American Cinematographer - January 1993 - 64

technologies, ethical standards,
censorship, preservation, docu¬
mentaries as tools for social change,
and basic advice on how to survive

documentary filmmaker.
Most participants agreed
that times are now tougher on
documentarians than perhaps ever
before, yet technological advances
in broadcasting and the prolifera¬
as a

they're not wanted, to film things

real

that will shut the mouth of the liar."

to

In the

more."

case of Xiaokang Su, these
words were prophetic: Su's govern¬
ment reacted to his latest documen¬

[purpose! of documentaries is
push people to want to know
In addition to the

tary by piling all available video¬
tapes of the film in Tiananmen

ties in the L.A.

area.

Square and crushing them with a
bulldozer. But when pressed to talk
about his struggle to present the

high-speed 7293 (200T) and inter¬
mediate

have
In

his

welcoming ad¬
dress, the chair¬
man

ery

of Discov¬

Communi¬

cations, John
Hendricks, de¬

historical documentation

scribed what he
called the next
wave of televi¬
sion - pro¬

-

on demand. He noted
that recent breakthroughs in digi¬
tal band compression have greatly
increased the satellite transmission

gramming

capabilities of the television signal,
multiplying the number of cable
channels available for program¬
ming with satellites that are already
in

place.

spend twelve billion dollars at their
local video store," he noted. "In to¬

tally advertising-supported televi¬
sion, documentaries lose out. But
with 140 channels,
able to pick up the
der whatever

people will be
phone and or¬

they want to

see on

their television at any time. View¬
ers will be able to vote with their

dollars, and this will lead to

con¬

financing of documenta¬

ries."

The challenge of getting
work seen involves overcoming the

notion,

as

Australian filmmaker

Dennis O'Rourke

(Half Life, The
put it, "that
documentaries are supposed to be
good for you."
Good Woman ofBangkok)

At their heart,

ries

need

documenta¬

about telling the stories that

are

to

be told.

In

1898,

a

cinematographe operator in War¬
saw

62

named Boleslaw Matuszewski
that cinematog¬

theater

for

a

screening of
Tropical Rain¬
forest.

."

The

Con¬

gress
culmi¬
nated with the

eighth annual IDA awards dinner
at the Biltmore Hotel in downtown

activities

not

"The

their craftsmanship and artistry as
well. William Miles, whose film Lib¬

as a filmmaker, added,
greatest censorship that you

face is the

one

that you

impose

Los Angeles.

The awards, voted by

and for documentarians, were cre¬
ated to recognize documentaries

only for their content but for

yourself."
The panelists also spoke of
the challenge to show objectivity in

erators earned him and co-director

a cinema that often treads the line
between depiction and exploita¬
tion. Hartmut Bitomsky, a German
filmmaker and critic whose latest

Awards, commented: "Nina and I

project examines Nazi propaganda
films, commented: "These archival
films taught me not to trust images
and words. We should extend this
distrust to our own images. A film

image just might tell the op¬
posite of what is intended. These
or an

films show what fascism was like
and at the same time they disguise
what it was."
"The normal implication is
that the filmmaker is the expert on
the subject," continued O'Rourke.

"The unstated hero of the non-fic¬
tion film is the director, and I be¬
lieve that we've got to explode this
notion of documentarian as theolo¬

gian,

as

"We shouldn't presume
we can

January 1993

Nina Rosenblum

of this year's
Achievement

one

Distinguished
have

a

word for documentaries

-

pain. It's pain you go through to get
from here to there to make these
films happen. We thank you for re¬

moving that pain."
Other winners

were

Rea

Tajiri for History and Memory: For
Akiko and Takashige; David Van Tay¬
lor for Dream Deceivers: The Story
Behind James Vance vs. Judas Priest;
Eleanor Coppola, Fax Bahr, Les

Mayfield, and George Zaloom for
of Darkness: A Film Maker's
Apocalypse; and Errol Morris for A
Brief History of Time. USC student

Hearts

Lisa Kors
L.

was

awarded the David

Wolper Student Prize for Shayna

Maidels: Orthodox
Girls.

Jewish Teen-Age

In addition,

the director of

the UCLA Film and Television

preacher."

raphers will want to

Cinematographer

the L.A. Imax

censorship where
you'd least expect it." Patricio
Guzman, formerly imprisoned by
the Pinochet regime in Chile for his

added Folco Quilici

where

ing system, and

truth, Su observed: "Sometimes

that

go

for their
editDROID
non-linear edit¬
arts

Walter Cronkite

you encounter

wrote: "I am sure

American

.

upon
"This year Americans will

sumer

.

5344

stocks, Lucas-

"Documentary is of course the
whole scope of human experience,
but its essence is keeping that
scope of human experience as

sparked opti¬
mism.

Participants

visited Eastman Kodak for a dem¬
onstration of the company's new

tion of cable net¬

works

panel

discussions, the Congress offered
field trips to numerous facili¬

teach the viewers,"

of Italy. "The

Archive, Robert Rosen, received the
Preservation and

Scholarship

Award for his leadership as an edu-
American Cinematographer - January 1993

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