Producing Constellations: Opening New Documentary to Rhizome Theory

Helen Browning BBus (Film/TV) QUT School of Film and Television, CIRAC, QUT Supervisor John Hookham Exegesis for requirements of Master of Arts (Research) degree Submitted 2004

Keywords

Rhizome:

Incorporated in this paper in its figurative sense, as per Deleuze and

Guattari (1988), to describe non-hierarchical networks of all kinds:

A rhizome as subterranean stem is absolutely different from roots and

radicles. Bulbs and tubers are rhizomes. Plants with roots or radicles

may be rhizomorphic in other respects altogether: the question is

whether plant life in its specificity is not entirely rhizomatic. Even

some animals are, in their pack form. Rats are rhizomes... The

rhizome itself assumes very diverse forms, from ramified surface

extension in all directions to concretion into bulbs and tubers...A

rhizome ceaselessly establishes connections between semiotic chains,

organization of power, and circumstances relative to the arts,

sciences, and social struggles. (p7)

Plateau:

Designates a continuous, self-vibrating region of intensities whose

development avoids any orientation toward a culmination point, climax or

external end (Bateson, quoted in Deleuze & Guattari, 1988, p21-22).

Chaordic:

Hock, the founder of Visa, introduced the term ‘chaordic’ to describe

organisations that are self-organising and self-governing.

Abstract Uncertainty is a documentary film about belief systems that human animals

use to navigate the unknown and assign meaning to experiences. It

acknowledges that we exist amidst the parameters of our own perceptual

constructs. Our frameworks for navigation often range in degrees of

openness to the unknown and to outside scrutiny.

I set out to explore these concepts through interactions with different

individuals and social groups, each with their unique templates. I hoped to

produce a stimulating film that engaged diverse audiences through diverse

content.

Structural and stylistic considerations are paramount to my theoretical and

post-production reflections on Uncertainty. Deleuze and Guattari’s (1988)

theory of rhizomes provides a good reference in terms of the cross-

fertilisation of ideas, decentralised structure and different states of

connection that I hoped to provoke through the film.

New documentary theory highlights a trend towards greater interaction

between filmmaker, audience and subject (Bruzzi, 2000). This signals a

growing understanding that striving for objectivity in documentary is

redundant. Although it is a welcome development, discussion could be

broadened in relation to filmmaker presence and interactivity, to include

style and structure as modes of primary interaction for the filmmaker with

the audience and subject. This exegesis approaches expanding the

parameters for interaction to examples, such as Uncertainty, where the

filmmaker is neither present in image or voice.

Texts that offer constellations of ideas, like a rhizome, provide an alternative

to those following a more linear progression or centralised argument.

Promoting greater connectivity and multiplicity in documentary is congruous

with the current developments in communications and technologies.

Table of contents

Statement of Originality V Acknowledgments VI Introduction 1 Method 2 Subject Matters 4 Filmmaker Presence 11

• Voices without sound files 13 Considering Structure 14

• Plateaus 14 • Rhizomes 18

Producing Constellations 24 Conclusion 26 References 28

Statement of original authorship The work contained in this thesis has not been previously submitted for a degree or diploma at any other higher education institution. To the best of my knowledge and belief, the thesis contains no material published or written by another person except where due reference is made. Signed: Date: 19 March 2004

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Acknowledgments I would like to extend great thanks to my supervisor, John Hookham, for his assistance and encouragement. Also, I would like to thank Gary MacLennan for his feedback.

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INTRODUCTION

This exegesis focuses on Deleuze and Guattari’s theory of rhizomes and looks

at attributes of films that complement this way of exploring and learning.

My documentary film, Uncertainty, is the main text in point. To explore

different constructs that humans use for navigating the unknown, I attempted

to use a less linear structure to provoke more tangential thinking and offer

greater potential for different layers of meaning in the text. Structurally, the

film embodies many of the principles of a rhizome, as outlined by Deleuze and

Guattari (1988).

Texts that offer constellations of ideas, like a rhizome, are an alternative to

those that; follow a more linear progression, consistently draw participants

back to a central thesis, or filter and signpost the material through a singular,

tangible onscreen identity or voiceover.

New documentary theory spends much discussion on the degree of interactivity

between filmmaker, audience and subject. However, the filmmaker’s presence

is predominantly discussed in terms of interactivity when there is a physical

image or audible voice. Dealing primarily in tangible onscreen relationships can

be a limitation in new documentary theory.

