Draft 2 PhD Introduction - ResearchSpace@Auckland

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are spoken largely to a third person and not to each other”. 485 Again this lends itself to
an approach whereby actions are allowed to speak for themselves, almost in the manner
of a silent film. Subtext is hugely important and the viewer is encouraged (or assumed)
to be active in reading between the lines. There is no voice-over commentary to explain
what is happening.
Ward’s approach to the documentary was to use a cinéma vérité or “direct cinema” style
similar to that of the Maysles brothers. In the Introduction to his dissertation, he cites
their documentary Grey Gardens (1976), a film about an eccentric mother and daughter
living in seclusion, as exemplifying the approach he wished to take in making In Spring
One Plants Alone, and identifies a number of features which characterise this type of
documentary and which he wished to use as a model. 486 The first of these is that the
filmmakers develop a rapport with the subject of the film. Ward suggests that many
television documentaries, through lack of time, do not do this, and in fact there is a
school of thought stemming from the Man Alive type of documentary, that “all sign of
rapport between subject and filmmaker should be removed”. In contrast, Ward believes
that, “A personal relationship there and the acknowledgement of it can give a freshness
and veracity to the film”. 487
Another feature Ward wished to emulate was the reflexive realism of Grey Gardens.
Contrary to the practice followed in many mainstream television documentaries, the
subjects were not made to project a persona or to re-enact any sequences in an attempt
to create an unreal illusion of life, as thought the camera were not present. Instead, “the
filmmaker is there as the recorder of an event with a role to play in the action. He
acknowledges to the audience that he is present […]. Nor do the subjects appear to be
re-enacting their daily actions”. At the same time, Ward sought to encourage the
subject of the film to be as unselfconscious as possible by building up a good
relationship with the subjects and shooting lots of footage over a long period of time.
Ward quotes Albert Maysles as saying: “The greatest influence on our moviemaking
485 Ward, “A Documented Account of the Making of In Spring One Plants Alone,” Section on Aims.
486 In fact, Ward had not seen Grey Gardens before he began work on In Spring, but as he had to write a
documented account of the making his film for his DipFA, he needed to relate it to existing models,
particularly cinéma vérité which he had read about. He saw even at the time that it did not really fit the
paradigm in terms of its intention. (Lynette Read, telephone interview with Vincent Ward, 17 December
2003.)
487 Ward, “A Documented Account of the Making of In Spring One Plants Alone,” Introduction.