used.

 

Filmmakers’ “Theories” – Nick Broomfield

Nick Broomfield is an English documentary film director. He is best known work is probably Kurt and Courtney (1998) and his overall style and documentarian approach that has been adapted by many other documentary filmmakers over the years.

Similar to Moore, Broomfield tends to blend elements of participatory and performance documentaries to maintain a casual and realistic filmmaking approach that appears like a “diary into the future” (Broomfield) whilst incorporating interviews that aim to explore the rawest version of peoples real lives. In his modern work he has adopted an approach he calls “direct cinema” that feature non-actors to play themselves in realistic scenarios following a script.

He also shares traits with Watkins in the fact that he likes to work with a minimal crew. Broomfield often records the sound for his documentaries himself and is accompanied by one or two camera operators.

Some of Broomfield’s documentaries have the reflexive trait of commenting on their own status as documentaries. For example in his documentary Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer (2003), which follows the prequel Aileen: The Selling of a Serial Killer (1992), Broomfield is hugely involved in the events following Aileen’s trial due to his prequel documentary and the popularity it got; some of the footage from the prequel is even used in court as evidence and that process is shown Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer to explicitly comment on the impact of his documentary and the nature of documentary truth.

“The Broomfield Technique works by zooming in on the inessentials as the means of getting to the heart of the matter. He leaves in what conventional documentary-makers would edit out and keeps rolling in front of stories on which most people would consider it extravagant madness to waste valuable reels.”
– John Carlin, The Daily Telegraph

He is described as an investigative documentarian which is evident in his Aileen documentaries as he follows her trials and gathers evidence from her family and friends regarding her life before her killings as well as interviewing her in an attempt to reveal some truths.

 

Filmmakers’ “Theories” – Michael Moore

Michael Moore is an American documentary filmmaker and activist who makes films that openly criticise prominent societal topics such as globalisation, large corporations, figures of high power (such as presidents), capitalism and many more.

Moore’s films combine performance and participatory documentary elements to feature himself as an on-screen presence whilst keeping focus on the subject of his films and often criticising them.

Once a subject is chosen by Moore he remains committed to it and doesn’t shy away from being polemical and maintaining a clear point of view; these stylistic features often result in his work being labeled agit-prop documentaries.

Moore has openly announced his unpleasant connotations with the word “documentarian” and instead insists that all documentary filmmakers with a vision should quick making documentaries and start making MOVIES.

A key style associated with Moore is the use of humour and satire to get across his political statements.

Moore’s personal approach is seen in his film “Fahrenheit 9/11” in which he explores the political controversy surrounding the events of 9/11 and the possible unspoken government involvement by President Bush and his accomplices in the attack.

The satirical approach taken by Moore is evident in the film poster itself which features him holding hands with Bush in a photoshopped image. By creating a humorous cover for his film the tone is immediately established as casual whilst maintaining a political essence. Moore also uses comical voiceover and editing techniques such as repetition of clips alongside analysis of their irony (e.g. in a clip showing a representative informing Bush of the 9/11 incident whilst he sat in a children’s classroom). The comical approach taken by Moore to present his political ideas has been criticised for being “Extremely one-sided in its indictment of the Bush administration, but worth watching for the humor and the debates it’ll stir” (Rotten Tomatoes)

Filmmakers’ “Theories” – Peter Watkins

 

Peter Watkins is an English film and television director, he is best known for his two feature-length docudramas made for the BBC: Culloden and the War Game.

Watkins’s films combine dramatic and documentary elements of filmmaking to either analyse historical events or highlight the hypothetical possibility of events in the future. His style is often seen as untraditional as he questions conventional documentary and reflects his deep concern with mainstream media, which he has called the ‘monoform’.

His documentaries use a quasi-newsreel style and non-professional actors to create a fictional reality.

Watkins’s idiosyncratic filmmaking style is best represented in his popular, but controversial, documentary The War Game. The film uses actors and scripted events to present the hypothetical aftermath of global nuclear war in the 1960s.

Watkins’s concern with mainstream media is subtly hinted through his handheld camerawork that briefly falls upon random members of the public to show moments of suffering/ personal turmoil; the fact he avoids further focus on these people, e.g. by not telling us their names or backgrounds, is significant in the context of his criticisms. Watkins in the past has expressed a disagreement with the emphasised “personalisation of history” seen with the victims of 9/11 in western media; he describes how these people are “repeatedly prodded to tell how much they missed their dead son/daughter/brother/mother – accompanied by endless dissolves between their crying faces, and portraits of their deceased family members.” (Watkins, 2003). By showing brief images of suffering and dismay, Watkins is able to stylistically connect personal icons to political arguments without allowing the stories to take centre stage and become dramatised for emotional impact.

