Known White Male? Truth or Truthiness?

DGA-nominated and Academy Shortlisted Doc Unknown White Male, which came under suspicion when it debuted at Sundance last year (but was later picked up by Wellspring and Court TV), is again being put through the microscope, according to an article in today's Variety. In question, whether the amnesia-stricken subject is nothing but an elaborate hoax.

From today's article by Ian Mohr:

     In the current age of the arty hoax -- following the lit
     scandals of J.T. LeRoy and James Frey -- the latest
'     project to come under scrutiny is the upcoming amnesia
     docu "Unknown White Male," which was up for a DGA
     award and short-listed for an Oscar nom.

     The brouhaha could bring far more media attention to
     the pic than an indie docu might otherwise get -- with
     "Good Morning America" and Diane Sawyer interviews,
     as well as a New Yorker piece in the works.

     (....)

     Questions about the film first began back when helmer
     Rupert Murray's mystery-of-the-mind movie unspooled
     at Sundance last year. Pic follows the director's friend,
     Doug Bruce, a thirtysomething who took a subway ride
     in 2003 only to arrive in Coney Island with no clue who
     he was or what he was doing.

     In the pic, notes found in Bruce's backpack lead the Brit
     to an ex-girlfriend, and he begins to piece his life back
     together, learning that he was a stock broker who retired
     to embark on a career as a professional shutterbug.

     (....)

     But something about Bruce's story raised the suspicions
     of some Sundance viewers -- despite the fact that the
     docu's subject is diagnosed onscreen by Harvard
     psychology department chairman Daniel L. Schacter as
     having a type of retrograde amnesia.

     First, some aud members in Park City accused the pic's
     creators of making a mockumentary, which they denied.
     Then, HBO's docu unit -- run by prexy Sheila Nevins --
     began circling the pic but ultimately decided it was less
     than credible after some initial research. Various other
     interested distribs even began considering using the
     questions surrounding Bruce's authenticity as a way to
     market the film.

First off, let me just say that even if Unknown White Male is faked - it's not a "mockumentary" (in the vein of Christopher Guest's brilliant films), it's a "fauxcumentary" - this is a word I'm try to get into the lexicon as it's a more apt description of non-comical docu-style fictions. Spread the word.

Second, it's interesting that Wellspring has adopted the "A True Story" subtitle on it's promotions for the film. Their head of acquisitions makes both a strong defense and an out for the film's truthiness:

     "The film was made by extremely legitimate
     documentary professionals who would not jeopardize
     their careers to perpetrate a fraud," Wellspring's
     Guirgis said. "There's no chance that the movie's a
     fake. Is there a chance that (Bruce) is faking? We are
     all inherently cynics. I haven't given him a lie detector
     test, but he has nothing to gain, and we are operating
     under the fact that the movie is real. If it's going to
     make people more interested in seeing the film, they
     can judge for themselves."

In any case, does scrutiny of this kind (and on this film) help or hinder the general progress of documentaries. Will people see a faked doc (if that is what this is) as a legitimate storytelling device (akin to the "reality" established around a movie like The Blair Witch Project) or will it lead to questioning of the methods of contemporary documentary filmmakers?

Comments

[Joe Swanberg]

I don't think there is anything wrong with modern audiences questioning the methods of documentary filmmakers. If anything, it will make them more savvy when they watch the news and more likely to questions the techniques of CNN and FoxNews to spin a story using selective interview subjects and slanted editing.

The veil needs to be pulled away from documentary filmmaking once and for all. Documentaries employ all of the same techniques narrative films do, whether they are truthful or not. Human beings with opinions of their own have decided where to place the camera, what footage to leave in and what to cut out, what questions to ask, what the poster should look like, how to market the film, etc, etc, etc.

I think a more skeptical viewing public is the best thing that can happen to TV journalism and documentary film right now. Anything that makes people approach this work with a skeptical mindset is good.

[AJ Schnack]

I'm all for a more skeptical public, just as I am all for the ability of filmmakers to blur the line between truth and fiction.

I guess my larger question is whether this blurring might ultimately cause a backlash when (inevitably) we have our James Frey moment and some celebrated "non-fiction" film is exposed for being mostly fiction.

There is already some confusion in the idea as to whether nonfiction filmmakers (or writers for that matter) are journalists. The laws of copyrights and releases (both personal and location) are completely unknown based on this confusion. What if someone who makes a "non-fiction" film also declares fair use - and later questions arise as to the film's truthfulness. Do the fair use assertions get thrown out the window? How much fiction is too much?

Wow, this seems like a whole new post...