The Spaces Between Grassroots Documentary ... - Ezra Winton
The Spaces Between Grassroots Documentary ... - Ezra Winton
The Spaces Between Grassroots Documentary ... - Ezra Winton
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CHAPTER I<br />
HOT DOCUMENTARIES IN COOL CULTURAL SPACES 1<br />
Tempting as it may be to single out the importance of our own times, it is<br />
imprudent to contemplate the commercial success of “documentary now”<br />
in relationship to the American political climate without looking at the<br />
political roles of “documentary then.” Unarguably, there are more overtly<br />
political documentaries being made and made available in 2007 than at<br />
any previous time. <strong>The</strong>re are also more books, magazines, fiction films<br />
and television, more news coverage, websites, blogs, more of everything<br />
and everybody discussing political and social issues. Proportionally then,<br />
are documentaries more vital and more influential in our time than in<br />
others? Possibly the form has reached a peak, but documentaries must<br />
still be considered within the continuum of history.<br />
(Betsy McLane, 2007)<br />
We are talking, of course, about making documentaries, which has been<br />
one of the largest growth areas in media over the past five years. <strong>The</strong> new<br />
millennium has witnessed an audience craving reality everything -television,<br />
film and alternative news. <strong>The</strong> Canadian box office for<br />
documentary films jumped more than 400 per cent from 2003 to 2004.<br />
Audiences for the annual Hot Docs festival in Toronto went from 5,000 in<br />
1998 to more than 40,000 last year, and may reach 60,000 this year.<br />
(Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail, April 2006)<br />
<strong>The</strong> title of Liam Lacey’s celebratory article on current documentary trends reads “…and<br />
the films everyone wants to make,” (Lacey, 2006) but his Globe and Mail piece begs the<br />
question whether they are the films everyone wants to project. And while McLane<br />
attempts to temper the accolades bestowed on non-fiction cinema, writing such as<br />
Lacey’s dominates. His 2600-word mammoth feature story in the April 22, 2006 edition<br />
1 Both “hot” and “cool” are used here to reference McLuhan’s somewhat functionalist delineation<br />
of media into two categories, made in Understanding Media: hot signifying media that demands<br />
or elicits low participation among audiences/users, and cool signifying high participation,<br />
especially “spaces” where audio experiences occur. <strong>The</strong> reference is used to highlight the<br />
association to film as a low participation experience, or “hot” media, which this thesis ultimately<br />
argues against, provided it is experienced in “cool,” or high-participation spaces. As well, the<br />
more casual pop culture connotations to hot and cool should be obvious.<br />
1