Every film is a real film. Rethinking Realism in Film Studies.

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Every film is a

real film.

Rethinking Realism in Film Studies.

Jolijn Schilder 6177255

University of Amsterdam

MA Film Studies Professional Track Supervisor Abe Geil

Second Reader Maryn Wilkinson Final Version 27th_{June 2014}

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Abstract

In this thesis, the concept of filmic realism is used in order to rethink realism in Film Studies. Filmic realism is not concerned with representing or mimicking a (historical) reality, it is solely interested in creating new realities. The three case studies focus on documentaries and fiction films that are truth based. Beforehand, these films were judged according to their ‘‘reality degree’’. However, since we cannot ever show an unmediated reality this approach is insufficient. Above all, this approach maintains a hierarchical value of judgement. Filmic realism is a concept that encourages to transgress boundaries, categories and oppositions and promotes equality instead. This thesis illustrates how filmmakers such as Todd Haynes and Werner Herzog are already applying this concept in their works. There is an interplay between theory and practice which we should continue to recognize and encourage.

Keywords: realism in Film Studies, filmic reality, interplay theory and practice.

Introduction

Out of the nine movies that were nominated for Best Picture at the most recent Academy

Awards, four films were based on or inspired by true events or real people. 12 Years a Slave

(Steve McQueen, 2013) tells the true story of Solomon Northrup, a free black man who had to spend twelve years in slavery after being sold illegitimately, while Philomena (Stephen Frears, 2013) tells the heartbreaking story about a woman who was forced to put her child up for adoption. In Captain Philips (Paul Greengrass, 2013), Tom Hanks plays Richard Philips, a captain whose ship was hijacked by Somali pirates in 2009. Lastly, there is Dallas Buyers

Club (Jean-Marc Vallée, 2013) where Matthew McConaughey embodies Ron Woodrood, an

AIDS-patient in the eighties. Besides these four films and their obvious references to history, some of the other nominees have their roots in ‘‘reality’’ as well. American Hustle (David O. Russel, 2013) and The Wolf of Wallstreet (Martin Scorsese, 2013) both being fictionalized versions of (true) scandals referring to specific time periods as well. These truth based movies are an important part of the film landscape and are thus increasingly important to analyse. Many reviews or analyses of these stories with true dimensions are focussed on ‘‘fact checking’’ in order to determine its ‘‘faithfulness’’ instead of looking beyond this. On the one hand these films illustrate a desire for the real but on the other hand they still remain fictional.

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The fact that documentaries and feature films are separated at the Academy Awards is very characteristic. Although these Academy nominees emphasize the hunger for the real, they still operate in fixed categories in which the absolute distinction between documentaries and fiction films persists. In contrast to the examples of the Academy Awards I will analyse filmmakers who are no longer limited to traditional boundaries, and by doing so are rethinking realism. I will claim that documentaries and fiction films are often put too opposed to each other than they truly are. The movies I will analyse in my thesis will show that previous (genre) boundaries are no longer sufficient and I want to lay bare how certain criteria such as accuracy or drama are inextricably linked to either documentary films or fiction films, and above all, I will question the relevance of these criteria.

Realism is a difficult term. Ever since its beginning, cinema has been praised as a medium suited to show reality, or to be realistic. However, these terms are not interchangeable. What do we mean by realism in the first place? One of the definitions the Oxford English Dictionary provides us with, describes it as: ‘‘the quality or fact of representing a person or thing in a way that is accurate and true to life’’. As the dictionary explains later on, realism in art often has ‘‘a focus on the unidealized treatment of contemporary life’’. In both definitions words like ‘‘accurate’’, ‘‘truthful’’ and ‘‘unidealized’’ are mentioned in comparison to our own life. In other words, the more sincere the representation of our world, the more realistic a film potentially is. However, the degree of realism is not only related to the reality we live in. Mike Wayne distinguishes ‘‘referential realism’’ and ‘‘representational realism’’. The former is in line with the definition as provided by the Oxford English Dictionary while the latter is dealing with the reality in the film itself, for example the plausibility of the character’s decisions. Wayne adds a third dimension to complete his three ‘‘R’s of Realism’’. This third dimension has to do with ‘‘the reflexive’’ character of the spectator and how we relate to these specific representations (2007, n.pag). At stake in my thesis is the opposition between illusion and reality which persists most strongly in the distinction between fiction films and documentaries. I argue that we should no longer be eager to label films as either realistic or illusionistic and by comparing a documentary to a fiction film in each case study I will illustrate how different filmmakers overcome this distinction between illusion and reality.

So, can a film be unrealistic and realistic at the same time, thus operating on both levels? Yes, it definitely can. For example, a science fiction film set in 2080 can still contain realistic elements, its characters can still make realistic decisions, it can provide a real(istic)

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experience and evoke real emotions on the account of the spectator. Here, we see that realism has various dimensions and how it is not only determined on a rational level, but also on a sensitive level. We could say there are multiple contradictions at work here. First of all, on the account of the spectator there is the difference between knowing a film is not real but still feeling its realistic character. Secondly, the film text itself has to represent life accurately while there needs to be enough drama or progress to keep the public entertained. Thus, realism as a concept is quite contradictory. According to Anne Jerslev, it might be best understood as ‘‘a specific relationship between media texts and their viewers’’ (2002, 9). With my discussion of filmic realism, I want to turn this into a triangle where realism is discussed in combination to the academic field, the spectators and the filmmakers who are the creative masterminds behind the film texts.

In my first Chapter I will provide an overview of different academic stances towards realism in film. These stances will be divided into three categories. First of all, I will refer to classical realists like Bazin and Kracauer who consider film to be an extension of photography and thus a medium that is perfectly suited to record the world around us. Classical realism was heavily questioned in the sixties when film theory became an academic practice. This new attitude towards realism is called modernist realism and I will discuss writings of theorists like Tom Gunning and Laura Mulvey, who both have two very different backgrounds in order to show the (growing) diversity among these film theorists. Modernist theorists do not see film as a medium that can show reality, instead they believe that film is a construction. This means the cinema could only produce a ‘‘reality effect’’: spectators who believe the image is real. At first, realism was tied to the medium specificity while for political modernists such as Stephen Heath, realism is one of the main principles characteristic to ‘‘the system of illusionistic representation’’ (Rushton 2013, 32). Only when the nature of this representation is questioned and the illusionistic character of cinema is revealed, is one supposed to come closest to reality. Thus, realism has become something which should be criticised and questioned in order to show reality. Although this modernist stance is completely opposed to the classical one, they are both concerned with the connection of films to our reality.

