Found and Appropriated Images in Documentary Cinema A Dissertation SUBMITTED TO THE ...

315 Pages·2014·13.78 MB·English

Image-Documents:
Found and Appropriated Images in Documentary Cinema

A Dissertation
SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF
UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA
BY

Benedict H. Stork

IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS
FOR THE DEGREE OF
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

John Mowitt, PhD

May 2014
© 2014 Benedict H. Stork
Acknowledgements

A dissertation is a strange thing. The culmination of a string of encounters and acts,
choices and chances, stops and starts. Writing a dissertation is often isolating but it is also
a continuous reminder that you are never alone with your thoughts. Like the “image-
documents” discussed in the following pages, sources for the concepts, words, and
feelings assembled in this document are difficult to identify; they are sometimes,
whenever possible, attributed to the appropriate personages but even these contributions
mingle with those unnamed and unidentified collaborators I’ve appropriated to myself.
Where they stop and “I” begin is almost impossible to discern. Here is a simple formula,
though: you can find me in the mistakes, infelicities, awkward formulations, and
questionable claims. Where the ideas and images stand out, when the evidence and facts
take hold, the assemblage is at work.
Nonetheless, thank you, first, to those whose names are affixed to this document
and made it possible: Jonathan Kahana, whose generous participation on this project is
evidence of his commitment to continuing and expanding documentary scholarship;
Richard Leppert, who never wavered in his enthusiasm and support for both the work and
its author (despite my many failings), and was always ready with thoughtful, practical,
and timely advice; Cesare Casarino, whose classes, conversations, and comments
inspired me to follow my conceptual tendencies (perhaps to his chagrin) and risk running
ahead of my abilities. And thank you to my advisor, John Mowitt, who gave me the space
to develop my ideas, the support to allow them to change, and the guiding hand to
connect them; it is only by way of his probing responses, prodigious references, and
patient, generous readings that this dissertation was produced. I am also indebted to
Professor Gilbert Rodman for assisting with an earlier iteration of the dissertation. In
addition, I would also like to thank Hilary Neroni of the University of Vermont who first
encouraged me to both read and teach difficult texts and to trust the effort of analysis,
rather than the ease of familiarity. Finally, this dissertation and my thinking owe a
tremendous debt to Bill Nichols of San Francisco State University, who would surely find
his name too frequently invoked here but would graciously accept it as a testament to his
influence in the field of documentary studies.
Across two universities, many conferences, and too many (or not enough) drinks I
have had the great fortune of meeting and collaborating with peers whose intelligence,
dedication, and thoughtfulness exceed by an incalculable amount the place the institution
assigns “graduate students.” Though you are mostly unnamed in this text, in a certain
sense this is the cadre I most recognize in the unruly and resistant force of image-
documents. Singling out a few names from this group: thank you to Thomas Cannavino,
Christian Haines, Garnet Kindervater, and Katherine Kindervater at the University of
Minnesota; your friendship, wit, and warmth made these Minnesota winters enjoyable,
regardless of the mercury’s position. Also, thank you to Ricardo Rebolledo, who is even
more underappreciated than the graduate students he associates with. And thank you to
Kevin McDonald and Kristopher Fallon who (have been) stuck with me since our brief
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time together in the Bay Area nearly a decade ago and who have read many iterations of
this project since then; I couldn’t have finished without your help. In a process that is too
often tortuous and a profession that is frequently capricious with its evaluations and
careless with the talents of its members, I am happy to have the privilege of meeting you
and benefitting from the opportunity to think together.
Thank you to my family: my parents, Helen and Gerry, to whom this dissertation
is dedicated; to my sister, Amy, who I have followed across the country more than once
now; to my sister, Kat, with whom I share more than we realize; and to my nephews, Ben
and Austin, whose path into adulthood frightens, inspires, and entertains me (something, I
hope, they would appreciate). Thank you also to my Seattle families: Lee, Mary, and
Aleah, Annie, Gordon, and Merrick.
Finally, thank you to Aly Pennucci. This dissertation is but one part of the life I
owe to you. Thankful as I am for your decisive help getting through this undertaking (it
surely would not have happened otherwise), I am most thankful that with it done I can
spend more time with you. I would never want my thoughts to be without you and could
never separate them from your brilliance, strength, compassion, and love. Thank you.
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Dedication

