Kirsten Johnson’s statement is a discussion of the dilemmas and entanglements associated with documentary ethics. Her passion is evident, as are her struggles with ethical aspects of the documentarian lifestyle. Three bulleted points stood out:

“The people I film are in immediate and often desparate material need, but I offer little to nothing material.”

“I can and will leave a place I film (a war, a refugee camp, etc.) when the people I film cannot.”

“My work can change the way my subject is perceived by the people who surround him/her and can impact reputation or safety for years into the future.”

I believe that being a successful “cameraperson” entails telling the whole truth as best as you possibly can, given certain ethical parameters; from these three points in particular, I understood this as Johnson’s goal. Her recognition of the incompleteness of her documentation allows the project to be more truthful. She is not attempting to paint an entire portrait, but simply tell the story to the best of her ability.

Struggling with ethics is a basic but burdensome task in documentary storymaking. You are making this film in order to help this group of people, and yet, you cannot always directly, immediately offer aid. You know, or at least hope, that you are doing what is best in the long run, and yet Johnson discusses an acute sense of guilt that accompanies leaving this place into which you have devoted so much energy and belief. Johnson summarizes extraordinarily well “how complex it is to film and be filmed.”

Timothy Treadwell’s journey holds some surface-level resemblances to that of a Christopher McCandless; a young man travels alone to Alaska to be around the natural, to live and thrive in the wild. However, the two men were endlessly different, though they may have shared a spirit and lust for adventure. McCandless was focused on the escape, the journey, the road, as well as the wild; Treadwell was a science ambassador, focused on researching the bears in immense detail and making that research readily available to the public.

The most similar aspect of these two young men is how their deaths were perceived. Both Krakauer and Herzog had the power to influence their subjects’ legacies; by writing or filming a biographical documentary, you almost inevitably superimpose your opinions on your subject onto the project.

Both Treadwell and McCandless’ lives became known for their deaths. They were perceived as simply naïve young men with idyllic and almost transcendental views of the natural world, and it was these views that got them killed. This is the storyline of which the public thinks when they hear the names Tim Treadwell and Chris McCandless.

To whatever degree this may or may not be true, it is often all that comes across. Ask someone if they’ve seen Grizzly Man. “Oh, isn’t that about the guy who got eaten by bears?” Ask about McCandless. “Didn’t he die in Alaska because he was unprepared?”

As I discussed earlier in my Grizzly Man post, documentary, in whatever media form, has the impressive power to shape life stories.

There are countless questions to consider when addressing documentary ethics. Documentary is based in telling the truth; in order to do so, those involved the project being documented must be a part of the telling. This does not just include administrators or politicians, but any and all affected in some way by the issue; it is unfair to the issue to only tell one side.

First, there is the careful question of access versus rights. As Johnson pointed out in her director’s statement, documentarians often have access to horrible situations in this world, and film them and subsequently get out. The people being filmed cannot do the same. The documentarian may have gained access to this story, but do they have the rights to it? Do they have signed consent forms from each and every human filmed in that area? What about babies? Animals? If they do have signed consent forms from the subjects, that would likely somewhat alter the subject’s behavior during filming, though hopefully not to an extreme amount.

Once everyone is contacted and rightfully involved in the film, then comes the editing question. The documentarian must make conscious choices about what to include and not to include; what footage he or she discards could change a story in a drastically impactful fashion. Is it ethical for Herzog to make the decisions that he did when telling Treadwell’s story? Is it ethical for him to listen to the audio of his death in front of Treadwell’s family/friends? Is it ethical for Herzog not to play the audio of Treadwell’s death in the film, after the audience stuck with him throughout? Why? Is it ethical for Herzog to take Treadwell’s story and bring it to light in his own perspective?

Drew dealt with this in immensity as well: his own subject, over his shoulder, instructing him as to what he wanted Drew to include! How would Grizzly Man be different if Treadwell had made the film alongside Herzog, as a collaborator? Would it even be called Grizzly Man? How would the film have been different if Treadwell had not been killed by his subjects? Would Herzog have even bothered?

Finally, there is the question of why ethics itself is important in documentary. Here is a simple but true statement: Documentarians attempt to tell the truth. Looking at just this statement, one would see ‘ethics’ as an actual constraint, limiting how much of the truth can be told. And yet, it is absolutely necessary in human culture; if documentary were supremely unethical, we would consider it inhuman. We would be appalled.

Is our morality limiting our potential to truthfully document? If so, why do we consider it appropriate and necessary to sacrifice that extra truth?

I wrote a lot of science fiction short stories when I was younger. I sat in classes or rowed in the afternoon while ideas for stories played in my brain: a moral to be taught, an audience in mind, a plot (sometimes action-packed, sometimes calmer), a goal to be accomplished, characters I felt were my friends, prequels, sequels, and spin-off stories about other characters. When I thought of them, I made notes however I could and then when I had time, I wrote them down. It was an awesome escape; I had notions about current happenings in either my own life or events of drastic importance globally, and I could express boldly my opinions on these events in fantastical situations. It was endlessly fun.