The third stance, filmic realism, is one Richard Rushton proposes in his book The

Reality of Film: Theories of Filmic Reality. Rushton is opposed to both of these attitudes,

specifically towards modernist realism, mostly focusing on the political modernism which establishes the illusion/reality dichotomy. In his view merely focusing on what film is representing is to see film as a secondary mode of reality (2013, 3). Instead, he wants to

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eliminate the idea that there is something behind the film itself. Every film has its own filmic reality and this is the only reality we have to be concerned about. Although Rushton was the reason I became familiar with filmic realism and has been a huge inspiration, I will differ from him on several points. First of all, I am not opposed towards the classical or modernist stance, instead I believe they contributed a lot to thinking about realism in Film Studies. More importantly, Rushton does not believe there is anything behind the film itself, this is something I will contradict, since I will focus on truth based movies in my case studies. We cannot ignore the ‘‘reality’’ behind these films, since these historical referents were the inspiration to make them in the first place. If I would pretend there is nothing behind the film itself, I would be rather incomplete. It is in these moments where the filmic realities differs from the (historical) reality, one can discover the most interesting things. The concept of filmic realism as I will propose it functions best in relation to filmmakers who recognize they can never portray or show reality and use this in their advantage by creating new filmic realities. In these cases, I will illustrate that we should no longer see these documentaries and fiction films as opposed since they will both have the same purpose, which is to construct new realities.

We should continue to pose questions about reality. Is realism in documentary different from realism in fiction films? This will give us insights in the way films are categorized, perceived and criticised. The second Chapter will focus on the distinction between fiction films and documentaries. First of all, I want to show how problematic defining the documentary has been in the past and how this still remains a difficult task. After this, I will refer to theorists like Jacques Aumont, who claims every film is a fiction film. I will argue against this. We need to focus on the filmic realities and appreciate these. Not every film may be realistic, but every film is real. This section will emphasize that we should no longer focus on the question of which genre or type of film is ‘‘more real’’ but instead recognize how every film creates its own reality which can be connected to our own historical and daily reality. In this last part I will refer to Jacques Rancière and his ‘‘equality without conditions’’. His writings perfectly fit the filmic realism which I am advocating since it frees films from (aesthetic) value of judgement based on inaccurate oppositions. In each case study I will be comparing a documentary to a feature film. I will analyse how these directors are already creatively rethinking realism. How is the concept of realism changed by their works? The first case study will be a comparison of the documentary Little Dieter Needs to Fly (Werner Herzog, 1997) and Rescue Dawn (Werner Herzog, 2006). Both films concern the same story and

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person (a pilot who is captured in Vietnam and eventually manages to return safely to America), and even more remarkable, they are directed by the same man: Werner Herzog. Instead of questioning if the documentary is indeed more ‘‘real’’ than the fiction film, I want to lay bare the different constructions of (filmic) realities in both movies. Herzog mixes genre bound criteria in order to question them. He demonstrates how significant the influence of the director can be. Using this influence by creatively constructing new realities is an important element of filmic realism. The films at the centre of my second case study are also linked by a common figure: Bob Dylan. Although there are various films that represent Dylan, I will focus on the famous cinema verité documentary Don’t Look Back (D.A. Pennebaker, 1967) and the more recent I’m Not There (Todd Haynes, 2007). The film styles both directors apply are very different. Pennebaker uses an observational style in which he does not want to intervene but just record the world as it is. By contrast, Haynes prefers a creative and conceptual style where Dylan is embodied by six different characters, including a drag performance by Cate Blanchett. What can these different styles and approaches tell us about how these filmmakers treat reality? I will claim that when filmmakers see (filmic) reality as a domain for aesthetic and creative experimentation instead of a ground of fidelity to reality (or previous categories or genre boundaries), a reality in its own right is created.

Finally, the two movies in my last case study will be the least obvious combination.

The Act of Killing (Joshua Oppenheimer, 2012) will be compared to Dogville (Lars von Trier,

2003). In The Act of Killing former Indonesian death-squad leaders re-enact their horrifying deeds of the past in several cinematic genres. While Oppenheimer’s documentary is full of dramatized scenes, von Trier’s fiction film is as naturalistic and minimalistic as possible. However, both directors are applying strategies to alienate their viewers. This introduces the question of the spectator to this thesis and illustrates a new dimension of filmic realism. While alienation has been privileged by political modernists, I will show that it is not only about exposing a construction or encouraging a judgement of the illusion, but moves far beyond this. Dogville is the only film out of my case studies that is not based on a true story (although it is loosely based on the Three Penny Opera by Bertold Brecht). This case study is meant to demonstrate that the concept of filmic realism can even work in a film that purposely abstracts itself from any concrete historical reference and shows how filmic realism can function as an important concept, even in connection to films as extreme as Dogville and The Act of Killing. They are extreme not only in their alienation strategy but also in the topics they discuss. Both films are dealing with very sensitive topics. They are representing the unrepresentable (rape, murder, genocide) and precisely because of their creative stance towards (filmic) realism, they

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become meaningful and transgress expectations and taboos. To summarize, filmic realism is a concept which encourages us to rethink realism as the product of a complex triangulation between the academic field (to rethink older oppositions and questions criteria tied to specific genres), spectators (how alienation can motivate to reflect on reality), and filmmakers (how directors already play with boundaries and put the concept of filmic realism in creative practice). Thus, filmic realism is a very broad concept which shows and encourages an interplay between film theory and artistic practices.

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Chapter 1 Theories of Realism

1.1 Classical Realism

Bazin and Kracauer are the canonical figures for the classical realist stance who were mainly concerned to outline the medium specificity of the cinema. In his famous article ‘‘The Ontology of the Photographic Image’’ André Bazin draws a comparison between the plastic arts and the process of mummification, implying the rituals of the Ancient Egyptians were at the basis of the creation of the plastic arts. The primary function of mummification is ‘‘the preservation of life by a representation of life’’ (1960, 5). This demonstrates the desire for eternality and how representation can (seemingly) provide us with this. Bazin calls these images ‘‘the creation of an ideal world in the likeness of the real, with its own temporal destiny’’ (1960, 6). After this, Bazin forwards a new comparison between painting and photography. He considers painting to be as an art that is always connected to subjectivity because it is made by a painter, while a photograph is made without ‘‘the creative intervention of man’’ (1960, 7) and, returning to the Ancient Egyptians, a photograph can ‘‘embalm time’’ (1960, 8).

For Bazin, there is no longer a distinction between the model (which is the subject present in the visible world) and the reproduction. Rather, the reproduction is the model. This point is one that evokes criticism by modernist realists. If the reproduction is the model, there would no longer be a distinction between a representation and the original itself. This would mean that we would be able to ‘‘grasp objects on the screen’’ which of course we cannot, as T. Jefferson Kline correctly comments (2013, 70). However, Morgan notes that the object and the image are not identical for Bazin. The image is the object but with the distinction that the image is freed from temporal contingencies. Morgan claims that Bazin shows that photographic images are ‘‘outside their embeddedness of ordinary perception’’ (2006, 453). It is not a coincidence he speaks of ‘‘an ideal world’’ instead of our real world. He thus praises photography (and cinema as such) for its aesthetic and realistic capacity but at the same time

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he acknowledges that this is a different order, an idealistic image, instead of a recording of our real world.