In exploring new documentary theory in relation to rhizome theory, the

ensuing discussion loosens some boundaries surrounding the main elements of

documentary storytelling: a medium that can be more open and progressive.

Before launching into this discussion, it is worth establishing the process with

which I approached producing Uncertainty and the accompanying exegesis.

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METHOD

Uncertainty was born out of a personal grievance with many people’s use of

language, which could be described as synonymous with their thinking on a

cerebral level (ie. their reflective awareness born out of more recent brain

functions in the evolutionary process). This grievance rippled into something

more plural and positive. At the outset, frustration had set in after a long

period of entertaining a relentless youthful compulsion to correct people’s

application of broad generalisations to complex systems. For example, often

peers would comment on a group of ‘others’ based on limited interactions and

without providing acknowledgement of contextual factors that may

substantiate their claims to an extent. Admittedly, this frustration was a

primary motivator in producing a film. Given the nature of this impetus, my

intention was to engage in a reflective, non-linear process over a substantial

timeframe, so as to avoid producing an overtly didactic film: hopefully this was

not the experience for most audiences.

The process I used to produce Uncertainty lies best under the umbrella of

action research which describes a family of research methodologies that pursue

action (or change) and research (or understanding) at the same time (Dick,

1999). It does this by using a cyclic or spiral process that alternates between

action and critical reflection.

Initially the film was preoccupied with correlating thinking patterns with neural

wiring and learning styles. I read a fair amount of popular science literature

and attended a seminar by British neuroscientist, Susan Greenfield, who talks

and writes in layperson’s terms about how the brain works, and what we do

and do not know about consciousness (the latter being the more substantial).

This informed my approach to the subject area of the film which I initially titled

Grey Matters. The film looked at all sorts of ‘irrational’ thinking (eg. belief in

supernatural phenomena, fundamental religion etc) with insights into human-

animals’ brain wiring and learning processes into adulthood.

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Grey Matters was heavily steeped in western scientific rationalism. Fortunately,

the production took on an emergent process, in accordance with action

research, whereby it took shape as understanding grew. The film uses western

settings but this is not proffered as being in its favour, and does not translate

into its structure.

The timeframe played an important role in assuring adequate reflection to

allow for cyclic processes. Filming took place sporadically over the course of

one year. Although there was a developed script, the text took flight in

different directions as a direct consequence of the filming process. Reflecting

on the material collected at any given point in the process impacted on the

focus in filming the next scene.

In most of its forms action research is also participative (among other reasons,

change is usually easier to achieve when those affected by the change are

involved) and qualitative (Dick, 1999). Discussions with interviewees

participating in the film progressed my thinking and enabled new twists and

turns to develop in the text. Interviews with psychotherapist, Shar Edmunds,

were particularly process-orientated, and steered the text away from an overly

scientific-rationalist slant.

The finished film, Uncertainty, is very different from both its initial impetus

(‘the grievance’) and the final script. Structurally, I approached writing the

exegesis in the same way. This involved research and writing around the

peripheries of new documentary theory and following different lines of flight. It

was a circular process, alternating between action and reflection.

In A Question of Genre: de-mystifying the exegesis, Brady (2000) discusses

the nature and role of the research higher degree's exegesis, which

accompanies the creative product. This online paper in TEXT highlights the

uneasy relationship between the creative and the traditional academic

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discourse, and offers recent insights from academics in the field as to some

parameters for the exegesis. Consequently, I set out to discuss my beliefs

about Uncertainty in terms of its origins, processes, development, strengths

and weaknesses, and to explore and contrast other contemporary

documentaries. An exegesis can offer a theoretical appraisal, looking at how

the student puts this theory into practice (Brady, 2000). Primarily, I found

elements of new documentary theory and rhizome theory to be useful in

analysing my stylistic and structural decisions for Uncertainty.

Discussion in this exegesis is organised under the broad headings of subject

matters, filmmaker presence and structure. They can be read in any order.

However, I will begin with Subject Matters to outline ideas in the raw content

prior to launching into more theoretical discussion.

SUBJECT MATTERS

In Uncertainty, we emerge from the primeval sludge on an ongoing journey

that we leave with the manipulation of the elements for art’s sake: a man

twirling a stick ablaze with fire. And the purpose of this journey is an

acknowledgment that we know very little. We are existing amidst the

parameters of our own perceptual constructs. It is an offering of emerging

possibilities.

