Multitudes of feelings come to mind when the word emotion is mentioned. The feeling that is emphasized the most when watching a documentary about war, is the feeling of anger. When dealing with these types of films, many of the clips are composed of real shots from the war filled with blood, bombs, and tears. Since this takes up most of the duration of the film, it is also what the audience remembers the most. The feeling of anger.
But that is exactly what Freida Lee Mock does not do in his/her documentary Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision Instead, they use the feeling that goes unappreciated. The feeling of calm and relaxation. When Maya Lin is talking into the camera in her “present” state, she is calm and seems unaffected by the fact that they are doing a documentary on her. This rhetoric captures the audience in a different way than the rhetoric used in most war documentaries. This is probably, because in the other war films that we saw, the director was trying to convince us that the war was a horrible thing that happened, and that the politics behind it was messy and dishonest. The director had to instill a feeling of resentment in the viewer’s mind in order to get them to believe what he/she believes.
Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision has more to do with the remembrance of the heroic figures. It is more about bringing the people of the country back together after tragic events. It is supposed to give the viewer a feeling of reflection and thought. The director is trying to convince the audience that sometimes it is not about the politics and the messiness. Sometimes it is just about remembering, honoring, and appreciating. These verbs give off a peaceful feeling, and do not involve anger at all.
An example of how the calm feeling of the documentary does just as good of a job as a documentary that instills anger in the viewers mind is when the camera zooms in on the years engraved in the memorial. The year when the first death occurred, and then the year when the last death occurred. Maya Lin’s soothing voice is talking about the significance of these dates, and the point is made. The 12 year span between the first death and the last gives the audience the feeling of shock, but a calming shock. A different shock than when you see a bomb destroy a whole village. This shock lets the viewer realize that this unnecessary war lasted so long killing so many people that did not need to be killed. But since the shock is a calming shock, it leads the viewer to remember the veterans, instead of worry about the mistakes made.
This is also what happens when the camera spans over the names on the wall. A long wall on which the names all become blurred together. Without attacking the government or the politics, the large number of names on the wall emphasizes the importance of each individual, and makes the viewer realize that each person was very important and meant a lot.
When the documentary first started, I thought that the bland way that Maya Lin spoke to the camera made the documentary boring, but in the middle of the film, I realized how it added to her innocence and her thoughtful insight. It made me want to listen to every word that was coming out of her mouth and put a lot of thought into it. If she had spoken any faster or louder, I would not have taken her as seriously.
To highlight the relaxing tone in Maya Lin’s voice, Freida Lee Mock places a character in the documentary that is essential to the story itself, but has a second function too. That function is to be a complete opposite of what Maya Lin is. This loud veteran completely opposes the memorial, and feels the need to bellow it out to the world. Instead of calmly explaining why he is hurt by this, he screams insignificant phrases. He does the complete opposite of what he wants to, and the viewer now likes Maya Lin even more. The audience likes the relaxing feeling that she gives out, and feels like the veteran is so out of place, which he is. In this documentary with soft music and soft voices, the veteran is different, which makes him wrong.
I love that we watched a documentary that was the complete opposite of previously watched documentaries. Up until now, I did not think that there could be an honest film made about war without implanting anger in me.
No comments:
Post a Comment