Nobody's Business - Documentary Response

Nobody’s Business

In the documentary “Nobody’s Business,” the director Alan Berliner takes a look into his fathers past. As we watch we see that one of his main goals are to understand why his mother and father got a divorce. That’s where the title of this movie comes from – for when Alan asks his father why they got a divorce he replies saying that it’s “nobody’s business.” Besides looking into his parents divorce, Alan is interested in finding (anything) out about his ancestors, and where they came from.

           

            The filmmakers relationship with his subject is son to father. Alan (the director) holds the power, for he is the one with all the information on his family’s history. While his father has no knowledge of anything, and is frankly uninterested to find out about his past. Alan would ask his father about his past to which his father had no recollection and would say something funny like “how the hell would I know” or “I don’t care to know.”  This creates a sort of comedic aspect to the documentary. Alan doesn’t abuse the power that he has over his father, but he merely uses it to see if he can retain any new information from his father that he doesn’t already know. Unfortunately, his father proves to know absolutely nothing, which was funny, but at the same time unsatisfying.

            The gaze was either on Alan’s father or on home videos of his mother and his father from twenties and early thirties. The home videos Alan choses to put in the documentary illustrate his fathers line perfectly, almost as if the home videos were made for the documentary. 

           

The point of view in Nobody’s Business was factual with all the information that we as the audience were getting from Alan’s fathers past, yet it was comical by how the information was delivered. For example, Alan would tell his father that his relatives came from somewhere in Russia, and his father would follow up to that with “who the hell cares,” it put a funny spin on an otherwise factual documentary about a mans ancestors.

           

The voice of this piece was interactive and easy to follow along. It was meant to be understood, and not overly complicated. It was an amazing documentary, and I enjoyed it immensely.

 

It’s hard to explain how this is considered perceived power, but basically Alan has just asked Oscar (his father) why he and Alan’s mother got a divorce. Oscar looks puzzled, and frankly a little sad, but then replies saying that “it’s nobody’s business.” Alan is the one holding the power, for he asks his father this very emotional question and he is waiting for a sort of reaction or response. It puts his father in a very vulnerable place, and it shows on his face in the picture. (Oscar isn’t the one with the power, but you never see the Alan’s face in this scene – that’s why I chose this picture). 

Alone

How Laura Poitras….

How Laura Poitras….

This article initially started out talking about Laura exchanging emails with someone who had top secret information that the government had been listening into peoples calls and reading peoples emails. I started out not understanding what I was reading, but then the author takes you back in time and it all starts to make sense.

            It all starts off with Laura Poitras background – how she is a documentary maker and how she is interested in government surveillance. She traveled to Iraq where she was accused of knowing an attack was going to occur before it actually did. This however was false – but ever since then she was put on watch and the no flight list. Laura took extensive precautions – clearing information off of her phone, decrypting information on her computer, all so the government wouldn’t be able to know what she was up to.

            Soon she was contact by Snowden, who is a man in his late twenties, who said he knew lots of information about the government’s surveillance on America. She blindingly trusted him and got Greenwald involved as well. The three of them became a team and precociously carried forth with their plans. However they were discovered and their plans were stopped in their tracks. Poitras and Greenwald left Hong Kong (where the three of them had been meeting) and got out of the thick of the action. As for Snowden he went into hiding for he was the most wanted man alive.

            This article was very interesting to read. Honestly, when I usually see an article this long I will just skim it and not read all of it, but for this article I read intently the whole time. It was crazy to learn about some of these things. Of course I knew that the government was allowed to listen into calls and such, but I didn’t know to what extent they went too. 

The Art of Peeping

Sorenna Brown

TRM153

09/15/13

The Art of Peeping

            This article talks about whether taking photographs of people in their own homes without permission should be considered intrusion or a form of art. Svenson is a photographer who took pictures with a 500mm lens of people through their windows. He then put these pictures in a gallery, which led to some concern from the people in the pictures.

            This led to the discussion, should this be considered peeping? The court ruled that “Svenson’s actions were defensible under the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech.” Compared to artists like Kohei Yoshiyuki who took pictures of people having sex, Svenson’s work is practically harmless.

            My opinion on the matter is what Svenson’s was not appropriate, because I know if I was being watched and photographed I would feel incredibly uncomfortable. If he would have asked for consent first, then that’s a different story. However he said that the whole point of this project was to observe the unconscious aspect of life – so asking for consent would defeat the purpose. In any matter, I think the whole thing is creepy and overall uncalled for. 

Without You