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Shooting the Truth - The Rise of American Political Documentaries (Hardcover, Annotated Ed)
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Shooting the Truth - The Rise of American Political Documentaries (Hardcover, Annotated Ed)
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Political documentaries are more popular now than ever— Michael
Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004), the top-grossing documentary film
of all time, is one of many such recent films. In this incisive
book, James McEnteer parses the politics of nonfiction films of
recent decades, which together constitute an alternative history to
many official stories offered by the government and its media
minions. Tracing the origins of an oppositional documentary
movement to the Vietnam era, McEnteer shows how a strong
independent documentary tradition grew from television's failure to
sustain a commitment to the public interest. McEnteer evaluates the
work of four artists in depth—the intrepid Barbara Kopple; the
puckish but deadly Michael Moore; Errol Morris, a connoisseur of
human quirkiness; and anti-Bush crusader Robert Greenwald—and
that of other courageous filmmakers, including Barbara Trent (The
Panama Deception and Cover-Up: Behind the Iran-Contra Affair).
McEnteer looks at the pioneering public affairs documentaries of
Edward R. Murrow and Fred Friendly. Their 1950s CBS program, See It
Now, won many awards but angered network owners who did not wish to
alienate mass TV audiences with controversy. With Murrow's firing,
the retreat of television from engaging civic issues in serious
ways began in earnest. McEnteer devotes an entire chapter to the
many 2004 documentaries made by both sides in that hotly contested
presidential election. He concludes with a look at populist antiwar
and antiglobalization films of Big Noise and the Guerrilla News
Network, whose youthful producers push the boundaries of the
documentary form. As mass media fail—now more than ever—to
fulfill their watchdog role over public officials and policies, the
importance of documentaries committed to telling the truth
increases. Such films bear witness to important events otherwise
hidden from our view. Their makers dare to refute the falsehoods
passing for conventional wisdom, sometimes risking their lives or
reputations to reveal the nature of those lies and the interests
behind them. As Shooting the Truth clearly shows, documentaries
have become an essential component for making sense of our time.
This book enlarges our appreciation of contemporary nonfiction
films and invites debate on the many issues it raises.
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