Although this was one of Tanya Ballantyne's first films (I believe it was her second) she exhibits a great command of the aesthetic; she has a sense of anticipation that allows her to capture the Bailey children at exactly the right moment, revealing their beauty, grace, potential, and doomed existence all at once. Her interviews with the parents are interesting, but less well done, likely due to their self-consciousness.
Her editing is interesting, particularly the transitions from one sequence to the next where, characteristically, she begins the sound of the new sequence 5 or 10 seconds before the final visuals of the last sequence end. This linking device works well, connecting what would otherwise be only vaguely related fragments of film into a coherent narrative. Perhaps the most famous of these transitions occurs when Gertrude Bailey is being given a prenatal check-up and the sound of Kenneth Bailey fighting on the street with a man who owes him a few dollars begins over the final frames of the examination.
While I would have preferred a less gray tonality of the film, that likely has to do with the circumstances under which it was made (in Bailey's apartment and around their neighbourhood, during what appears to be a Montreal autumn.) In the Grade 12 film class I teach, I used this film as a means to introduce the topic of the ethics of film making to students. Ballantyne has been thoroughly and properly criticized for her treatment and exploitation of the Baileys, but this issue is not limited to her; such charges are raised against film-makers and journalists with regularity. The exposure of so many young children (the eldest of the 10 kids was only 12 at the time the film was made, and the youngest was born (on camera) during filming) to so much public ridicule and humiliation is a particularly nasty thing...even this age of Maury Povich and Jerry Springer.
Still, although "The Things I Cannot Change" ruined the Baileys' lives, it did inspire the landmark Challenge for Change series of documentaries by the NFB. And it arguably opened the eyes of many Canadians, in a decade of seemingly limitless prosperity and progress, to the problems of intractable poverty. All in all, this film is worth seeing if you have the chance, and worth getting if you are interested in the documentary film as a genre.
Her editing is interesting, particularly the transitions from one sequence to the next where, characteristically, she begins the sound of the new sequence 5 or 10 seconds before the final visuals of the last sequence end. This linking device works well, connecting what would otherwise be only vaguely related fragments of film into a coherent narrative. Perhaps the most famous of these transitions occurs when Gertrude Bailey is being given a prenatal check-up and the sound of Kenneth Bailey fighting on the street with a man who owes him a few dollars begins over the final frames of the examination.
While I would have preferred a less gray tonality of the film, that likely has to do with the circumstances under which it was made (in Bailey's apartment and around their neighbourhood, during what appears to be a Montreal autumn.) In the Grade 12 film class I teach, I used this film as a means to introduce the topic of the ethics of film making to students. Ballantyne has been thoroughly and properly criticized for her treatment and exploitation of the Baileys, but this issue is not limited to her; such charges are raised against film-makers and journalists with regularity. The exposure of so many young children (the eldest of the 10 kids was only 12 at the time the film was made, and the youngest was born (on camera) during filming) to so much public ridicule and humiliation is a particularly nasty thing...even this age of Maury Povich and Jerry Springer.
Still, although "The Things I Cannot Change" ruined the Baileys' lives, it did inspire the landmark Challenge for Change series of documentaries by the NFB. And it arguably opened the eyes of many Canadians, in a decade of seemingly limitless prosperity and progress, to the problems of intractable poverty. All in all, this film is worth seeing if you have the chance, and worth getting if you are interested in the documentary film as a genre.