Nothing to my knowledge suggests a rule against animation to display a documentary. Furthermore, no possible purposes of a documentary are harder to accomplish with animation. Documentaries are used for the most part to spread truth. Some may argue that animation is a lesser form of truth compared to film, but if we turn to all of history, the track record of any other form of recording and displaying truth, like paintings, text, etc., is about as accurate as film. Film and photography can lie just as easily as animation.
As a matter of fact, I think in this film, the choice to animate actually helps better convey the truth. Things like the surreal vision of the soldiers naked on the beaches of Beirut may not be based in fact, but they show more than documentary footage could have; the mental and emotional effects of the soldiers, the fugue state of a soldier trying to remember, the detachment from society felt by a soldier on leave... All of these things are truths, yet they would be much harder to achieve with film.
Lastly, the juxtaposition of animation in the first 99.5% of the film with the footage at the end creates a striking and haunting imprint on anyone watching it. The whole film shows cartoon violence and the audience adjusts to that level of exposure, only to get knocked over by the real footage of torment and death. The surprise brings the direct impact of war home.
I'm not really sure you answered the question. You spend very little time with it. Explore the options so your position ends up on more sold footing.
ReplyDeleteI don't know get the idea that painting is a means of recording and displaying the truth. While it may project an idea of the painter in a way that that idea comes across to a viewer, that idea is not necessarily "true." I think the same can be said for animation. The animator of Waltzing is helping to project a feeling of what war is like, but I think Schindler's List does a good job of this as well. This alone does not make it a documentary. Your right: it's a powerful film, but that power actually makes it suspect as a documentary because that power seems to come from the drawings.
I do agree with Johnny's point that there is no rule against animation in documentaries but I think that might have been the point. If Mr. Boswell was to ask us something that had a definite answer then all of us would of had the same answer over and over again. I personally believed that the use of animation was good in this film because it was animation that tried hard to make it look as real as possible while still being a tad cartoony. I would of had a different opinion if the style was more Toy Story but I agree that this style of animation worked for the documentary.
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