Documentary – The False Pretender. Fiction – The Honest Hypocrite.

Let's establish this one premise once and for all - All of cinema is a hoax.

No no. Don't say a word. I'm not asking you to buy it without reason. You wan't to be the honest, unbiased, unquestionable purveyor of truth, as it actually is. Sorry, not happening. The moment your setting up a camera for a shot, you're choosing an angle. Choosing to exclude what you deem unimportant, what you deem unnecessary. You're automatically colouring it with a perspective. Yours.

Every story you try to tell or capture is untrue. It may even be honest. But it's still unture. You can only hope to get close. Accept your bias. And sell it with an asterisk.

Truth*

*Conditions Apply

So, what if you make a documentary? Isn't it a fair attempt to get close to the truth. Real people. real events. Just reportage. The closest you can get, is it?

Nope. The reasons are two fold.

Hiesenberg's Uncertainty Principle. The very act of observation alters the reality. We'll even refer to Shrodinger in a bit if you wish. Wise men. Even though, they may never have watched a moving picture. The presence of a camera in a setting alters the setting in a significant way. Rather, the closer you get to the reality, the greater the distortion. Stick a camera in your documentary characters face and you will see that he isn't himself anymore. Even if you don't see it, he is projecting an image of his self. Freud. Since we're namedropping in this paragraph anyway.

The second reason being that the presupposition of reality alters the viewing experience of the content. There is only so much reality you're allowed to tell. You may hurt sentiments, stir up communal disharmony, do harm to the character by telling the truth and alarmingly many such that not only filter the content that comes out but also biases the viewer and his viewing experience.

When you tell the world what you're showing them is reality, automatically, the world feels threatened. When you show the same presupposed as fiction, all events become incidental and characters bear no intended resemblance to anybody living or dead. The world feels safe in that comfort.

Fiction happily claims not to tell the truth. Based on real events at best. This claim gives fiction a sense of freedom that is much greater than documentary can hope to match obviously. The actors are trained to perform in spite of the observing camera. They intentionally project a character, not themselves. Hence they do so being truer to the character than the character himself would in front of a camera were he a real person. The camera can get as close as it wants and the reality, which in cinema is coloured by the filmmaker's perspective anyway, is now treated with performance to distill a version of the actuality much closer to itself than filming the real event as closely in a documentary would do. Yes, there are limitations and filters that the content must pass through. But if we're talking only in comparison to the documentary medium, it's an immensely better deal in favour of reality when you come to think of it.

Well, the whole process is futile anyway. Yes, this is the promised reference to Shrodinger and his celebrated cat. The cat isn't dead or alive till you open the box to observe. He goes a step further and claims it is the act of observation that creates the reality. There is no reality-as-is until it is observed!

Fuck the camera. Fuck filmmaking.

Truth itself is only an interpretation.