From our class this week, I was grappling with the question: how far do we go as documentarians to push our subjects into recalling a memory or an event, knowing that it might be a trigger for them? Shreya mentioned in class about the ethical dilemma of re-asking a subject difficult questions that might trigger them and how we as documentarians should try our best not to push our subjects to revisit a memory or an event that we initially missed. However, the Lanzmann interview provided a different take on this question. Lanzmann’s interview of Bomba asks him to re-enact the way he cut the hairs of the people being sent into the death chambers. Later, Lanzmann didn’t want to continue with the interview, but Lanzmann pressures him to continue because of the importance Bomba’s testimony serves in providing evidence to an event that others refute existed. So then, the decision to push/pressure our subjects is up to the doucmentarian’s judgement in terms of the purpose it would serve furthering the themes of the documentary.
