Expose, Impel, and Sustain Change: The Committed Documentary. In Political Life. Lyell Davies. Submitted in Partial Fulfillment.

Transcription

1 Expose, Impel, and Sustain Change: The Committed Documentary In Political Life by Lyell Davies Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy Supervised by Professor Sharon Willis Program in Visual and Cultural Studies Arts, Sciences and Engineering School of Arts and Sciences University of Rochester Rochester, New York 2009

2 ii Curriculum Vitae The author was born in Dublin, Ireland. He attended Colaiste Náisiúnta Ealaine is Deartha (National College of Art and Design) from 1981 to 1986, and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Fine Art degree in Arriving in the United States in 1988, he attended the Whitney Museum of American Art Independent Study Program from 1989 to 1990; and Hunter College of the City University of New York from 1995 to 1999, graduating with a Master of Arts degree in He came to the University of Rochester in the Fall of 2001 and began graduate studies in the Visual and Cultural Studies Program. He pursued his research in documentary film under the direction of Professor Sharon Willis and received the Master of Arts degree from the University of Rochester in 2006.

3 iii Acknowledgments Many friends and colleagues have contributed to the writing of this dissertation. I would like to thank the members of the Paper Tiger Television Collective for an early introduction to committed documentary making in America. Here special recognition is due to Michael Eisenmenger, Simin Farkhondeh, DeeDee Halleck, Linda Iannacone, and Amy Melnick. I would also like to thank the staff and youth participants of The Youth Channel, who were a source of inspiration for my discussion of small documentary making, as were Sam Miller, Jean Rice, Lynn Lewis, and the members of Picture the Homeless video making project. I would like to extend very special thanks to Betty Yu and Wing Lam of the Chinese Staff and Workers Association, and to the staff and members of National Mobilization Against Sweatshops, especially John Antush, Ruth Herrera, Hoon Kim, JoAnn Lum, Karah Newton, and Jennifer Wager. For friendship and support, I would like to extend my thanks to Denisse Andrade Arévalo, Cynthia Carrion, Liz Curtis, Rick Franklin, Devorah Hill, John B. Johnson, Carolina Kroon, Mary Manhardt, Mario Najera, Linda Neiman, Kevin Noble, Carlos Pareja, Hye Jung Park, Leslie Roeder, Peter Wareing, Naomi Wilson, and Juanita Wilson. At the University of Rochester, I would like to thank Liz Czach for her generous support and encouragement, and fellow Visual and Cultural Studies Program students Aubrey Anable, Elizabeth Kalbfleisch and Gloria Kim for their inspiration. At the John Jay College of Criminal Justice of the City University of New York I would like to thank Professor Martin Wallenstein, Chair of the Department of

4 iv Communication and Theater Arts, and Professor Lorraine Moller, for encouraging me to bring my own style of socially engaged documentary making to the classroom. Finally, I would like to thank my advisor, Professor Sharon Willis for her insight and support during the preparation of my dissertation, and the members of my dissertation committee, Professor Robert J. Foster, Professor Eleana J. Kim, and Professor A. Joan Saab.

5 v Abstract In Expose, Impel, and Sustain Change: The Committed Documentary In Political Life the author explores the history and practice of politically committed documentary filmmaking. The author provides a comprehensive history of the committed documentary from the early days of cinema to the present day, including a discussion of some of the major filmmakers, filmmaking groups, and filmmaking practices linked to committed documentary making. The author also provides a detailed exploration of the committed documentary project as it operates today; including an examination of participatory documentary making activities on the part of the Chinese Staff and Workers Association, a New York City based workers organization; an examination of the role committed documentary makers play as political entrepreneurs within transnational advocacy networks; and an examination of the political positioning of the work of the influential U.S. documentary filmmaker Robert Greenwald. The author argues that the committed documentary should be viewed not as a representation of reality, but should instead be viewed as a means by which political realities are constructed and contested. To explore this theme, he focuses in particular on the making and distribution of small documentary films and videos; including political organizing and activist films/videos linked to the activities of social movements and distributed through parallel non-traditional distribution networks.

6 vi Table of Contents Introduction 1 Part 1: A History of the Committed Documentary Chapter 1 From the Early Years of Cinema to the Second World War 23 Chapter 2 Anti-Colonial Struggles, the New Left, and War in Vietnam 77 Chapter 3 Small Documentary Making and the Contemporary Committed Documentary 125 Part 2: New Realities for the Committed Documentary Chapter 4 Documenting Chinatown s Workers 175 Chapter 5 We Are Not Filmmakers: Documentary Filmmaking and Transnational Activism 221 Chapter 6 Muckraker or Radical: Positioning Robert Greenwald s Documentary Films 260 References 313