A.
1. The central subject of Nanook of the North is the lives of the Inuit people. The central subject of the corporation is the corruption of today’s corporations.
2. In Nanook of the North title cards and visual images of the people provided the context about what the film was about. There were no voice overs, and only musical sonic elements. In the corporation, flashing names in title cards and a voice over told us what the context of the movie was. This trailer also included interview samples, and images of machinery.
In the Nanook of the North trailer, the moment the weather turned from peaceful to harsh was memorable, because it leaves and emotional drive to watch the film. Showing the dogs dead also provides an emotional drive to watch the film. Finally the images of the people themselves were particularly strong and it was important to have that focus since the people are the focus of the film.
3.In the trailer for The Corporation, the initial roll of major corporations peaked my interest, because it left me wanting to know what they all had in common. The second moment that stood out to me was the battle between press regarding to corporations as good apples or bad apples. This was important because it shows that the subject is controversial and disputed on. The final image that stood out to me was the robot randomly picking apples, it was important because it sort of suggests the futility of comparing the companies to a relatively weak metaphor.
B.
1. I viewed Virunga as the documentary to analyse. I could see roughly 5 parts to this piece, revolving around the idea of point of view. The first point of view is the point of view through the Gorillas’ (and nature’s) perspective. The second point of view was that through SOCO. The next point of view was that of the young female journalist. Another point of view was through the perspective of the Congo conservationist army. The final point of view was through the perspective of the rebel army.
2. The transitions were quick and fluid, the sections weren’t defined over chunks of time, rather all parts were scattered and distributed throughout the film.
3. I see this documentary as somewhere in between. The film provides little on information, we get a brief history in the beginning via title cards, and a summary at the end via title cards, but during the film most of the information is presented in a real-time format, so we have to receive the narrative by following along these lives and perspectives as they play out.
4. Since events are occuring during a pseudo “real-time”, the film uses a lot of visual information provided by hidden cameras. This is effective because the interactions are raw, the full truth, and unfiltered. This makes some of the events a little more difficult to understand, but through post interviews and audio recordings the documentary summarizes certain events to further understanding.
C.
1. As this film is reliant upon secretive film work, and war time film work, the movement of the camera is very all over the place, which would make sense because cameras are hidden and camera people are running. In times of stillness, the camera is very focused on emotional closeups and cutting to emotional images. There are a lot of shots of nature depicted in this documentary, and dark images like volcanoes and ants on carcass reflect the war situations, while bright images full of life like shots of the gorillas are meant to represent hope, and these images are usually paired with dialogue about hopefulness.
2. There are not many shots held longer for 10 seconds at all. Most of the times the film moves to images that support or enhance the dialogue being spoken at the time. However, the longest of shots do occur during interviews or the private camera filming. The private filmings were probably left more untouched so that the raw information can be received raw, albeit with a few camera effects added in. I think there was a lot of color touch ups done to the hidden camera scenes so that we could process the visual information better than what most secret cameras can provide.
3. Sequences mostly move forward clearly along a timeline. The documentary was filmed as these events unfolded, so it would have been confusing to jump around too much. Occasionally however, natural images would be sprinkled in that probably were shot later to add more emotional appeal.
D.
1. The goal of the filmmaker was clearly to expose SOCO for taking advantage of this area that has previously been left torn apart in the past. We did get raw unfiltered perspective from the people that work at SOCO, and this perspective was harsh, racist and uncaring. The filmmaker’s goal was also to show the good that the conservationists were doing and how the protected lake benefited to all the people. This was made evident through the very touching, emotional moments and hopefulness of the conservationist leaders and loyals.
2. I think that was a prosecution piece. The film is clearly asking for a call to action against the harm Soco has done to the Virunga territory, and very obviously exposed SOCO employees. The film also asks at the end for donations to aid Virunga, so it is also a promoter as well. The young reporter also stated that she wished in publishing her information that people would take action rather than just moving on with their lives.
3. The biggest mistake that this film made ethically was attempting to pose the movie as a film for the gorillas. It is not. It is unfortunate that the animals of this location must suffer because of the war, but the film did spend much more time on the people. Which is perfectly okay, because children and women and being maimed and families are being run out of their homes. However, I do not think they are justified in using the gorillas as their poster child in order to attract the attention of every day netflix viewers. The film has a companion piece that focuses more on the gorillas, and it really serves as an advertisement for the main piece. Furthermore, the deaths of the few gorillas were equivocate to the deaths of many African people. To put the Gorillas at such a pedestal and saying their deaths of a few are just as important as the deaths, harming and manipulation of many innocent people over a period of far too long is unfair. The way the intro was cut made me confused as to what the film was about. The description of the film is misleading, the image on netflix is misleading, and when I began watching the film only then I realized there was a problem much greater. In this sense, it very much upsets me by how well received this film is. I understand that the protection of the animals is important, and that there are few of those individuals that would die protecting animals, but I think that the deeper issue is what should be discussed here, and that Africa is still to this day being targeted by white dominated countries in order for financial gain. It is very clear that the rebel group AND the government of Congo was manipulated by SOCO to create this skirmish on purpose. And there is still the underlying question of what the interest is of the man in charge of the conservation army truly. It was thrown around that he was of Belgium royalty and that he is protecting that land for only his best interest. Do I think that he is passionate about protecting the animals? Yes. Do I think that is his only motive? No. So it’s very tough to make a call on this. I think that what happened was that the filmmaker took on many events that they did not expect, and though the original intent was to be about the conservationists and the animals, the film quickly morphed into another conversation, and by trying to balance the two they are inadvertently saying that the people of Africa should be valued at the same amount as Gorillas, which is a risky thing to say considering the lifetimes of trauma the people in the Congo area specifically still face today.
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