Just as Bazin, Siegfried Kracauer sees photography as the ancestor of film. In his book

Theory of Film: The Redemption of Physical Reality Kracauer contends that films, like

photographs ‘‘must record and reveal physical reality’’ (1960, 37). There are nevertheless differences between Kracauer and Bazin. These can be found in their content as well as in the context in which their works were produced. Even as realists pur sang, for Kracauer as well as Bazin, not every film had a self-evident capacity to reveal physical reality. Thus, for both theorists we could say there are varying degrees of realism, just as there are for the political modernists. However, the main similarity is that Bazin and Kracauer praise film for its ability to reveal reality.

In 1947 Bazin wrote his article ‘‘Every Film is a Social Documentary’’ where he claims that after we start perceiving film as ‘‘the recognition of our collective dreams, illusions, and I dare say, worst thoughts, then every film, good or bad, realist or fabricated, is an irreplaceable social documentary’’(40). In other words, every film shows the (unconscious) desires of the community and is a document intrinsically connected to our (real) life. In contrast to Bazin, not every film is a documentary for Kracauer. Instead, Kracauer believes documentaries are limited. According to the German, these types of films are not so much about the world we live in, as about the ‘‘individual’s interest in the world around him’’1

(1960, 194). Most documentaries fail to show the diversity of all aspects of our physical reality. This has to do with a conflict between realist and formative tendencies. On the one hand documentaries explore the world around us (‘‘open his lense to the world’’) while on the other hand there is a desire towards a story and (dramatized) action (1960, 213). This opposition is not irreconcilable, yet it poses limitations on the genre. I will argue that this conflict is at stake in most truth based films and that creativity is the answer to deal with these limitations.

According to Patrice Petro, comparing Kracauer to Bazin requires some further explanation. In her view, most comparisons are only made to emphasize the so-called ‘‘one-dimensional thought of Kracauer’’ in contrast to the intellectual work of the Frenchman. For her, this transcends the opposition between both theorists and is characteristic of the origins of our contemporary film theory. Thus, this is not only about Kracauer and Bazin. It signals the easy acceptance of French and Anglo-American writings in the history of film theory while German theories had to struggle to find recognition. According to Petro, this is illustrated by

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Dudley Andrew. Andrew not only calls Kracauer a ‘‘naive realist’’, he also labels him as a man who, after forty years, suddenly felt like he could make claims about films. According to Andrew, Bazin was supposed to have held discussions with other intellectuals, while Kracauer locked himself in a library. As Petro demonstrates, Andrew is not only unaware of Kracauer’s early work but also fails to notice the different circumstances both men dealt with. Kracauer’s solitary mode of writing was a consequence of his forced exile during the 1930s under the Nazi regime. It is because of his exile, Kracauer’s ‘‘epistemological shift’’, as Petro calls it, can be explained. ‘‘His migration is why this sociological critic turned melancholy artist’’ (1991, 131). Not only do we have to consider major changes in Kracauer’s life, film did not stop evolving either. In the twenties Kracauer wrote of film ‘‘as a marginal sphere of life’’ while in the 1940s the cinema was already established in the daily life. When Kracauer wrote his two English books From Caligari to Hitler (in 1947) and Theory of Film (in 1960) they failed to find an audience at first (without having an established academic place for film) and when film theory became an academic practice in the mid-sixties, Kracauer’s thoughts were already perceived to be out of fashion due to the rise of the antirealist film theory (1991, 135).

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1.2 Modernist Realism

Dudley Andrew tries to explain the shift from classical theory towards modern film theory by looking at the work of French film theorist Jean Mitry. In 1964 Mitry published ‘‘Esthétique et psychologie du cinéma’’ which, at least for Andrew, marks the beginning of a new area: modern film theory. Where Bazin and Kracauer as traditional theorists were criticised for proposing an essentialist, hierarchical or totalizing theory, these new modernist theorists were supposed to be (self-)critical and were able to isolate different matters in film theory. However, Jean Mitry believes the interaction between these realist and formalist approaches is crucial. For him, the ‘‘twin experience’’ of the spectator illustrates the uniqueness of film as a medium. On the one hand there is recognition (realism): spectators see something they can identify with and on the other hand there is construction (formalism): something is constructed so that it is worth identifying with (1984, 14). With Mitry’s work in mind, key concepts in modern film theory had to be rewritten. So Mitry’s theory of the image was studied on a semiotic level while his theory of the narrative fitted structuralism. As Robert Stam nicely points out there was a: ‘‘shift in emphasis from a historical approach preoccupied with the origins and evolution of language, to a structural emphasis on language as a functional system’’ (2000, 105).

Whereas classical realists saw film as a medium which was suited to reveal and record physical reality, modernist film theorists, despite their different academic backgrounds, wanted to lay bare the illusory nature of realism. From now on, film was perceived as a language. Andrew quotes Christian Metz as an example of this new type of theorist, writing in the glory days of semiotics. Metz, in his early writings, illustrated several components that contribute to a (false) sense of reality. First of all, the spectator is situated in a darkened auditorium which is a significant precondition that contributes to our feeling of being in front of live action. Besides this, the actual movement in cinema is similar to the actual movement of reality which explains why this cinematic experience feels real to us. Andrew states: ‘‘Reality is here taken to be a type of consciousness characterized by certain indices of appearances and a certain mental activity’’ (1984, 43). This type of consciousness can vary according to ‘’status of the image’’. Although there are distinguished several types of ‘‘imaginary experience’’, and our consciousness varies according to the ‘‘status of the image’’, every film is still marked with ‘‘a presence of an absence’’ (1984, 44). In the concept of filmic realism, this absence is no

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longer a concern since this new reality is no longer measured on its faithfulness to any referent. Instead, directors can take this absence as a ground to play with in a creative way. Not all modernists have the same conception of realism in film. Rushton, in his second chapter, makes the distinction between modernist theorists who are often linked to cognitivism and analytic philosophy, such as Noël Carroll and Gregory Currie, and theorists such as Peter Wollen or Stephen Heath who can be called political modernists. Where the shift from classical film theory towards modern film theory already took place in the sixties, political modernism gained attention in the seventies. Rodowick explains that the aim of political modernists was to create a set of concepts which described the relationship between film form and ideology and to propose an alternative to this dominant form which should result in the production of a counter-cinema (1995, XIV). This counter-cinema was supposed to deliver a ‘‘breaking down of all forms of deception and illusion’’ and from now on, films should be ‘‘judged according to their adequacy to reality’’ (Rushton 2013, 22). However, Rushton claims Carroll and Currie deny these differences between modernist theorists and have ‘‘condemned the political modernist paradigm for its supposed reduction of the cinema to the realm of illusion tout court’’ (2013, 21). Thus, they fail to notice the distinction political modernists make between illusion and reality.