In childhood we experience an array of sensory information, and we have

limited ability to draw patterns and categorise from these experiences. In

Uncertainty, we meet a group of children and their facilitator who have created

a food forest together. The children make observations about experiencing the

cycles of growth in the garden, nurturing the plants for sustainable living, and

noticing the similarities between themselves and the animals. As young Amelia

says, “It’s a never-ending cycle. It just goes on and on.” This is then intended

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to be experienced visually as we track over the mangroves to the same

repetitive beats as the opening scene, only faster.

This scene in the food forest is filmed in the traditional style of an educational

video: interviews, cutaways to action etc. This was done purposefully, as I

thought that a more elaborate style would detract from the content in this case

- the children’s insights into the cycles of life. The scene that follows (after a

short interlude with psychotherapist, Shar Edmunds) is about children with

Aspergers’ Syndrome or Autism, and it continues in educational documentary

style.

Aspergers Syndrome and Autism are thought to affect communication, in

particular language skills, wherein children with either syndrome when

addressed are often only cognisant of a few words in any sentence. Therefore

“Please do not jump in the puddles!” may be understood as “Jump in

puddles!”. Cognitive problems are often misinterpreted as behavioural

problems. Additionally, learning difficulties due to communication problems are

often understood to denote a lack of intelligence in children who may be

clever.

Kim Tvede, deputy principal and psychologist, addresses these issues in

Uncertainty. There is no super to notify audiences of his name or position, as

his credibility lies in what he has to say. This is the case for all the participants.

The decision to exclude titles is based on priorities, in terms of information

outlay, and the issue of evoking stereotypes in audiences’ minds based on

‘qualifications’. Brief descriptions of all the participants are included in the

closing credits to help people who want to put names to faces.

Tvede elucidates on the distinct differences in thinking amongst children with

Aspergers’ Syndrome or Autism in comparison to those who do not have either

syndrome. We all experience the world uniquely, but in most people’s tendency

to generalise through language there emerges a sense of shared experience of

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‘reality’. This is less the case with children who have Aspergers’ Syndrome or

Autism. The patterns formed through language are not so distinct: there are

other patterns that a person who does not have either syndrome can neither

fully experience nor understand.

Different realities have already emerged in childhood. In between the two

scenes involving different social groups of children, Shar Edmunds states, “We

have different perceptual lenses, so some things make sense to us and other

things don’t.” And often things make sense based on superficial patterns, as is

the case in racism, sexism, specism, and so on. Uncertainty moves into the

problems encountered when we grasp too readily at ‘solutions’ that we

construct to complex systems, thinking we can solve the mystery that is every

human being.

Joe Wagner, an Austrian man who served in the German army during World

War II, was a popular voice for hard-working activists amongst audiences;

those who yearn for some peace to enjoy the simplicities of life. This plateau is

introduced by a montage of activists fighting for the rights of refugees

imprisoned in the Australian desert, and during Joe’s interview we see more

images of people behind the razor wire. This attempts to connect Australia’s

refugee policies with the circumstances surrounding the popularity of the Nazis

in the lead up to World War II and the horrors of war, in an emotionally

charged way.

The plateau emphasises the horrors that emerge when people ignore humanity

and fear the unknown: in this case, the unknown being Islam. As a refugee’s

face dissolves under a freedom flag, bubbles dance on the wind and move with

the young people enjoying themselves in the open air. Bubbles and wind are

traditionally both symbols of transcience so this may provide some relief from

the previous images of suffering. This imagery along with the lighter music is

intended to make the strong contrast between glimpses of despair and the

spirit of freedom. It attempts to be emotionally confrontational which is

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important for audiences to experience in terms of offering a tiny glimpse into

the suffering of refugees and asylum seekers.

At the same time emphasising the flipside of incarceration, the dance sequence

also explores the confines of a seemingly ‘free’ lifestyle. Slow motion grabs of

dancing and shots of ethereal expressions on young people’s faces are used to

give a sense of escapism. Maybe they relate to the activists in the previous

scene, attempting to free their brothers and sisters in immigration detention.

