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Friday, September 16, 2011

Can We Really Report on What We Want---An Exploration into our Freedoms of Speech...

I have wondered whether it is still the best time to be a documentarian in this post 9/11 age.  Since the terrorist bombings of 2001 we have grown into being more militant protecting our at home interests and exploring what more security must be put into place in order to keep our society from falling apart and departing into utter chaos.  During these years post 9/11 I'd argue that we've seen a reduction in any kind of documentarian filmmaking that tends to question more of what is good and bad in our society.  The onslaughts of Michael Moores and other witty documentarians has withered and in fact I must notice that even some of Michael Moores work has become more watered down versus the work he originally produced like ROGER AND ME in the earlier parts of the new century.  Have we lost our voice due to the fact that any kind of outrage stated through documentarian filmmaking has been squashed a bit because of our fears of terroristic activity or anti American statements that might be misunderstood as treason if we were to speak our minds in these mundane years?  I'm asking us all here to help me reaffirm my belief in the American way of making good hearty controversial documentaries for some examples out there of productions that have asked us all to think about our state of affairs these past 15 years and help me rekindle a belief that there is hope in continuing down a road of filmmaking that can still question whether or not I agree or disagree with what the President has to say to the American people in his State of the Union address....I  need some reassurance America and want to feel like what I do for a living can still make a difference and that what I am doing is going to help make people think and get out of their arm chairs and act.  Have we all become complacent?   Has the unemployment statistics that keep going up reflect a nation that has been trained to be agreeable and passive in their hopes for better evolving natures and change?  I want to feel like my country and the films documentarians have the power to produce can still find an audience of people that still care about where our country is going and what makes us all want a better America.  The examples of filmmaking I've witnessed these past years has not really struck a cord to many times while analyzing it and I wonder if anti war themes are just a second nature reaction to what our country is becoming instead of finding films and documentaries that can still find the heartbeat of our nation and look to show where we've come and what we've evolved into....Please help me find the hope in continuing to make poignant films instead of watching my piers around me dabble in filmmaking that has become mundane and far from reaching into our American psyche and getting us all to care just a little bit more....Is anybody out there?

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