Documentaries, like any form of journalism, can not be completely objective. But of any one of the forms of journalism, documentaries have the toughest challenge; for wherever the documentarian points his camera a subjective choice is being made. In fact, every one of the elements of filmmaking used express a subjective viewpoint no matter how devoted the intent to objectivity is.
Attica is one of the better journalistically sound docs I've seen in the last ten years. It's about the 1971 uprising at the Attica Prison in New York State that shined a spotlight on the brutal conditions inmates endured, but ultimately resulted in a massacre.
The recollections from former inmates, government officials, family members of guards, and journalists do most of the groundwork here. But, there's a massive amount of arrival footage including horrific images of the aftermath that leave indelible conclusions about what happened.
In the end, what happened is that there's a lot of blame to go around for what went wrong.
And, without directly commenting on it, documentarian Stanley Nelson Jr.'s film also points out that 50 years later much work at improving race relations needs to be done.
Attica is one of the better journalistically sound docs I've seen in the last ten years. It's about the 1971 uprising at the Attica Prison in New York State that shined a spotlight on the brutal conditions inmates endured, but ultimately resulted in a massacre.
The recollections from former inmates, government officials, family members of guards, and journalists do most of the groundwork here. But, there's a massive amount of arrival footage including horrific images of the aftermath that leave indelible conclusions about what happened.
In the end, what happened is that there's a lot of blame to go around for what went wrong.
And, without directly commenting on it, documentarian Stanley Nelson Jr.'s film also points out that 50 years later much work at improving race relations needs to be done.