Issues In Documentary & film

Accuracy
Accuracy in documentaries is to see is the information on the subject is precise. This is a very important component of a documentary because you don't want to present false inaccurate information to the audience. A good example is a BBC documentary called 'Turner's Thames', it is about the life of William Turner and his 'Relationship', with painting The River Thames, this is a accurate documentary because it refers to past events and people that knew the painter, that present facts about him to inform and entertain its audience.

Balance
Balance in a documentary is to show equal sides to a story or argument. If the documentary's views were very one sided it would be classed as being bias, so it is very important to have balance in a documentary, this is because it shows lots of different views on the topic/subject in hand, and this lets the audience make their decision  on the subject. A good example of this is a graphic documentary called, 'Lake of Fire', it is about abortion and it follows both sides to the debate.

Impartiality
Impartiality means if the documentary is neither for or against whatever the subject may be, it shows equal amounts for both sides for or against. Fahrenheit 9/11 is more against the subject than for it, they show how war affects Iraq and also it shows how it affects America, which gives even sides, nevertheless Michael Moore slightly shows a view that puts America under the spot light, this expresses that they are doing wrong and are the enemy.

Objectivity
Objectivity is when a documentary places facts and information to point the subject into one perspective for the audience to believe, this is to persuade the audience to look to one side of the story. In Dark Days there are legal facts about getting the homeless out of the New York Subway System, these were to bring balance to the subject but the homeless shown there views on these facts and you were drawn back to there 'side'.

Subjectivity
Subjectivity is when facts, information and opinions are presented in a way to let the audience decide for their own opinion. In Fahrenheit 9/11 it shown different sides to the story, but it always left the audience open for their opinion.

Opinion
Opinion is when individuals watching the documentary may have their own views on the subject at hand or just the documentary itself. In Dark Days all the homeless had similar opinions on the subject of them getting evicted from the subway system tunnels.

Bias
Bias is when the subject matter within a documentary can be one sided towards the subject/topic or argument in hand. This could possibly be to make someone or something look bad and another thing look good in comparison. Dark Days was on the Homeless People of New York's side for most of the documentary and this was to show the government in a bad light.

Representation
Representation is when the filmmaker has his own representation of the subject matter; this might be shown in the documentary. Fahrenheit 9/11's maker Michael Moore had his own representation on the subject and this was shown in the film but it wasn't a full on 'extreme' influence on the documentary, it still let the audience decide there own opinion on the topic in hand.

Privacy
Privacy is how private the filmmaker will keep the subject if it goes into someone's personal life. In Dark Days the filmmaker went into the selected homeless peoples homes and their lives, where there was scenes of drug use, which obviously is a very serious and personal life choice.


Issues in Film

Film can also be convicted in using biased opinions as well as documentaries. Often with many of the true story based films, there will usually be a small element of inaccuracy on the subject that is being filmed, this is most likely to give the film an edge and make it more appealing exagerating certain scenarios. In most cases with film issues, it shows only one side of the story as it stereotypically follows a main character, so you will only be exposed to this opinion. Also in some situations it is hard to portray certain events through film and the director sometimes takes the easy way out and might take out sections of the story and adapt it to a similar scenario.

Or it can just be the directors decision to just simply portray a story in one specific way as they feel it could add anticipation or even lead onto a following film. Some may argue that it is not true to the story line with directors interpreting films like this, which is true, this is the negative side of this, but the directors will mostly have a very valid reason for these cuts, but in all honesty the film industry is a business and they will add and subtract in a original story line, just to appeal to the biggest audience possible for the optimum amount of box office sales. An example of a film being biased is the new Zero Dark Thirty, the story line is based on the build up and story behind the killing of Bin Laden. The main reason for it being supposedly biased is because it ignore the fact that the CIA, FBI, Homeland security of America, George W.Bush and Obama didn't have much input when they put the most hard work into capturing the suspect. The director has made the film very one-sided showing objectivity by them placing all this attention on just one female CIA agent who was the only reason why the suspect Bin Laden was killed. The director has allowed and only touched on the Navy Seals within the film who carried out this operation to kill Bin Laden. 

Within Zero Dark Thirty there is another controversial example where nearly every Muslim women in the Pakistan scenes are wearing some sort of head covering. This has as you can expect caused uproar as it looks like this film seems to portray all Muslim women wearing head coverings as terrorists. This is something the director should have thought about a lot more as its not the Burka that portrays them as terrorists obviously as thats racist, but its the way the films shot that makes them look on the wrong side of the law, nevertheless within Muslim culture, Islamic Women are expected to were traditional clothes that over them.