Whatever the motives, there is an escape from themselves into the plays of

light and repetitive beats. This scene concludes as a young woman takes a

tablet that audiences may assume is an illicit substance, and then we move to

members of a religious congregation taking the ‘blood of Christ’. This

juxtaposition is meant to hint at both groups’ attempts to reach some place

otherworldly and escape the suffering of everyday life.

The pastor says, “You’re gonna wake up in the morning and you’re gonna see

the world in a different manner. God is gonna walk with you in the

supernatural. Okay let’s pray”.

The montage of the religious group attempts to be quite ominous in its stale

colours and lingering pans across people longing for something beyond them.

Hands and voices reach out, and eyes wait to be filled with the spirit.

Pastor McCracken then gives an interpretation of the Bible that preaches

against uncertainty as the enemy of God’s people. According to him, people

who are vague are being affected by the Devil. These sorts of ideas are

imparted with high energy as McCracken jockeys back and forth like a boxer.

Filmed whilst in action with his congregation, McCracken is not afforded any

direct contact with the documentary audience in a set-up interview. This may

indirectly diminish his credibility.

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Philomena Paradis is the psychic healer whose scene follows the religious

sequence. Although Philomena is given direct interview time, she is filmed with

the sun overexposing her face intermittently. The music that accompanies the

introductory montage at a psychic fair has some dark undertones. This, in

combination with the filming, content and delivery of Philomena’s discussion is

designed to promote scepticism rather than acceptance. However, there is

nothing overt about the style and many viewers who are open to belief in

psychic phenomena expressed interest in this introduction to Philomena’s

world.

In the informal feedback process that followed screenings (I spoke with

approximately 50 people who viewed the film), it was interesting to see that

audiences developed strong affiliations with certain interviewees featured in

the film. Their feedback generally focussed on one particular interviewee in

each case, as though they were positioning themselves in relation to what they

experienced of the different characters and philosophies. The interviewees who

people identified with differed substantially, with no one interviewee especially

favoured over others. It could be argued that this is partially a result of

providing a diversity of perspectives without a guiding voice-over, and also

from questioning an audience of diverse social backgrounds, age, ethnicity and

gender. It was my intention that audiences be left to negotiate between their

own beliefs and those they experience onscreen, rather than negotiating with a

guide/filmmaker.

Scientist Vic Nurcombe who features in one of the early sequences, returns

towards the end of the film on a train trip. He has chosen a rather direct

journey in his pathway of science, but moving lights and bends still alter his

course. One of these diversions is his highly emotional experience of near

death in childhood. After detailing the events, Vic states that during near death

he found himself “somewhere wonderful”. At which point the film cuts to

Jeffrey Shaw manipulating a puppet amidst abstract shapes and sounds.

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Uncertainty decidedly slips sideways from its train journey to a different

dimension in which navigation is intended to be more obscure and personalised

so that audiences do not become too comfortable and decided. Through cutting

to a different sequence the audience are left not knowing what happened to

Vic, the near-death scientist, as we plunge into another world. Also, it can be

easy to think Vic Nurcombe’s explanations of the world are clear and plausible,

but perhaps they don’t open us up to other dimensions in the way that Jeffrey

Shaw’s creations can.

Jeffrey Shaw creates virtual worlds where participants interact with the media

in unique ways. He would argue that these worlds and interplays are as real

and true as experiences based in physical reality. “The material world is a map

of how we live our lives, and the living of our lives is by and large in a space of

immateriality.”

Shaw has a strong presence in all his work and yet he is not present physically.

In work such as Place – Ruhr participants can navigate their way through what

looks like documentary footage, stopping to see a man picking tomatoes in his

garden or watching picnickers on a summer day. Participants navigate the

worlds at their own pace and are drawn to scenes that trigger associations in

their mind.

In Uncertainty, Shaw is filmed on various screens, one of which shows different

perspectives of the interviewee (ie. close-ups of Shaw’s hands, face, wide

shots including glimpses of the crew and interviewer). And his art works are

also displayed simultaneously on the monitors. This stylistic approach is meant

to allude to interactivity and plays with notions of one reality by hinting at

multiple events that offer lines of flight occurring concurrently.

Shaw’s presence trapped in different monitors has the potential to distance the

audience as he becomes more an assemblage of perspectives rather than a

more earthly being, grounded in his physical presence. This style mirrors the

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content of this scene, which is largely decentralised: the ideas are intended to

provoke free-flowing exploration and exponential potentials rather than

offering a central thesis with explanatory examples. One could argue that the

scene moves towards a more childlike experience in that there is an increase in

disorientation and sensory stimulation, opening up adult minds to new realms.

