Watch the video here.
I chose the video Redefining Freedom which was shot by Jill Drew, Pierre Kattar, and Lauren Keane. It has been edited with photo montages from the Tiananmen Square confrontation that happened 20 years ago. It also has voice-overs for a narrator figure, giving the background of the documentary. There are text sections identifying the people being interviewed as well as subtitles translating what they are saying, since they are speaking Chinese. The piece is about how the idea of freedom has changed since the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989, focusing on interviews done with Beijing residents all all ages. These range from an 11 year old boy who thinks freedom is his “parents understanding [him] and not making [him] do things [he] doesn’t want to” to a retiree who lived during Mao’s time and considers himself to be very free now. I thought it was very interesting what the girl college student said about how she didn’t have anything against democracy, but that it wasn’t realistic for China. This made me think and I think history supports this statement. China has always been at its highest points under strong, strict, and reasonably fair dynasties (for example, the Tang). Perhaps communism in China is working towards making itself into a modern version of that prosperous dynasty model.
The shots in the clip are mostly close ups, which I consider to be a result of the interview format of the documentary. One thing I noticed in particular is that the close up on the oldest gentleman being interviewed, the retiree, was closer than the close up on most others. Most shots were from the chest up, but in the retiree’s shots the bottom of the frame is near his collar bones and sometimes the top of his forehead gets cut off. I interpret this as a way to reflect the Chinese respect for elders and as a way to make him larger, and thus more important, than the others being interviewed. The close shot was also done for the 11 year old, but rather than emphasis his status, is does more to emphasis how young he is and because he’s so small it just doesn’t have the same effect. I also noticed that the ex-political prisoner was significantly farther away than the others. His frames sometimes showed his waist near the bottom and there was still empty space over his head.
Brian Said:
on October 20, 2009 at 9:16 pm
I too watched a documentary that was mostly talking heads and therefore shot with medium closeups, invoking a desire to share information rather than put forward emotional influence. After watching your documentary, though, I found it interesting how you interpreted the reason for the extreme closeup on the elder as a purposeful exclamation upon his status. I agree with your analysis, but it is not a detail that I would have caught had that been my documentary.
I think that we often put too much thought into the framing of shots, though, as with the ex-political prisoner who was given too much headroom above the shot. Though it may seem to give him a sense of less dignity or significance, I doubt that it was a conscious decision by the cinematographers of this piece.