Although Tom Gunning would probably not call himself a political modernist, his writings demonstrate that he advocates a cinema that does not attempt to hide its illusionistic nature. For Tom Gunning, the non-actuality genre before 1906 comes the closest to reality. Gunning called this type of cinema the cinema of attractions borrowing the term attractions of Sergei Eisenstein who used this word to mark the difference between theatrical art and realistic representational theatre. Attractions in contrast to illusory depictions (2006, 384). The rise of classical narrative cinema did not mean this type of cinema is lost. Rather, it goes underground and can be found in avant-garde cinema. In contrast to classical realists, Gunning did not see photography as the ancestor of film. Rather, in ‘‘Cinema and the Impression of Reality’’ he states: ‘‘Cinema has never been one thing’’ (2007, 36). For example, the viewing experience the ‘‘cinema of attractions’’ provided related best to the attractions of the fairground. Without this focus on photography, theorists such as Gunning did not have the burden of perceiving film as a medium that was, by its nature, invented to record and reveal reality.

While all modernists deconstruct films by demonstrating their illusory power, political modernists believe there can be a reality free from illusion. Many of the oppositions these political modernists made have been undebated and these conceptions are, as Rushton and

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D.N. Rodowick state, still very present in Film Studies today. Instead of referring to Wollen or Heath, who probably can be called the great political modernists, I wish to take a closer look at feminism as a discourse which contributed to the changed attitude towards realism. It was no coincidence feminism and political modernism both gained popularity in the seventies. They both mark a crucial break with the cinema and theories of the past and are concerned with proposing alternatives which results in the construction of binary oppositions.

Two years before Mulvey wrote her famous article ‘‘Visual Pleasure and the

Narrative Cinema’’, Claire Johnston already pleaded for an alternative cinema in ‘‘Women’s Cinema as Counter-Cinema’’. Johnston writes: ‘‘The law of verisimilitude (that which determines the impression of realism) in the cinema is precisely responsible for the repression of the image of woman as woman and the celebration of her non-existence’’ (2004, 185-6). The alternative she proposes is a women’s counter-cinema. The existence of women’s oppression cannot be captured by the camera but instead has to be constructed. This objectification can thus only be challenged not through aesthetic strategies but through interrogating the dominant male cinema (2004, 189). Both women are concerned with exposing the Hollywood cinema as an male-dominated cinema which transmits a sexist ideology (and thus as a myth or a construction), and are searching for alternatives. Mulvey continues to discuss this counter- cinema: ‘‘Without these two absences (the material existence of the recording process, the critical reading of the spectator), fictional drama cannot achieve reality, obviousness and truth’’(1997, 447). It is significant Rodowick even characterises ‘‘Visual Pleasure’’ as one of the key texts of political modernism. He responds to the criticism Mulvey received on her supposedly unawareness of the female spectator: ‘‘If the binary logic of Mulvey’s argument seems to ignore the female spectator, it can also be understood as formulating a particular utopian space where the figure of femininity organizes the following concepts: unpleasure, ‘alien presence,’ a freezing of action, distraction, disunity, staticity, and specifically, antiilusion’’ (1995, 231). This binary logic is characteristic to every political modernist, and still present in Film Studies today. There are countless of oppositions, and we have to recognize they are not neutral. Instead, every opposition encourages us to judge.

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1.3 Filmic Realism

Although Rushton opens the attack against political modernism in his first chapter, he is actually opposed towards classical as well as modernist realists. Instead of focusing on the (impression of) reality that is constructed in films, we should focus on the filmic reality that these films create. It is no longer necessary to compare it to our own world, because it creates a whole new existence which is worth analysing without trying to search for references or similarities in our existence. However, he does claim film has a connection to our real world. Instead of comparing filmic realities to reality, he believes films are part of our reality, and so they become part of our lives (2013, 2). Instead of seeing film as something that can never fully represent reality or as something that represents reality but can never truly be reality, Rushton claims films are reality. They are enough by itself and they shape our reality. Concerning the spectator, we no longer have to write about passive or chained spectators, it is more interesting to analyse what we do with films in our lives. Rushton’s book provides new perspectives on the works of André Bazin, Christian Metz, Stanley Cavell, Gilles Deleuze, Slavoj Žižek, and Jacques Rancière. Rushton tries to show how filmic reality is an attitude one can take towards film and that in the writings of these different theorists, who may seem very far apart from Rushton’s point of view, one can still find elements which support this filmic realistic stance.

The main difference between Rushton and myself is the world behind the film. While he wants to ignore this, I argue that this is important. When we claim films become part of our lives, it makes sense to explain why and how they do so. For example, when a (new) movie is made about Bob Dylan, we cannot ignore the fact that he exists. Instead, it is extremely interesting to analyse what these films mean to us and how they contribute to shaping an opinion or creating a memory about him. This is what a filmic reality can do. Instead of analysing all the faults, errors or inaccuracies, films can still move people and create a meaning of its own. These types of movies can show us a world never seen before yet at the same time look and feel familiar.

Although Rushton’s writings may sound a bit extreme at times, because he is practically defiant against most classical and modern conceptions in film theory. However, the most important thing is that he tries to create a new type of consciousness towards the realities that films create. Sometimes this means we have to re-evaluate texts from film history in order to see new meanings. Whereas Bazin, as a classical realist, has always been read as opposed to modernists, Morgan shows he may be closer to the reflexivity of modern

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film theory than thought before. One of the consequences of this analysis is that realism and modernism become two less opposing approaches. To look at it this way, we can see realism as well as modernism as two positions which can contribute to a richer film theory instead of seeing one as the improvement or effect of the other. Instead of seeing Bazin as an naive realist or an essentialist, Instead of seeing Bazin as an naive realist or an essentialist, Morgan quotes a different Bazin: ‘‘There is not one but several realisms’’ (2013, 15). He illustrates that, for Bazin, realism in the cinema was a basic condition which cannot be ignored because of the ontology of the photographic image. This condition, however, cannot determine how a film should sound and look like (2013, 18).

