Pete January 2, 2017

What is Actuality?

In “Introduction to Film Studies” – Jill Nelmes Actuality is defined as:

“Derived from the French term actualite given to the short nonfictional films made in the early period (1895 -1906 or so). These films often consisted of simply of people going about their everyday business, or of particular events (sporting contests, visiting dignitaries.”

And as suggested in the exercise rubric this came from the work of the Lumiere brothers and as the definition suggests this type of cinema was short lived. Actuality now is much more that a kind of film it much more about the reality of a movie whether that be either fictional or documentary film.

In the films of the Lumiere “actuality” was exactly what it said it was, a record of real events; however, now it is more of a concept as suggested in Bordwell and Thompson “Film Art”.

• It could be the situation in which a fictional film is set, for example, “The Godfather” and sequels the characters are clearly fictional but it is set a very real world. It references the Second World War, the building of Las Vegas, Cuban revolution all real factual events, it just places fictional characters in there.
• It can be a dramatisation of actual events, for example, Apollo 13; here the actors are playing real people follow the events of a well documented even from the available information. In the case of Apollo 13, this actually can be fact checked with people who were there. This not the case with a film such as United 93 which dramatises actual events, however, there are pieced together from the evidence of the event and cannot be fact checked, as there were no survivors to the flight.
• It can be an unmediated “fly on the wall” style documentary as in Michael Moore’s “Roger & Me” and others.

Actuality touches all cinema documentary or not, but does the idea that all unmediated film is actuality, but not all actuality is unmediated holdup? I think perhaps these is truer that it is untrue. As we have illustrated above Apollo 13 is a fairly historically accurate account of the events of that fateful failed moon landing but is no way unmediated. It well acted, directed and scripted by all involved – there is no real intention to deceive. And again “Roger & me” is a fairly honest account of what happened in Flint and the difficulties experienced by Moore in the trying to get an interview the GM President.

However, this is not always the case, “U-571″ like “Apollo 13” purports to tell the story of the capture of an Enigma machine in the 2nd World War. Unfortunately, it shows this been done by the USA who were not even combatants in the war at the actual time of capture; an artistic licence is used to give the film a wider audience. And with any unmediated documentary, like “Roger & Me”, you are in the hand of the integrity of the filmmaker to edit the raw footage in such a way as ensuring actuality is not distorted.

This leads us on nicely to the role of the polemicist – someone who argues powerfully from a particular point of view. Michael Moore is a good example of a polemicist. “Roger & Me” is an excellent example of a film by a polemicist as you are quickly drawn into the point of view Moore is putting across. The film presented from a very personal perspective, actions of GM are given to you calmly, non-sensationally and “factually”; which makes it hard to avoid being drawn into and ultimately believing everything Moore puts across.

Is it propaganda? Yes, because it propagates the policial message that a working population abandoned in the pursuit of corporate greed. How the film was presented does not give the impression that it is partisan; although if as viewers we are honest with ourselves we must admit we have no idea on how the source footage was edited.