Do you trust documentary or expository films?

Ha! The first documentary that came to mind when I read this question was POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold

I trusted them when I was younger and easily influenced. Now, not so much.

@harangutan Yes, that one.

But less obviously, I’m watching some film and the camera zooms in on the Toyota Prius or, in an interview scene, the brand of the beverage is displayed.

I think “This opinion is brought to you by Miller Genuine Draft, or Pepsi”.

Some documentaries bring great truths to audiences, and some bring nothing but a con job. The same is true of prose and fiction, movies, television, speeches, all forms of communication. I think one has to be particularly careful to documentary film, because the images and narrative can be extremely compelling while actually being carefully crafted by propagandists to create a conviction that falsity is truth. Any form of communication can do this, but a film can do it in a very compelling way. If we view it with our guard down, it can easily overwhelm our critical thinking skills.

As with anything, we should probably view them just as a starting point for our own research and critical thinking.

@augustlan said exactly how I feel about documentaries. For me, they bring to light many issues I may not have heard of or heard much about. From there I go off to do my own research on the subject.

Not really, especially if they’re all biased and stuff.

With a grain of salt. It’s important to know who funded the movie, and who made it and why. It’s as necessary to know as you would consider reading a magazine article.

Like @augustlan, @ETpro and @zenvelo I take EVERYTHING with a grain of salt. I use new information as a jump off point.

Every documentary—for that matter, anything on film—is “true” only to the extent its producers captured and crafted the truth as they saw it—and therefore necessarily biased. Think of it like this: If the same subject were filmed by two different sets of producers, directors and writers, let alone a hundred or a thousand, each product would be different.

I greatly respect how Michael Moore adamantly describes himself as a filmmaker, stressing that his works aren’t documentaries. He’s biased, he has an agenda, and he states his case, but he doesn’t hide behind the guise of pseudo-journalism.