Morgan re-examines the writings of Bazin on Orson Welles’ in order to show the Frenchman’s (modernist) reflexivity. In his conclusion, Morgan refers to Welles’ particular style: ‘‘His films retain the illusions of narrative cinema and then use them for new purposes: realism is the basis for their play with our expectations, desires and habits’’ (2013, 27). We cannot ignore cinema’s relationship and resemblance to reality, because this is the basis of every film we watch. Films move us emotionally because they reminds us of the very same world we inhabit. This starting point is why I share some of Rushton’s criticism towards (political) modernism. They are too focused to show the construction or illusion of films while ignoring the fact that films do have real effects and a specific place in our daily lives. At the same time this same modernism has brought us new insights. We have to acknowledge that the world portrayed in a film may seem similar to our world, but it is in fact different. It remains an artefact. However, should we not perceive this construction as something worthy of its own instead of insisting on its failure to be real and is thus always subordinate to reality? Maybe we should acknowledge that films do not always want to be exactly the same as reality? Is this not the exact beauty of film? That we are able to see a (fictional) world which seems similar to ours, but has the artistic and creative freedom to play with all these different elements?

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Chapter 2 From Difference to Equality

While Chapter 1 was merely focused on clarifying the three main academic stances towards realism in film, it is time to include the producers of films as well as the spectators. Although these three groups –academics, film producers, and the audience- are interrelated, I will argue that they are not always perceived as connected as they are. Although defining documentaries and fiction films is foremost an academic task, it is related to the work of filmmakers who index their films so their audiences can perceive them correctly. First of all, I will explain why it is that we categorize and show that this indexing is useful for the spectator but how it can become problematic as an academic task. By the hand of former attempts, I will show that definitions are often unsatisfactory. At stake here is that too often definitions lead to good/bad oppositions or even to exclusion. I will emphasize that categorizing or indexing is only useful in case of the spectator. This does not mean I will ignore differences between films, as Jacques Aumont and Christian Metz partly do by claiming every film is a fiction film. I will claim how their attitude towards documentaries, and fictions films, leads to a negative judgement which underestimates the power and beauty of (filmic) realities. Furthermore I will use the work of Jacques Rancière who proposes an alternative in order to perceive documentaries and fiction films as different yet equal.

2.1 The trouble of defining the Documentary

‘‘We all know a genre when we see one’’ is what Rick Altman said. We all know a documentary when we see one. But still, a hundred years after Nanook of the North (Flaherty, 1922), we do not have a satisfying definition of documentary that covers the diversity and specificity of the genre. John Ellis believes this is based on a logical impossibility. As a genre that is always trying to move beyond fictionality or representation, and instead wants to get closer to the real, documentary is continually reinventing itself both in its technology and in its forms (2005, 342). For example, Roger and Me (Michael Moore, 1989) would not have been perceived as a documentary, as defined in the early years of the genre or in the sixties/seventies when the cinema vérité blossomed, because of the manipulation of the

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chronological order of events and of its lack of objectivity altogether. We could say the definition changes along with new documentaries. But maybe the first question we have to ask is: why make these distinctions between films in the first place? First of all, because we make sense of the world around us by categorizing. Carl Plantinga explains how categories enable reasoning and that they are at the base of our communication in many ways. When we categorize a movie as either fiction or nonfiction we are dealing with three external factors: production, distribution and reception. Indexing is something social, not individual. ‘‘When a film is indexed as nonfiction, it encourages a special type of spectator activity’’ (1997, 16). This lies at the heart of the reality/illusion and documentary/fiction dichotomy. As spectators we are accustomed or encouraged to perceive a documentary as a recording of something real, something from our own world, while fiction films are merely something imaginary.

The main attempts in the past to define the documentary reinforced this opposition by worshipping documentary as a genre closest to the real. The most famous definition still remains that of John Grierson’s. In 1930 he described documentaries as ‘‘the creative treatment of actuality’’ (1966, 147). This definition shows the exact points (creativity, actuality) which would become characteristic in many definitions of the documentary. With his definition Grierson attempted to mark a difference between other nonfiction forms such as the newsreel or actualité films. However, his characterization can be too general and too exclusive at the same time. Authors like Erik Barnouw and Bill Nichols have been trying to distinguish specific types, or ‘‘voices’’, as Nichols calls them, of documentaries. Barnouw manages to come up with thirteen different types or movements ranging from an exploring to an advocating to a so-called guerrilla style. Nichols cuts it down to six different ‘‘modes of representation’’. Each of these modes is linked to a specific period resulting in a chronological history of documentary to illustrate how changing sets of circumstances produced new types of documentaries. Put in chronological order, Nichols distinguishes the

Poetic Mode, the Expository Mode, the Observational Mode, the Participatory Mode, the Reflexive Mode and the Performative Mode.

Although Plantinga recognises the importance of Bill Nichols’ work, he remains critical about Nichols’ claim that documentaries are distinctive in their capability to make arguments. For example, this would exclude many films of the Poetic Mode, because rather than foregrounding an argument or focusing on a plot, person or climax, these filmmakers were mainly exploring the aesthetics of the genre by experimenting with editing, rhythm and/or music. Besides this, there are numerous fiction films that make arguments about the world we live in as well. Carroll advocates to replace the term documentary as a whole

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because of its vagueness. Instead, we should coin the genre to ‘‘films of presumptive assertation’’ to cover the range. Carroll acknowledges the dialectic between filmmaker and spectators. He sees their relationship as one based on a mutual understanding of the communication process in which they both have a (different) place. On the one hand, the writings of these authors illustrate the diversity of the documentary but on the other hand it also shows the vagueness and difficulty of the term.

Plantinga himself also comes up with an alternative, slightly similar to Carroll´s. To find the right definition Plantinga refers to the writings of Wolterstorff who presents the theory of ‘‘projected worlds’’. Although his theory is concerned with linguistics, it appears quite relevant when applying it to the cinema. ‘‘For Wolterstorff, just as speakers perform actions (speech acts) through utterances, artists perform actions through works of art’’ (1997, 17). The stance of the writer, or artist, determines how the world is projected. This means the typical stance towards a fictional film is fictive, while the typical attitude toward nonfiction is assertive. The main difference is whether one asserts a text or a film to be true. As Dirk Eitzen adds ‘‘Fictions can make assertions of similarity, but documentaries can make assertions of truth’’(1995, 86).Wolterstorff’s work is interesting because it addresses the producers as well as the spectators of films. The former as the ones who determine their stance towards their subject, and the latter being the ones who are influenced by this attitude and create their own meaning out of it. In my first case study Werner Herzog and his two films Little Dieter Needs

to Fly and Rescue Dawn are used as examples to analyse how one director deals with

differences in genre. As spectators, we are usually encouraged to take an assertive stance towards the documentary while the feature film asks for a fictive viewpoint. However, Herzog himself takes an open stance in order to overcome genre boundaries. He does not let any label dictate his creativity. This is why the open stance is characteristic for the concept of filmic realism since it transgresses oppositions.

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2.2 Is there any Difference?

