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Re-enactments that use actors to portray people, usually from long
ago, now rule in the ever-widening market for non-fiction films that
fill the cable spectrum. Surprisingly, I find this also on PBS, where
I once thought a higher ground existed. This piece, then, is about
re-enactments, sometimes called recreations, that are now an accepted
part of far too many so called documentary films.
Let me be blunt. I do not like re-enactments that use actors who
portray a producer or director’s vision of a time past. That means I
do not like almost any re-enactment in any film. I know I am
committing heresy in today’s marketplace. I could be on the verge of
committing suicide in terms of my career as a filmmaker, but I have
difficulty sitting back and watching the molding of truth in
filmmaking for the sake of effect.
I can’t read minds, but I have a nagging thought, an itch that won’t
go away about why re-enactments are in fashion. The executives who run
the cable networks and even those at PBS find most documentaries
boring. With that, some producers use actors to fill out time on
screen out of laziness. Others to fool the audience. Some filmmakers
use them because they believe they will have a better film. As soon as
a producer, or a director, uses actors in what broadcast and cable
still call a documentary film, it no longer qualifies under that once
hallowed appellation. The TV business now refers to these works, as
non-fiction films. That term makes it easier to get away with that
curious blending of actors, usually bad actors, I might add, in mime
situations with the occasional speaking part that feels like amateur
theater. Producers are mostly speculating when they use actors to show
how people lived in a different era, and how they worked, fought
battles, served in prison, and even wandered the streets of the period
they are trying to evoke. Producers may tell you they are historically
accurate, but that doesn’t wash. What the executives, producers, and a
small body of historians think a period looked like is usually mostly
conjecture. Yes, we can find written descriptions of life in whatever
period depicted and there is the occasional painting, drawing or
print. None of that is enough.
Re-enactments look phony. They have a forced unreal feel to them. This
is because they are not real. Some re-enactments are worse than others
are. The actors, all of whom you never heard of, are too well dressed.
Their costumes fit better than they should, especially if the people
the actors are depicting are poor peasants, or worse, natives of a
particular culture or from earlier civilizations. There is no sense,
or even a suggestion of place. Texture suffers because it looks like a
low-grade movie set. There is no hint of smell especially in films
that want to take you back thousands of years. The actors and their
surroundings are clean. Rarely is there a trace of dirt or sewage or
buildings in disrepair.
When the film purports to be historical, the producers ignore what
little we know about life during the depicted period. Dressing the
actors is partly guesswork. Not only that, but the sets the actors are
working on are spotless, the actor’s teeth are perfect, the size and
shape of the actors, too modern. Some time ago on PBS, I saw an
historical “documentary” with re-enactments from the Stone Age.
Everything in the scene spoke to cleanliness, as if the director did
not want the actors to look dirty. I assume no soap existed back then
and few, if any, cared about personal hygiene. But the campsite looked
as clean and policed as one would find on any military post today. All
of it was unbelievable. Did the producers think they were fooling the
audience?
Producers think that the audience for non-fiction films, or the
prevailing hybrids on television, requires no demands, and that the
actors convey the past because they look real to a usually
undiscerning audience. Photos and drawings are boring. They will not
hold the attention of the audience. Using art or photos, or even film
or video, takes extra work to make the story come alive on screen.
Sadly, creativity takes a back seat to truth. Too many producers
believe re-enactments enhance their storytelling. They do not.
Maybe I’m splitting hairs, but what I call recreations without seeing
an actor at work does sometimes work. Viewing the actor in part, only
seeing hands fixing a watch or writing, hands and arms playing piano,
feet walking on a road, the backs of people in soft focus, other
scenes also in soft focus, a car at night on a highway are devices
that have a modicum of credibility. However, these are not always
effective. As a director, give me a pair of hands in a close up that
is slightly soft over a grade C actor engaged in pantomime. At least I
am not fooling anyone into believing he or she is watching the real
thing, a real event. Or at least I hope not.
A continuing problem is that our two major academies that award Oscars
and Emmys allow a certain amount of recreations and or re-enactments
in documentaries. The difficulty is that in some cases we never know
what is or is not a re-enactment or recreation. Some producers like to
keep that fact a secret. I can only assume that some producers and
directors do not want us to know what is real, or what is a fake. My
far from scientific anecdotal survey says that almost no one among the
viewers knows what they are watching. The audience either does not
know the difference or cares not to know the difference. Until such
time as the two vaunted academies demand that producers label all
re-enactments and recreations for what they are, many in the audience
will accept what they see on the screen as gospel. However, do not
hold your breath that honesty will prevail and this will happen.
Illusion counts more than truth more than ever in fact-based,
non-fiction films.
Illusion is all that matters for these filmmakers. I would go so far
to say that in some cases, the producers want to cheat the audience
and that they hope the viewer doesn’t know the difference between real
and fake. That may suffice for magicians. It doesn’t wash for films
that purport to be about real life.
If I am correct, doom awaits the truth we once ascribed to most
documentary films.
In Part 2 next month I will discuss re-enactments in specific
television documentary films.
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At NBC News for 35 years, Ron Steinman was bureau chief
in Saigon, Hong Kong and London, was a senior producer on Today and wrote
and produced for Sunday Today. At ABC News Productions, he produced
and wrote documentaries for A&E, TLC, Discovery, Lifetime and the
History Channel. He has a Peabody, a National Headliner award, a
National Press Club award, a International Documentary Festival Gold
Camera Award, two American Women in Radio & Television awards and
has been nominated for five Emmy's. He is a partner in
Douglas/Steinman Productions, whose latest documentary, "Luboml: My
Heart Remembers," aired on PBS' WLIW/21 and the History Channel in
Israel, April 29, 2003. He is the author of, "The Soldiers 'Story",
"Women in Vietnam," and most recently, "Inside Television's First
War: A Saigon Journal," University of Missouri Press, 2002. |
