A Word from Leo

An occasional reflection on the state of our industry

THE ROLE OF THE FACTUAL FILMMAKER

By Leo Eaton
May, 2008

I have been thinking a lot recently about the role of the documentary filmmaker in today’s world where arguments tend to be won by whoever shouts the loudest. In a world choked with words and images from blogs, internet chat rooms, the 24-hour news cycle and hundreds of television, cable & VOD channels, those who make the most noise get the most attention. This was brought into sharp relief for me this past year when I found myself under personal and professional attack from powerful interest groups on the far right of the political spectrum.

Back in 2006 I was brought in by WETA, the PBS producing station in Washington, DC, as series producer on America at a Crossroads, 19 individual films commissioned to examine America’s place in the world five years after 9/11. The first 12 hours of the series took over an entire week of prime-time programming back in April of 2007 while the remainder continue to air as specials throughout 2008.

America at a Crossroads was always doomed to be a battlefield in the media war raging between left and right, since it included films from all shades of political opinion. American public television has long been perceived as being overtly liberal by the conservative right. Several years ago the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), the organization through which federal funds are channeled to public television, made a serious attempt to “bring balance back to public television” (as some Republican politicians put it) by commissioning films from more conservative voices. It was in such a heated and polarized political climate that America at a Crossroads was conceived. But in spite of the political controversy swirling around the project’s origins, the series was a great success on the air. One program won a Peabody, another was nominated for an Academy Award, and the series got major press attention across the country. The New York Times reviewed it (mostly favorably) every day during premier week, while Tom Shales in the Washington Post stated “Crossroads affirmatively answers the question 'Is there still a purpose for public television?'"

However it was a film commissioned by America at a Crossroads that never aired (at least not as part of Crossroads) that put me under attack. Because I and certain WETA colleagues expressed concerns about fairness and balance on this particular program, I was personally denounced by a Republican congressman at a Congressional sub-committee hearing as having Islamist sympathies, accused of blatant liberal bias by conservative talk show hosts on both CNN and Fox News Channel and became the object of an email hate campaign orchestrated through the right-wing blogosphere. Even my elderly UK-based father, who has spent a lifetime trying to build bridges between different faiths and cultures, became collateral damage in the artillery barrage unleashed by the principals of a powerful Washington-based advocacy group who were also involved in the program.

Being on the receiving end of such an orchestrated campaign is a fascinating if uncomfortable place to be. It wasn’t really about me; as Series Producer I was a convenient target through which PBS – who agreed with my and my colleagues recommendation not to air the show – could be attacked for perceived liberal bias. It’s fascinating how "liberal" has become a 4-letter word among conservatives. My Oxford English dictionary defines liberal as open minded and free from narrow prejudice, an attitude absent from much of our political discourse. I’ve since been informed that the campaign against PBS and the Crossroads team was orchestrated by the same group that orchestrated the Swift Boat attacks on John Kerry during the 2004 election. I guess that means I’ve been Swift-Boated.

Such politics of attack – whether from right or left – make it easy to demonize anyone who holds contrary views. With the spread of video and audio across so many different broadcast and online platforms, it’s easier to listen only to those whose opinions we share. So how does one defend the middle ground in a polarized media (and nation) where demagogues from both left and right insist that theirs is the only truth? Like carnival barkers, the shouters on both extremes attract the most crowds and leave the middle ground increasingly empty. Whether it’s Bill O'Reilly or Michael Moore, they’re primarily "preaching to the choir" by reinforcing the attitudes of those who already accept their opinions.

Americans prefer simple answers, defined in terms of black and white or good and evil, as when President Bush announced "you're either with us or against us" immediately after 9/11, or as media pundits today endlessly analyze sound-bites from Reverend Wright's old sermons as a way to diminish Barrack Obama. People and issues are much more complicated but in our high-speed world, sound-bites are much easier to grasp than complexity. So where does that leave the documentary filmmaker today?

We are all guilty at times of the "carnival barker" syndrome. We diminish the story for sake of the spectacle, whether it’s politics, sex scandals, animal attacks or the misbehavior of living celebrities or dead historical figures. We defend our actions by saying it’s what the commissioner wants and the public expects. And we all want that next commission, don’t we?

I don’t consider myself a journalist – where a more clearly-defined set of ethics apply. Like many documentary filmmakers, I consider myself a story-teller. Instead of using actors and following a script, I use real people to tell stories I believe are important. But it’s how we tell our stories that is at issue. I have always believed that our responsibility as filmmakers is to open a window into the amazing world that surrounds us, providing sufficient context and information for audiences to understand what they’re seeing while allowing them to draw their own conclusions. I recall a woman from Lubbock, Texas, writing to British historian Michael Wood after one of our BBC/PBS series and saying "you have shown me things I would never otherwise have seen and made me think about my world in ways I would never otherwise have considered." That response, to me, encapsulates our responsibility as documentary filmmakers.

Courage is not just about holding fast to one’s own beliefs; it’s also about accepting that other people have the right to hold fast to theirs. Voltaire once wrote: "Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so too". It takes courage to listen to different viewpoints with an open mind. It takes greater courage to accept that other viewpoints have a place within one’s own story telling. Of course we all have a point of view, otherwise we wouldn’t be making films in the first place, but it’s our task and our obligation to put that point-of-view in full context and outline it with intelligence and tolerance.

As filmmakers we mustn’t shout. Shouting only alienates those who don’t agree with us while reinforcing those who do agree with us in their deafness, making it less likely they’ll have an open mind in the future. The attacks of America at a Crossroads only confirmed my belief that – as filmmakers – we have a responsibility to fight the forces of demagoguery (in whatever form and from whatever direction) with all the talent and experience at our disposal. Being Swift-Boated may not be a pleasant experience but it has helped put what I do in perspective. And for that I’m grateful.