As shown, a number of theorists attempted to outline the difference between fiction and nonfiction films. There are also others who claim this is useless because there would be no difference. Christian Metz draws a comparison between the cinema and the theatre in order to emphasize cinema’s fictional character. Let us say a famous actor like Leonardo diCaprio is performing in Hamlet on Broadway. Although, diCaprio can claim he is Hamlet, we would still recognize him as diCaprio. However, what is at stake is not the actor. Although we know diCaprio is not really Hamlet, the action we perceive in theatre is still produced by real people and it develops in real time and a real place. However, in the case of the cinema, where everything is pre-recorded, the signifier is absent and present at the same time. This is where the uniqueness of cinema lies. The act of perception itself is real (going to the cinema is not an illusion), but ‘‘the perceived is not really the object’’ (1982, 48). Metz claims all perceptions are false in a sense and because of this he comes to his conclusion that every film is a fiction film.

In Aesthetics of Film Jacques Aumont makes an identical argument. In contrast to

what Carroll, Plantinga and Wolterstorff say, that spectators are adopting a different mode of perception or activity, Aumont claims there is no difference in this behaviour since the spectator suspends all types of activity because the film is not a reality (1992, 77). Besides this, documentaries which try to show us unfamiliar aspects of (historical) reality, are supposed to appeal more to our imagination than to the real. Trinh T. Minh-Ha makes a similar claim in her article ‘‘Documentary is Not/A Name’’. We cannot capture reality because ‘‘Reality runs away. Reality denies Reality’’ (1990, 90). To pretend we can capture reality one remains ‘‘in ideology’’ with the consequence of confusing the filmic reality with our daily reality. Once again, as we have seen in Chapter 1, theorists focus on the impossible task of filming/reproducing/capturing reality and adopt a fairly negative attitude. Of course, Minh-Ha is right to claim that in a way reality denies reality, and although in her conclusion she acknowledges that producing this irreality is not meaningless, she underestimates the significance of the (filmic) reality of films in our own reality. They should not be perceived as two separate things. By looking at it this way, the filmic reality can never be enough by itself and reality will always be privileged over illusion or construction.

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2.3 Equality without Conditions

Jacques Rancière is one of the few theorists who proposes an alternative way of looking at documentaries and fiction films by advocating ‘‘equality without conditions’’. In his writings, Rancière distinguishes two types of regimes: ‘‘the representative regime’’ and ‘‘the aesthetic regime’’. This ‘‘aesthetic revolution’’ marks a break in the beginning of the nineteenth century with the system of representation which had the mimetic principle at its centre. Rushton describes how, prior to the aesthetic regime, producing art was an act defined by specific and mostly technical principles, while this new regime connects it to other aspects of existence, for example recognizing art as experience (2013, 173-4). However, the function of representing, as Rancière understands it, was not one of copying or imitating, as it is often perceived nowadays. Rather, the function of art is one of making present certain structures, genres, rules or forms of our society. In Politics of Aesthetics Rancière explains why he is referring to ‘‘the idea of fiction as essentially belonging to the empirical reality’’. In his clarification he uses Aristotle’s Poetics to foreground how ‘‘to pretend is not to put forth illusions but to elaborate intelligible structures’’ (2013, 36). One major change of the ‘‘aesthetic revolution’’ is that testimony and fiction now belong under the same regime of meaning and this is why the cinema is such an interesting medium to analyse in connection to the ‘‘aesthetic regime’’ because in the cinema we have ‘‘the silent imprint that speaks and the montage that calculates the values of truth and the potential for producing meaning’’ (2013, 38). Art is now related to the sensible which opens up new relationships between art and life.

However, this does not mean the cinema (only) belongs to the ‘‘aesthetic regime’’. Instead, it combines aspects of the aesthetic (its sensational or sensible character) and the representational (its mimetic character). Then he continues by claiming that documentary, precisely because it is concerned with the ‘‘real’’, is even more capable of fictional invention than a fiction film itself. The reality/illusion and documentary/fiction dichotomies are, in Rancière’s conception of equality, non-existent. Interestingly, he does not identify fiction with lies. Rather, fictions provide the ground for means of expression. Documentary, in comparison with these fiction films, start with a more radical principle. For example, the montage has two opposite functions: ‘‘the real becoming art and art becoming real’’ (Baumbach 2010, 67). Thus, it is capable of producing a struggle between common images

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and interpretations of the real. This supports what Rancière claims by saying documentary can serve as the highest potential of the aesthetic regime. It makes us rethink the relation between cinema and reality on a new level. Most importantly, Rancière does not judge.

To return to the first question: Is there any difference? Jacques Rancière, and myself included, would say: yes, there is indeed a noticeable difference between fiction films and documentaries which we cannot deny. Merely claiming everything is fiction (Aumont, Metz) will not contribute to a better understanding of film. For example, this attitude ignores or underestimates how spectators experience a film. Eitzen makes a striking point when he notes that the question of defining has become largely an academic task (1995, 96). As a consequence, this could dismiss alternative and marginal texts because they do not fit into straight categories. Filmic realism as a concept deals with this problem because there is no judgement and thus every filmic reality has the right to be created without restrictions. First of all, we need to realize we have to adopt a different way of looking at (the constructed opposition between) fictions and documentaries. Rancière comments on this: ‘‘The real difference isn’t that the documentary sides with the real against the inventions of fiction, it’s just that documentary instead of treating the real as an effect to be produced, treats it as a fact to be understood’’ (Baumbach 2010, 66). This approach leads us to a much more interesting debate. Instead of asking which film is more real: the feature film or the documentary, we can ask ourselves what we define as real or truth in the first place and how we therefore combine filmic realities with our daily reality? This means we have to leave behind many of the binary oppositions familiar in Film Studies. Instead, we should see genres/films/approaches and so on as different, but not as opposed from the beginning because this will mostly result in a (negative) value of judgement. So when we compare Don’t Look Back to I’m Not There this should not result in a value of judgement which claims one film portrays Dylan better than the other. Rather, it shows us how filmmakers adopt a different approach and how Pennebaker as well as Haynes have their own way of relating to reality. To summarize, there are still categories, and there is still a difference between fiction and nonfiction films. Yet, they are not opposed. Feature film or documentary, we should pay attention to the filmic reality every film creates. When these genres are no longer

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separated and they no longer have to meet distinct criteria (drama versus authenticity) it is no longer beneficial to privilege one over the other.

