The Face of Time - POV - Aarhus Universitet

132 p.o.v. number 13 March 2002
their preconceived notions about how the world worked. These
applicants seemed to want to confirm what they already believed
about reality by making the proposed film. Their proposals tended
to be like illustrated lectures and often hinted at rhetorical structures
for the finished film.
Other applicants were clearly using their notions about reality
more tentatively, as working hypotheses rather than beliefs, and
wanted to test these by making the proposed film. They seemed to
be genuinely curious about how the world worked, wanted to use
the film to explore their curiosity and seemed to want to have their
preconceived notions changed by the filming process. Their proposals
tended to be observational films and hinted at narrative rather
than rhetorical structures.
I found that those who seemed more open minded – in the sense
that they were genuinely curious about the world – appealed to me
more and I tended to select them. I had already decided that the
documentary course should have a narrative and observational bias.
Pragmatically, I had decided that work for the students after the
course would be in television and observational narrative seemed to
be the way television documentary was going at that time. So these
kinds of student proposals tended to fit in the course because of this
chosen bias. But I found myself thinking that an open mind and
lively curiosity about realities, rather than wanting to illustrate preconceived
beliefs, and the need to tell stories about things rather
than argue about them, might actually be characteristics of the
“documentarist” as opposed to the “fictionalist” student applicant.
During the 5 years I ran the course, I did sometimes select an
applicant whom I suspected of being a “fictionalist” but who had
many other attractive merits. Some of these students worked out