The difference lies in the complexity of the receiver in that more meaningful

associations are possible rather than ensuing chaos.

Psychotherapist, Shar Edmunds, provides audiences with connections amongst

the discourse that may enable them to take flight on tangents in the

confidence that landing spots do exist. She suggests ideas that audiences may

or may not relate to what they have just seen or are about to see. Visual cues

of images from the rest of the film are cut into Shar’s discussion; however,

there is a distance between cutaway and dialogue - a space intended to keep

the audience interpreting rather than receiving.

Despite Vic Nurcombe providing a scientific perspective of his near-death

experience at the end of the film, audiences are not left with all the answers.

Viewers are given an explanation but Vic then elaborates that as humans our

brains are not big enough to understand existence. And even if our brains were

large enough he would not want to know the mysteries because life would

become too excruciatingly boring.

It could be argued that there is a bias in Uncertainty towards art and science,

rather than religion or psychic beliefs, as evidenced in Shar Edmund’s piece

that introduces the scenes with Jeffrey Shaw and Vic Nurcombe. Shar states

that “Science and art open us up to endless possibilities”. In retrospect, I

would maintain this bias towards science and art in relation to both fields’

greater openness to rigorous debate and reflection, but I might also provide

greater scepticism that they too are belief systems. This point may have been

too underdeveloped in Uncertainty. Though in feedback, the sample audience

said that they did not find the film dogmatic and interpreted it differently

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depending on their prejudices. Although Uncertainty is a highly authored piece,

hopefully the style allows for multiplicity perhaps partly due to the omission of

a singular onscreen identity or voice.

FILMMAKER PRESENCE

Documentary film has gone through a number of phases, most of which

evolved from preoccupations with capturing and representing actuality,

whereby subjects are less switched on to the filmmaker’s/audience’s presence.

This presumes that objectivity is possible. Renov (1986) states that “every

doco issues a ‘truth claim’ of a sort, positing a relationship to history that

exceeds the analogical status of its fictional counterparts” (p72).

The appealing idea that a camera can ever record anything objectively begins

to disintegrate the moment one confronts a few practical considerations

(Rabiger, 1992, pg8). If, for example, people are filmed without their

knowledge, we are still being given a subjective perspective of the situation in

that we are unaware of other contextual factors influencing their behaviours.

We are always observing from a position that encompasses our prejudices that

are built on the experiences we as individuals accumulate over our lifetime.

The mere act of observation is inherently subjective, not to mention the editing

and stylistic treatment of material.

The central thesis to Bruzzi’s (2000) text, New Documentary, is that

documentaries are inevitably the result of the intrusion of the filmmaker onto

the situation being filmed. Further, she postulates that documentaries are

performative because they acknowledge the constructive nature of non-fiction

film and propose that the underpinning truth is what emerges through the

encounter between filmmakers, subjects and spectators (p8).

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For example, Sheehan (1991) describes in his review of the documentary Sans

Soleil (Marker, 1982), a discussion of authorship that transpires in the film

when Krasna sees the strange Icelandic landscape created by the volcano:

Krasna imagines it as the scene of a science-fiction movie he will create,

called Sunless, in which a man from the fortieth century returns to earth

to discover the history of some songs by Mussorgsky, the "Sunless"

songs. The people of the future have no common ground with the music.

They hope their explorer can do for them what Krasna's friend's machine

can do: supply the subjectivity that allows a viewer (or a listener) to

connect directly with an objective image (or song). (Sheehan, 1991)

Associations can be quite obvious or hidden, and one dimensional or limitless,

depending on their treatment, context, and the audience. The filmmaker can

provide a point of connection for the associations and representations

experienced subjectively by audiences. For example, Krasna and the woman

who reads his letters, in Marker’s Sans Soleil, act as subjects with whom

audiences can correlate the subjective experiences. They provide a sense of

cohesion.

In Sans Soleil the filmmaker’s presence is, in my opinion, successfully

mediated through two fictional characters. However, I think that audiences can

correlate subjective treatment of material (ie. authorship) to an unseen author

in a documentary rather than requiring the mediation of an onscreen identity

or voice, be they fictional or ‘real’.