My time is now more limited, but sometimes I still jot down ideas and open new documents for new stories. While I enjoy science fiction, I am increasingly preoccupied with telling stories directly. I think this happened as I grew older and realized the imperative nature of so many things in our world. This is important! And this is more important! Everyone needs to know the truth about this! Oh, and this!

So many thoughts and ideas fly through my mind, and there is so much I find I want to document. Much of it has been done; fortunately, documentarians continue to cover important current issues. When I do watch documentary about imperative issues, I find myself moved beyond belief, and hope others watch them as well.

I am excited to get going on this documentary project and begin contributing in some small way to the community of the Lehigh Valley and hopefully, eventually, the world on a larger scale.

Herzog’s omnipotent voice diminishes Treadwell’s excited boyish manner in a way that is unfair to the subject. Treadwell is happy with his mission, thrilled by the world around him, and eager not only to be surrounded by the natural but also to teach others about it through documentation. This is an admirable educational goal.

Throughout the film, before Treadwell’s death, Herzog seems to know things to which the audience is not privy. At the start, I was torn: is Herzog respectful of Treadwell, or is he condescending?

It was condescension. Even the name Grizzly Man is condescending; the way I think that Herzog meant it, it’s almost making fun of Treadwell for wanting to be a bear.

This was confusing to me; Herzog found Treadwell’s story intriguing enough to pursue and of enough worth to make a film! How could he be lacking in respect? I doubted myself. I began to question Herzog’s goal in making this documentary.

Does he want people to fear the wild and to think that we are different from these animals? Is his intention to draw a bolder boundary between humanity and the natural, to cement our existence as the species at the top of an evolutionary hierarchy? If so, that is not the truth, and not what documentary should be.

When someone is gone, they are judged by their legacies, tangible and intangible. Treadwell’s intangible legacy is the spirit of adventure and lust for the natural that he left in many students and people whom he inspired. It is also in his friends and family that remain.

Treadwell’s tangible legacy includes many things, but those things have been largely overrun by one large tangible legacy over which he had no control: Herzog’s Grizzly Man. Herzog’s Grizzly Man. Yes, the clips are Treadwell’s, but the compilation and voice-over are all Herzog’s. The choices, consciously made, are Herzog’s. Look up Timothy Treadwell, Grizzly Man shows up.

That is an immense power to have.

Herzog shaped Treadwell’s legacy. He controlled how the population of this planet remembers someone other than himself. It is essential to remember when watching documentary, especially made by someone about someone other than himself or herself, there is always perspective. This is not always as drastic a problem as it is here, but is always present. This is also important to remember as documentarians; we must apply everything we can in order to help us be impartial, to tell the truth.

I would like to document how dams and increased land use and urbanization have changed local watersheds and, specifically, fish populations in the Delaware and Lehigh rivers and Bushkill creek. My planned focus is the shad population in the rivers, their decline and subsequent restoration, and how human interference has altered their ecosystems. This will be accomplished largely by interviews with people in a variety of fields: those who do research with the shad and other fish in the area, assisted with the restoration, constructed the dam, think the dam should be taken down, local fishermen who have witnessed all of this, geologists from institutions such as Lafayette who can explain scientific issues behind the story, and likely more of yet that I do not know. I hope to use this story that is on a local scale to bring to light how this occurs on a more global scale as well.

I have realized over the past few years that the best way to learn is to just start, to fully immerse yourself in the material, and Monday’s class was just that. I was excited when I learned what we would be doing in class, and I appreciated the variety of topics from which to choose. As my group members and I introduced ourselves, we were very interested in who attended which institution, and so that topic seemed natural.

We had some trouble with batteries and technology at the start, and so our filming began a little late, but it was fun once we got going. We interviewed each other one at a time, all of us chiming in to ask questions and taking turns listening in the headset and operating the camera.

I am also excited about the introduction of editing programs; I have always used iMovie, and I am happy that I will be able to learn new and more advanced programs. I’m looking forward to spending more time with that as well.

As Lisa and I were talking, we discovered quickly our mutual interest in and passion about the environment, her as a dual major in environmental studies and film and myself in geology, undecided on a minor. Both of us are intrigued by the connections between humanity and the ‘natural’ world, as well as the lines drawn between these worlds, and so we attempted to take our photos of each other with some manifestation of this in the frame. We decided outdoors was a good idea, and took these photos with stark contrast behind us of the constructed building, wires, and brick, with the greenery.

This series of three photographs is intended to illustrate the drastic influence of humanity on natural systems.

These three photographs were taken at Delaware Canal State Park, by the convergence of the Lehigh and Delaware rivers. The Lehigh pours into the Delaware here, but before it does it must pass over a human-made dam in the river. I took these photos last semester, for a research project on human/nature relationships for my Culture & the Environment course.

The first photograph is of a sign posted by the dam, showing limits on fishing; this demonstrates how humankind has caused problems with overfishing in the river environment. The second photograph shows the illusion of a lack of interference: from the Lehigh, ones perspective is such that the dam is hard to see. The water flows over into the Delaware, the dam almost imperceptible; humans are in denial of the havoc they wreak upon the world. The third photo is of a canal no longer in use, running off from the dam. Man originally had a use for this canal, at least some kind of purpose for the introduction of this dam into this river system; however, that reason is currently moot.