Documentary Arcades Project

Thinking about Persuasion

As we think about docs, I think we need to be careful how we construct our thinking about the idea of bias. I have found in my experience that people use the term without really thinking through what they are saying.

I believe that most docs are persuasive in execution. I noted the fact of Ryan's indictment because of the irony. But I don't think the filmmakers have any obligation to some abstract notion of "fair and balanced" in the journalistic sense. Doc makers construct arguments. If you want to argue against it, it requires an argument, and not one based on assumptions about the responsibility one imposes on the filmmakers.

The makers of "Deadline" make a strong argument against the death penalty. I would argue that they did this in an open way (in disagreement with a previous post). They told the story of a particularly awful individual where guilt was never much in question.

So there are, I would argue, two lines of thought going in to this film; one about the frequency of executions of innocent individuals, and another about the basic moral stances around executions.

The warrant is that these topics are intertwined in the minds of the public, and rather poorly discussed as part of the political process.

posted by Ralph @ 9:52 AM