I think that perhaps the problem that some have with the Maier film is that is blurs the line between Documentary and Feature. A Ken Burns documentary keeps itself grounded with attributed quotes, either from (in the case of his famous Civil War series) the words of letterwriters (whose names are given at the end) or from scholars and other experts in the field (whose expertise seems to be established, if for no other reason, than that they were chosen by the filmmakers as an expert and he goes back to them repeatedly (when it suits his purpose). We accept this.
We also accept movies that are ostensibly about a true story or a true person. I'm thinking of Julia & Julia as an example of a move about two real people: Julia Child and the person who set out to blog about recreating her recipes. As with any Hollywood movie, I'm sure that liberties are taken, drama added, things invented out of nearly whole cloth. But we accept it, mostly because we are happy that, as a broad outline, the story feels "real". This film about Vivian Maier, proports to speak in her own voice, but gives no attribution to her words. They may be close to correct, and the actor used to read those words may be just as close to the "truth" as were the actors chosen by Ken Burns to read from the letters... but a certain connection of authenticity has not been made the Maier film that Ken Burns "pulled off". If anything, that is the failure of the filmmaker. I also could have done without the part at the end about death being a "new beginning". -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
