Identity in Documentary Films

What is the purpose of a subject-focused documentary? In the case of A.K.A. Don Bonus, I think it's somewhere between an informational documentary and a vlog. Don seems to treat it as a video journal, but there is a clear politicization from the circumstances of its production, release and the reaction to the film. As a film in itself, it's a very intimate look at Don's life, it's well-made, and is quite dramatic for a true story. However, it raises the question of the documentarian's role in the subject's life. Is Don being exploited for a larger sociopolitical narrative? 

Todd Solondz' Storytelling brilliantly parodies the notion of the exploitative documentary filmmaker. A director, played by Paul Giamatti, sets out to make a fly-on-the-wall documentary in the style of A.K.A. Don Bonus about a misguided teenager named "Scooby". In order to achieve an adequately dramatic narrative for the film, the director manipulates Scooby's life in very negative ways. Storytelling is a comedy film and it gives an extreme example of this issue, but it raises an important point about the relationship between director and subject in a genre that is generally considered non-fiction. 

In A.K.A. Don Bonus, Don shot all of the footage himself and the narration, which drives many of the most important themes of the film, all comes out of Don's mouth. However, part of me thinks that Don viewed the film as more of a personal diary about his own experience and the editors shaped it into a more politicized narrative about the larger-scale Asian American experience. Don and his peers raise political points during the film, but it feels as if these are secondary to the filmmakers' general thesis. This is especially important when considering what scenes they chose to include in the final cut; out of 90 hours of footage, what made the editors decide on these scenes?

A second documentary that touches on the role of the filmmaker in the subject's life is Hoop Dreams. It follows two young, talented basketball players through high school and into college. The filmmakers scouted subjects from the Chicago area, finding two promising talents from varied backgrounds and arranging for them to play basketball at St. Joseph's high school (alma mater to multiple NBA players including Isaiah Thomas) in Westchester, Illinois. It's fascinating to see how these somewhat randomly selected subjects perform in their lives with the knowledge that a camera is on them at all times, following their every move in athletics, academics, social life and home life. You wonder throughout the film what impact the added pressure of the documentary has on the subjects' lives, as if the pressure to become an NBA player isn't enough already. Although I have a slight ethical problem with the intrusion of a documentarian throughout a formative period in these people's lives, it's a really great documentary, showcasing that sometimes real life can have dramatic qualities similar to a fictional narrative. 

Another important question raised by A.K.A. Don Bonus is the role of the subject in documentaries. To me, Don Bonus comes across extremely authentic in front of the camera. However, as viewers, we only know the version of Don that has been presented to us in the documentary, so we have no way of knowing how "authentic" he's acting. Most of us probably notice a difference in our mannerisms when being filmed, or even just talking in front of a large group. For another example, there's Grizzly Man by Werner Herzog, about Timothy Treadwell, a man who leaves civilization to live with grizzly bears. If my memory serves me correctly, all of the footage of Treadwell was shot on his own for personal reasons, and spliced together by Herzog along with supplementary interviews and sequences dedicated to sculpting a coherent narrative. Treadwell was a struggling actor by profession, and it is clear in the documentary that his personality changes when the camera is on, even though his videos were shot for his own purposes.