Peace Michael. I am Irish and quick tempered but sweetness and light most
of the time.
Now two comments. I am like you suspicious of Heideggerian notions of
truth, but there is something in Heideggerian thought which attracts and
repels me almost in equal measure. And it is not the Nazi bit that I am
referring to. Though of course that is all truly contemptible.
Nevertheless I do think that there is something profound in the notion of
truth as being revealed to us.
I am thinking of a famous Australian photograph from the Vietnam War
Period. LBJ was visiting and the Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt had
unveiled the slogan "All the way with LBJ". Nothing better encapsulated
Australia's subaltern status within the parameters of American Imperialism.
However photographically this was made manifest in an even more stark way.
Johnson was speaking and Holt was standing behind him. For some reason
Holt leaned forward and bowed from the waist. That bow was captured on
camera and became a moment revealing Australia's abject sycophancy towards
the American state. Cartier Bresson would have called this the decisive
moment perhaps. The photographer had waited and the truth of Being was
appeared.
The alternative truth model that I generally adhere to is Bhaskar's notion
of alethia which is truth as the reason for things - an ontological rather
than an epistemological definition of truth. This would seem to give the
documentarist a clear task. She has to reveal the reason for things.
The other point I wish to canvass briefly is what Flaherty thought he was
doing in the light of the non-fiction film which had preceded him. I
readily concede your point here that this question cannot be asked if we
consider Flaherty was the first. I am inclined to think that Flaherty has
to be understood in terms of the Romantic impulse- the dialectical
counterpart of the modernity he opposed, even though he was using one of
the great inventions of modernity to display his opposition.
All this meant a turning away from contemporary politics. Rotha for
instance wondered how anyone could make a film such as Man Of Aran in the
middle of the Great Depression. But again there are moments in Flaherty
when he truly transcends his own political limitations. In his film The
Land there is a sequence where one of the women who live on the roadside
turns round and looks at the camera. For me that is as great as Lange's
Migrant Mother.
The only other moment I can think is like it is in the Australian film
maker Tom Zubrycki's documentary Billal when he films the mother sitting by
the bedside of her brain damaged son. No words are spoken, but there is so
much meaning. We have the advent of aletheia.
However in Bhaskarian terms Flaherty would appear to be totally incapable
of achieving alethia - he cannot even begin to understand the reason for
the great depression, but he still can record and allow to be revealed our
common core humanity.
warm regards
Gary
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