Rancière sheds a new light on fiction films by looking at the linguistic roots of the term. He claims fingere does not mean ‘‘to feign’’ but ‘‘to forge’’ (2006, 158). By looking at fictions films (and documentaries as such) a film can never fail to feign, rather it is perceived as an open space where films (and filmic realities) can be created and shaped as such. A fiction film does not merely pretend to be reality instead it creates a new reality. On this level, there is no longer room for an opposition between fiction films and documentaries. This is what my third case study illustrates. The Act of

Killing, is a documentary which constructs a new reality, just as Dogville as

a fiction film does. In the documentary, Joshua Oppenheimer consciously and openly constructs these new realities. Not only does he create a new reality by letting these perpetrators recreate their actions, but also by letting them watch and reflect on these filmed events. The documentary does not feign to be history. Rather, it reflects on history by creating a new reality. It reminds us that reality is not a pre-existing condition, instead it is created. Because of the alienation strategy, applied by von Trier and Oppenheimer we are reminded that both films, documentary and fiction, are fabrications. The fact that they acknowledge this, by the use of their specific film styles, emphasizes how these directors are already working with the concept of filmic realism and encourages an interplay between theory and practice. Filmic realism as an attitude does not judge these new constructed realities. We are no longer concerned in labelling a film as merely good or bad or as illusionistic or realistic. It shows how to be free of judgement.

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Chapter 3 Herzog blurs the boundaries

3.1 Werner Herzog

There are deeper strata of truth in cinema, and there is such a thing as poetic, ecstatic truth. It is mysterious and elusive, and can be reached only through fabrication and imagination

and stylization.i

Werner Herzog When one talks about the greatest (documentary) filmmakers of our times, then one cannot forget to mention Herzog. Interestingly enough, his own attitude towards the documentary cinema is ambivalent. Herzog ‘‘dismisses documentary as a mode of filmmaking to creatively intervene and participate in it’’ (Ames 2012, 3). At the age of 19, he made his first film and in the meantime he has now produced, written and directed over sixty films, varying from feature films to documentaries. Films such as Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes (1972), Fitzcarraldo (1982), Grizzly Man (2005) and Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2010) have all received critical acclaim. An extraordinary filmmaker, but also a provocateur. His first seven films were shot with a 35-mm camera he stole from the Munich Film School. Herzog’s explanation: ‘‘I know it was not theft. I had a natural right to take it’’ (Ames 2012, 198). This would not be the last

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notorious action by the German. Nowadays, Herzog is well-known as a director that can push his actors to extremes. The best example here is his relationship with actor Klaus Kinski. Although they made five films together, there appeared to be a rising tension between both men resulting in death threats towards each other. However, Herzog would not be Herzog if he did not make a film about this. This ambiguous relationship resulted in Mein liebster

Feind- Klaus Kinski (1999) which literally means My Dearest Enemy. There are much more stories to tell about this interesting man but I want to mention

the one that was the specific founder of Little Dieter Needs to Fly and Rescue Dawn. The

Special Features on the Rescue Dawn DVD describe that Herzog and his crew themselves

were imprisoned and mistreated during the filming of Fata Morgana (1972). Afterwards, Herzog was asked to make a movie about their experiences and although he did not feel like doing this, he remembered an article he read in a German magazine in the sixties, about a German born US Navy pilot who was taken prisoner in Laos but eventually managed to get rescued and return safely to America. When Herzog met Dieter Dengler in person, they discovered their similarities. Both were born in Germany around the same time and grew up without their fathers in poverty during World War II. Dengler, first a bit sceptic towards the making of this documentary, became convinced by Herzog and this became the start of the film and their friendship.

Werner Herzog is known to be playing with the boundaries of the documentary genre. For example, as we can see in Little Dieter Needs to Fly some scenes, like the opening scene, are staged. This shows Herzog is not afraid to play with fictitious elements in his documentaries. Why would Herzog make a fiction film as well as a documentary about the same story and the same Dieter Dengler? After the release of the documentary Dengler confessed to Herzog that he kept back some information. For example, there would have been tensions amongst the prisoners of the camp. Even when Dengler passed away in 2001 because of ALS, Herzog was not finished with this extraordinary story. There was still more to be told and this became the feature film Rescue Dawn. What are the most apparent differences? Can the same story have different meanings? And what is Werner Herzog’s stance in both movies towards reality? What is most important is that Herzog, who has long been an outsider in the documentary landscape, explores the space between fictions and documentaries. He does not see them as opposed, yet, as Little Dieter and Rescue Dawn illustrate, they are different.

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3.2 Little Dieter Needs to Fly

One scene in the first five minutes of the documentary is characteristic for Dengler’s attitude during the film. He opens and closes his front door several times before passing through. He comes back to explain to Werner, who is besides the camera, that for most people this routine would seem strange, but for him it is not. For him, freedom is being able to open and close a door. When he was a prisoner he could not open a door and later, hallucinating, he saw big doors opening in the sky. It is a sign of his trauma that will never cease. Yet, Dieter tells this story in a charming, loose and smiling way. Right after this small confession, he walks away, closing the door behind him. That was it. For him it is order of day, there will always be signs that remind him of his time in imprisonment, and there will always be consequences in his life. Maybe Dieter has told his story too many times, maybe telling it this light-hearted way is his way of coping with it but it is clear he tries to keep his emotional distance. When shortly after this we enter his living room, full of paintings of open doors and miniature aircrafts, we do not focus so much on the psychical meaning of these things. Instead, it almost turns into a ‘‘MTV Cribs’’ sequence when Dengler expresses his love for food and shows his refrigerator and pantry.

Perhaps we need to have this light-hearted beginning in order to cope with the heavy story we will get to hear later on. However, this food sequence is not randomly chosen by Herzog. In the interview Dengler gave after he was rescued, which is archive material, he tells

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that he and his fellow prisoners always talked about food. He even jollies that he would open a restaurant so he never has to be hungry again. Having no food will lead to starvation and Dieter saving all these foods in his home is in a way reassuring he will survive. Food can thus be seen as a metaphor for life just as the door and large windows in his home functions as a metaphor for freedom. The interviews in the beginning shows what kind of documentary this could have been. A man telling his remarkable story. But this is not a normal documentary, after all it is directed by Werner Herzog. His decision to take Dieter back to his nightmare in Laos was the one that changed the whole documentary because it consciously constructs a new reality instead of representing or retelling a historical reality.

One scene shows Dieter talking about fear in front of a water tank with jellyfish. Before zooming into the water with these deadly animals we hear Dieter say ‘‘This is what death looks likes to me’’. Accompanied by opera music, we see these jellyfish move in slow motion. Suddenly, the music stops and we are in Laos where Dieter is surrounded by Asian men carrying guns. He stands there and casually tells us: ‘‘Two days after I was shot down I was captured’’. This third part of the documentary consist of re-enactment scenes where Herzog instructed locals to reconstruct Dieter’s imprisonment. The jellyfish scene as well as the scene where Dieter is being surrounded, by young Vietnamese men who have no lived experience of the Vietnam war, demonstrate Herzog’s stance towards reality in this documentary. It shows us that not everything we see has to be real. In a radio interview Herzog gave in 1998 he admits the jellyfish scene was staged. Herzog once asked Dengler how death looked like, but he could not find an image that expressed his feelings. However, Dieter described it in words as slowly moving, dancing in a void, a slow motion, strange movement. Immediately, Herzog thought of jellyfish and invented the scene mentioned above. This shows how Herzog’s presence influences the entire documentary.