His common use of unprofessional actors is also seen in The War Game as he interviews people on the street who give genuine and common responses that avoid becoming too intellectually developed to exaggerate his point that these events influence everyday people like the viewers watching. The montage of street-peoples’ responses to the prospect of war is manipulated to make them appears particularly naive whilst being intertwined/ follwed by shocking footage of nuclear attacks in order to criticise public dismissal of the possibility of such events thus providing Watkins’s personal criticisms of politics and life through his filmmaking and imposing these opinions on the audience themselves.

 

The Trouble With The Six Modes

We watched several documentaries inside and outside of class to develop our understanding of the varying documentary styles and which mode they could theoretically fit into.

Fahrenheit 9/11 (Michael Moore, 2004) uses satire and humour to argue that President Bush and his inner circle were aware of, or had some involvement in, the events of 9/11. The documentary is identified as being an example of Performance documentary as Moore himself appears on-screen and is the driving force of the film.

The War Game (Peter Watkins, 1965) presents a hypothetical representation of the effects that a nuclear war on Britain would have. It can be categorised as a Participatory documentary as it includes interviews with ordinary people as well as multiple reconstructions due to it being based in a fictional alternative to reality.

Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer (Nick Broomfield, 2003) follows the trial leading to the execution of Aileen Wuornos who was convicted of killing six men. Whilst the most explicit description for this documentary would be expository due to its traditional style, aspects of reflexive documentaries can also be seen in the regular references the filmmaker makes to other documentaries he had made about Aileen as well as the issues that arose from it.

The Most Hated Family in America (Louis Theroux, 2007) and The Most Hated Family in America Returns (Louis Theroux, 2011) are just two examples of documentaries made by Louis Theroux. The first documentary introduces us to the lives of the Phelps family who actively protest the ‘corrupt lifestyles’ of American homosexuals and other ‘sinners’. Louis Theroux documentaries tend to be seen as performance based as he is the reoccurring star throughout his series and the documentaries tend to be just as much about him as the subjects themselves as he emerges himself in their lifestyles allowing them to become more personal. However, his films also include elements of participatory documentaries and even reflexive documentaries (especially in the context of The Most Hated Family in America Returns.

Mr Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter (Errol Morris, 1999) investigates a man heavily involved with capital punishment who encountered problems when asked to assist the execution of a Holocaust denier. The documentary involves Participatory elements due to the presence of Morris’s voice off-screen as well as the staged interview with Leuchter himself and multiple uses of reconstruction; however, expository presences are evident in the traditional uses of authority to argue/ persuade the viewers on a case about history, nature and politics.

Through analysising several documentary filmmakers and the nature of the projects it becomes increasingly evident that the 6 modes of documentary theory introduced by Nichols is particulary problematic. Many of the documentaries fail to fit inot a single mode and instead draw upon elements expressed throughout the different categories. Perhaps the modes are useful for thinking about the conventions of documentaries but fail to be an effective tool in which to cateogrise documentary films.

Modes of Documentary

To support his theory of all films being documentaries, Bill Nichols divided social representation films into 6 different modes.

1. Expository Documentaries
   The most traditional documentary form that uses an authoritative voiceover or presenter to address viewers directly and argue a case about history, nature or politics, they often aim to persuade the viewer to agree with the point of view they prominent in the documentary.
2. Observational Documentaries
   Aim to show everyday life as it really is, with minimal intrusion by the filmmaker or filmmaking process e.g no use of voiceover or interviews. They’re also known as “fly on the wall” documentaries.
3. Participatory Documentaries
   Feature the filmmaker as an on or off screen presence, who nonetheless retains an objective stance on events. Participants are interviewed as witness for or against a case and are in control of the dissemination of their own story. The film may use archive footage or reconstructions.
4. Performance Documentaries
   Similar to participatory documentaries but the filmmaker appears on screen and intervenes directly in the events. Interviews are staged/ arranged and encounters are often dramatised and surprising. The documentary is as much about the filmmaker as the subject.
5. Poetic Documentaries
   May be based on any of the five modes whilst also including strong aesthetic or sensual forms that bring them closer to the feeling of poetry than prose, they tend to be more subjective and abstract representations of reality. Nichols said that the poetic mode “moves away from the ‘objective’ reality of a given situation or person, to grasp at an ‘inner truth’ that can only be grasped by poetic manipulation”.
6. Reflexive Documentaries
   Explicitly comment on their own status as documentaries through stylistic means(e.g by disrupting conventions such as the voice over) or by featuring conversations about the nature of documentary truth. The viewer is made to be just as interested about how the film is constructed as they are the actual content.