Interview with “Battle of Brooklyn” director Galinsky: “I’m not a journalist” (?)
Posted by Edward J Delaney on October 13, 2009 · 2 Comments
NetsAreScorching, a subsite of ESPN.com, has an interview with Michael Galinsky, director of “Battle of Brooklyn,” who has spent six years and amassed 350 hours of footage documenting a battle between an organization called Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn and a big land-development project built arount moving the New Jersey nets basketball team to Brooklyn.
What’s interesting to use is Galinsky’s quote on how people understand documentary film. He said,
Our film is a character-driven, verite documentary that mostly follows a few of the people fighting the project, so we’ll want to get their take on the situation. The idea of a verite documentary film gets confusing because most people are used to Michael Moore or old school PBS docs. We aren’t journalists and we’re not activists either. The idea of this film isn’t to get to the bottom of everything that’s happened along the way but instead to follow characters as they deal with some of the situations that they face. Not even Norman Oder could put together a book that covers everything and is still readable. As such, we have to be very selective in what scenes to focus on. So the short answer is: yes we’ll be shooting, but who knows what will end up in the film. With over 350 hours of footage shot, only about 0.5% of what we shot has any chance of making it in to a 90 minute film.
Of course, selectivity is part of the editorializing process. The very acting of pulling out 0.5% of all footage – and the fact that even 350 hours of footage is an editorial choice itself of what to record – means it is a process of choice.
But what is also fascinating is Galinsky’s statement that as documentary filmmakers, he and his group are not journalists and not activists. Then what are they?
Documentary film is, obviously, a form of entertainment, but to take on a very complex and controversial story involving government and public matters, and then not make the claim of being a journalists, seems odd. It seems to both absolve the filmmaker from full responsibility for accuracy but yet claims to be telling the kind of story a journalists tells.
In writing “In Cold Blood,” Truman Capote held himself out as writing a “nonfiction novel” rather than journalism, and I think that for those who view the term pejoratively, there is an investment in characterizing oneself as an artist rather than as a journalist. Michael Moore may see himself as something different than polemicists such as Limbaugh and Beck, but he really isn’t. Doing the work on film, or video, does not remove the journalistic responsibility that the recent ethics report from the Center for Social Media. The First Amendment does not allow for certification of journalists, and therfore anyone can be one. There is not training required, and no set of clear controls up front – libel law is a back-end remedy.
It’s interesting when documentary filmmakers choose to take on matters of political importance, and it’s worth commending them when they use their particular medium to try to enliven a debate by pulling it off the pages of the newspaper (or web) and create a longer-term understanding of the situation. It’s also interesting, however, when documentary filmmakers who are clearly functioning as journalists claim they are not.
Thanks for taking the time discuss my interview. You bring up some very good points and I’d like to take a moment to clarify my statement.
As documentary filmmakers we constantly battle audience expectation. I hesitate to refer to myself as a journalist because the films that we make don’t easily fit into the framework of what people expect of “journalism”. As such audience members who expect a very clear delivery of facts with a distinct point of view get frustrated, and think that we have not successfully fulfilled the mandate that they have set out for us. At the same time we are not making films to argue a point, in an “activist” vein. To answer your question directly, we aren’t activists arguing for the acceptance of our point of view, and we are not journalists giving a completely unbiased fact driven accounting of a situation; instead we consider ourselves filmmakers who focus on characters under pressure. Like Werner Herzog we believe in the ecstatic truth. We’re not trying to wriggle out of any responsibility that we might have for telling the truth. Instead, what I was attempting to do here was manage the expectation of the audience so that they go into the film with an understanding of what they are going to see.
In one of our previous films, “Horns and Halos” we followed an underground publisher as he attempted to re-publish a discredited biography of GW Bush before the 2000 election. When the film was completed many people were confused because they expected a Bush bashing expose. However, those who went into the film knowing what to expect had high praise for it.
Again, you bring up many good points and I appreciate the opportunity to clarify.
Michael, thanks for writing. Your points about a perceived mandate are well-taken. I very much like the notion of focusing on characters under pressure. I wonder sometimes if the notion of “journalist” some filmmakers avoid is narrower than I think of it – I believe the tent of journalism embraces works such as yours, in addition to fact-driven unbiased accounts.
No doubt your film will add dimension and perspective to the situation with the Nets. A strong point of view can be an incredible catalyst.
Anyway, best of luck for success with the film! – Ted