When watching a documentary, the general conception is that people are not watching a fictional movie. Rather the purpose is to inform, not to fantasize, a different kind of entertainment. People are fascinated by documentary’s apparent inherent ability to capture reality. And while it can do this to some extent, ultimately documentary is to tell a story, to relay a perspective of information.
As we know, sometimes it is difficult to find the words that will best articulate what it was like to be ‘there’. No matter how wonderful and poetic a description of events, there is some missing element, something that prevents the audience from ever fully grasping the reality of the situation, the truth as it unfolds before their eyes. Film works the same way. To make up for this, it seems documentarians try to do their best to shy away from the old adage “you had to be there”.
Nevertheless a film is something to be entertained by. If anyone is like me and finds real life more interesting than things which are made up, documentary seems the perfect form of entertainment. What Linda Williams has to say about that, in terms of her analyzation of The Thin Blue Line, might be that regardless if the sequence of events are true to form, if the story is accurately portrayed, and if the people are real and not actors, it is just that, a portrayal. Because the viewer is not one who was witness to the actual moments being discussed in a documentary, they need a story they can follow. The audience wants to trust the filmmakers on getting it right. They want to not be lied to, and so what they are exposed to they will most likely believe and pass on. Therefore, it is the filmmakers’ job to be apart of the social and cultural interpretation of the issue which will tell us something about what the past way really like. The “reverberations between events” harnesses the power of truth. Sounds like what Professor John Caputo argues in his book Truth.