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3.3 Rescue Dawn

‘‘Have you got any interest in swimming through snake invested rivers? What do you think about sleeping the night in the jungle and probably waking up with leeches all over you? How do you feel about biting the head of a live snake?’’ These were the first ‘‘curious questions’’ Christian Bale got during his first meeting with director Werner Herzog. These questions are characteristic for Herzog´s style of filmmaking. They indicate that he has no interest in making a studio production with special or stunt effects but instead, he wants to create an environment and experience as similar as possible to the historical reality. This meant the actors, although the cast included Hollywood stars as Christian Bale, Steve Zahn and Jeremy Davies, had to live in little huts instead of trailers and had to walk barefoot for two months. Besides this, the actors had to lose a significant amount of weight in order to look like believable prisoners of war. In fairness, Herzog was fast to show his solidarity and all the actors praised how dedicated Herzog was. He even was the first to jump in a river full of snakes before Bale and Zahn did.

Interestingly enough, all shots in the first three minutes of the film are also used in

Little Dieter Needs to Fly. We are first shown opening titles that provide us with some

historical context. Then we see the same aerial shots which show how villages are bombed, this time however accompanied by mournful music. After this, we are positioned in an aircraft that tries to land aboard a Marine ship. The titles tell us this is a U.S.S. Ranger Base in the

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Gulf of Tonkin in 1965. During the landing the camera shakes along and although this is archive material it perfectly fits the atmosphere and it contributes to the feeling we are not watching a film about 1965 but instead, we are positioned in 1965. This is reality for now. There are a number of subtle references to the documentary. In Little Dieter Needs to Fly Dengler tells us he learned a lot from his guards, for example how to make a fire. Herzog turned this into a scene in Rescue Dawn so the attentive viewer will know the origin of this scene. Instead of seeing this as an element which increases the level of authenticity, Herzog’s attitude is much more playful.

After a short sequence, in which Christian Bale and his fellow soldiers are getting instructions about their classified mission, we see the instruction video that in reality was shown to soldiers at that time and which is also included in the documentary. In Little Dieter

Needs to Fly Herzog takes his time to mock this video. For example, after the protagonist has

sharpened his knife it would likely be sharp enough to cut a leaf in two. However, when the soldier tries, he fails. Herzog’s ironic voice-over continues ‘‘now if the leaf does not cooperate, you can still chew it’’ and surprisingly this is what the soldier decides to do. Further on in the video, we see the soldier jumping up and down when he is almost immediately found after sending out his rescue sign by a helicopter. Herzog ends with ‘‘What for God’s sake is our man signalling to the helicopter above him’’. These last words complete the funny scene in the documentary. Herzog does not miss his chance to mock this video again in Rescue Dawn. This time, his fictional characters are his spokesmen. In Little Dieter

Needs to Fly Herzog’s appearance is clear because he is part of the movie and in Rescue Dawn he continues to tell the story, not merely from Dieter’s perspective, but also from his

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3.4 The Grey Area

One scene Herzog did not include in Rescue Dawn is the one involving the engagement ring. Filmed in a village that looked similar to the one where this happened in 1965, Dengler tells us how he learned you do not mess with the Viet Cong. When Dieter was first captured, the Viet Cong took everything away from him, except his engagement ring. However, two or three weeks later Dieter was forced to give his ring to a villager who threatened him with a machete. Shortly after, Dengler had to leave the village again with the Viet Cong, who were unaware of this incident. After two hours of walking in the jungle, Dengler became more and more upset and tried to explain with gestures what had just happened. After they finally understood it, they did not hesitate and went back to the village to find the thief. While Dengler tells this story on camera, he takes the hand of one of the locals who is hired to embody the enemy to visualize what happened next. The Viet Cong grabbed the hand of the villager, put it on the table and chopped his finger off. Subsequently, they took the ring off the bloody finger and put it back on Dieter´s. Finished with his story, Dieter sees the sad gaze of the local man and tries to cheer him up by putting his arm around his shoulder and reassuring him: ‘‘It is just a movie, do not worry about it. And you still got your fingers and everything’’. Fact is that this is not just a story that is made up. It was the painful reality of Dieter Dengler. This scene illustrates the distinction between reality and the filmic reality. A distinction Herzog consciously makes.

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I argue that Herzog does not try to simulate reality in Rescue Dawn. In order to understand his approach in both films and his stance towards reality I want to refer to a speech Herzog gave in Milan in 2010. In this speech Herzog talks about a concept he calls ‘‘ecstatic truth’’ and in which I see many similarities to the concept of filmic reality. Herzog states: ‘‘Of course, we can’t disregard the factual; it has normative power. But it can never give us the kind illumination, the ecstatic flash, from which Truth emerges. But in the fine arts, in music, literature, and cinema, it is possible to reach a deeper stratum of truth- a poetic, ecstatic truth, which is mysterious and can only be grasped with effort; one attains it through vision, style, and craft.’’

Here, Herzog makes a distinction between fact and truth. For him, documentaries constitute and confirm the wrong definition, or maybe confusion, of both concepts. When Dieter literally faces his history in Laos, this does not only tell us something about the past, but is a way of creating an ecstatic truth. Herzog tried to create new realities in both of his films. Of course there are obvious differences. The documentary tells the story but lets the viewers have their own imagination and the fiction film provides us most of these images. When we hear Dieter talk about his best friend Duane in the documentary we can imagine what Duane would have looked like and how their friendship would have been whereas in Rescue Dawn we see an interpretation of Duane by Herzog as well as one by actor Steve Zahn. Another substantial difference is the stylization. Where Herzog is free in Little Dieter to play with the chronology of the story, Rescue Dawn is a coherent whole. Partly, this has to do with the narration of both films. In Little Dieter we are directly addressed as a spectator and Dieter (and Herzog) can take us anywhere, anyplace, anytime while on the other hand Rescue Dawn supports the feeling of being extensively long in the jungle, not able to escape. We are enclosed in the jungle, just as Dengler was.

Ames describes how Little Dieter and Rescue Dawn (and he even adds Wings of Hope to this comparison) incorporate the same narrative pattern. After the beginning, in which we experience the plane crash, Dengler has to face physical and mental challenges. Inevitably, there is a confrontation with death: either of his own or of others. In the end, Dengler finds his redemption. Ames claims the journey of these films is ‘‘determined as much by Herzog as it is by the individual’’. Thus, Herzog’s approach works on many levels, it is at once ‘‘actual and metaphorical, biographical and autobiographical, temporal and geographical,