For Helen Marie and Gerard Stork, thank you for a life full of pictures and words.
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Abstract
Image-Documents: Found and Appropriated Images in Documentary Cinema is a
conceptualization of the use of found and appropriated images—ranging from home
movies to Hollywood films, from archival footage to television news—as the core of an
immanent theory of documentary cinema. Through a series of conceptual encounters with
central terms in documentary history and scholarship, this dissertation counters the rote
critique of found footage as merely a convenient spectacle onto which documentaries
graft their arguments. Combining readings of film theory, documentary criticism,
continental philosophy, and contemporary theory with close analyses of specific films,
Image-Documents at once lays bare the apparatus of documentary and its use of images
to make truth claims, while redefining documentary outside the imperative to “represent
reality.” In place of the reified oscillation between critiquing documentary’s rhetoric of
objectivity and embrace of reflexive tactics and ethical witnessing, this dissertation
argues for an understanding of documentary as a mode of expression irreducible to the
accurate capture of “real” events. Image-documents are the unruly theoretical objects that
articulate the documentary potential immanent to all images.
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Table of Contents
List of Figures....................................................................................................................vi

Introduction: From Found and Appropriated Images to Image-Documents......................1

Chapter 1: Image, Document, Image-Documents.............................................................14

Chapter 2: Image-Documents in Use: A theory of documentary value............................74

Chapter 3: Documentary Enunciation: Indirect discourse, third person statements, and the
murmur of image-documents..........................................................................................135

Chapter 4: Image-Documents and History as Immanent Cause.....................................204

Conclusion: Image-documents as Property, Currency, and the Speculative Future.......275

Bibliography...................................................................................................................290

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List of Figures

Fig. 1.1 The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu: Ceausescu haggles with a shopkeeper
...........................................................................................................................................40

Fig. 1.2 The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu: The leader as bread inspector.........40

Fig. 1.3 The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu: Flowers from commerce................42

Fig. 1.4 The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu: A cursory inspection.......................42

Fig. 1.5 The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu: A knowing smirk............................42

Fig. 1.6 The Fall of the Romanov Dynasty: Laboring under the yoke of the landowner 66

Fig. 1.7 The Fall of the Romanov Dynasty: Tea time for the Governor and his family..65

Fig. 1.8 The Fall of the Romanov Dynasty: Immobile and mobile property...................66

Fig. 1.9 The Fall of the Romanov Dynasty: Service emerging from the background......66

Fig 2.1 Grizzly Man: “…glorious improvised moments.”................................................82

Fig. 2.2 Grizzly Man: Quiet on the set............................................................................106

Fig. 2.3 Grizzly Man: Nature, ready for its close-up, Mr. Herzog..................................107

Fig. 2.4 Grizzly Man: Staring into a blurry horizon.......................................................133

Fig. 3.1 The Fog of War: Down the telephonic chain of command..............................164
Fig. 3.2 The Fog of War: Overeager sonar men.............................................................164

Fig. 3.3 The Fog of War: No doubting allowed..............................................................164

Fig. 3.4 The Fog of War: Under the yoke, in front of the camera.................................199

Fig. 3.5 The Fog of War: Waving in the face of death...................................................199

Fig. 4.1 In the Year of the Pig: The essential life of the peasantry.................................248

Fig. 4.2 In the Year of the Pig: Putting his thumb in the anecdote.................................250

Fig. 4.3 In the Year of the Pig: An unfair fare................................................................267
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Fig. 4.4 In the Year of the Pig: Collective disenchantment............................................268

Fig. 4.5 In the Year of the Pig: Hands-on middle management......................................268

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Introduction: From Found and Appropriated Images to Image-Documents

The whole, simple term of “documentary” has to be ruled out if we accept Rotha’s laws for that
term: “[Documentary] can, and does, draw on the past in its use of existing heritages but it only
does so to give point to a modern argument. In no sense is documentary a historical reconstruction
and attempts to make it so are destined to failure.” Yet the (mis-?)use of this term was one of the
first things that drew my attention to the “compilation” as a particular problem. What was the
mysterious process that transformed mere newsreels into documentaries? The squirming,
seemingly formless larvae of Newsreels, after a season on the cutting table, would suddenly spring
into public notice (even demanding proper reviews) on the gorgeous wings of a respectable term,
Documentary. This seemed worth investigating: what had made the difference?
Jay Leyda, Films Beget Films

The super-imposed text reads “Souvenirs of a Shoveler,” translating the illustrated
Hungarian phrase in the title frame. Then more titling reads “Footage by György Pető
during the Jewish labour service in 1940-41.” Over the following five minutes, images of
documents full of names, of men digging a trench beside a road, of men marching, and
men eating soup occupy the screen. Some of the images are titled; others are not. As the
men work they are overseen by a Hungarian army officer. The images are a grainy black
and white, occasionally rendered as negatives. On the soundtrack a recording of a woman
singing in Hungarian plays quietly in the background before another woman reads a
poem in English. In the middle of the sequence are two posed shots of the men, along
with their overseer, performing for the camera. In the first, two laborers, their full bodies
in view, smile at the camera as an officer pretends to strike them with a switch, while the
other worker plays at using his shovel as a weapon. A second posed shot echoes the first
but this time with eight laborers grouped next to their overseer. The men (including the
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