What constitutes ‘the filmmaker’s presence’ is not discussed in any depth in

new documentary theory during discourses on interactivity. For example,

Bruzzi’s discussion of truth does not explore the parameters for the ‘encounter’

between filmmaker, subjects and audience. The filmmaker’s presence is often

intensively evident in the film style alone. However, many new documentary

theorists favour the filmmaker’s on-screen or voice-over identity, or presence

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through fictional character/s, for fostering greater truth and interactivity with

the subjects and audience. This may be problematic because it undervalues the

audience’s intelligence in recognizing the stamp of authorship through other

elements such as style, tone, beliefs etc that may be emblazoned in the text.

Voices without sound files

Bruzzi (2000) highlights the reductionism in discussion of voice-over use in

documentaries (p40). Theorists have taken binary positions in supporting or

discrediting the role of voice-over; however, discussions have not extended to

the implications of different types of voices and use of diverse styles. Voice

selection has obvious effects on the tone and level of authority accepted by the

audience.

Issues of credibility rest in the audiences’ perception – in the level of

identification and trust they imbue in the voice. I may have a personal

preference for voices and scripting that are pondering and avoid didacticism.

Another viewer may find this style disorientating.

Bruzzi (2000) identifies the trend in documentary towards greater interplay

between filmmaker, subject and audience, and finds this trend evident in the

growing personalisation of voice-over:

Commentary, far from being a sign of omniscience and control, is the

hysterical barrier erected against the spectre of ambivalence and

uncertainty….it can also provide the impetus for dialectical distance

drawing the audience into sympathising for the image whilst setting

them critically against it. (Bruzzi, 2000, p52)

In discussing the potential for voice-over in documentary to personalise or

create dialectical distance, Bruzzi overlooks examples wherein films that

absent voice-over can reach the same degree of authorship, personalisation

and interactivity.

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Uncertainty does not incorporate voice-over for a number of reasons. Firstly,

the difficulty would be for me to select a suitable voice and scripting. I would

need to make decisions on the accent, gender, age and tone (of voice and

scripting), all of which I could not pinpoint. Every step towards including a

voiceover felt like a narrowing of the text in a negative sense.

In literature, there is not necessarily the added imposition of a specified tone

and age to the author that comes across in voice-over. I find that the

restraints on reaching greater multiplicity in film can be exacerbated by these

attributes of voice-over.

Secondly, the content of Uncertainty endeavours to provoke questions rather

than answers. Providing voice-over links between segments can encourage

passivity in the audience and an overly directed path for interpreting ‘correct’

linear connections, where multitudes may lie. Confusion amongst some

audiences could be argued as a positive response if disorientation then leads to

contemplation, even if related to different themes than those explored in the

film. Questions of audience interpretation and participation with the text are

strongly tied to structural considerations.

CONSIDERING STRUCTURE

Plateaus

In Capitalism and Schizophrenia: One Thousand Plateaus, Deleuze and

Guattari (1988) present their discussions as chapters, termed ‘plateaus’, that

can be read in any order.

A plateau is always in the middle, not at the beginning or the end. Bateson

uses the word ‘plateau’ to designate a continuous, self-vibrating region of

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intensities whose development avoids any orientation toward a culmination

point, climax or external end (in Deleuze & Guattari, 1988, p21-22).

Films often follow basic structural guidelines in terms of conflict and resolution

points. However, there is a minority comprising of plateaus that communicate

with one another across microfissures, as in a brain. Lucky People Center

International (Söderberg & Pauser, 1998) is comprised of plateaus and is

criticised in Brooks’ (1999) online review as being too democratic and lacking

in editorial structure that results in a “multicultural channel surf”. “Each time

there is no explanation as to why we are being shown these scenes, no

attempt to root them in a wider thesis” (Brooks, 1999).

In my experience, the beauty of Lucky People Center International’s

democratic style is that audiences can engage with the film on different levels.

The viewer determines how much reflection and how many connections are

assignified through this non-linear structure.

Barthes (1973) states that completeness is the “basic requirement of the

readerly”, later adding that a narrative without its requisite constituent parts (a

departure and an arrival) “would be a scandal” (p105). And White (1987)

presumes that narrative is needed not only to give the events structure beyond

the chronological, but to give them meaning which “they do not possess as

mere sequence” (p5).

Fear of confusion can be quite common in commentary from audiences and the

editorial community. In my opinion, there is a misconception that if a text does

not communicate an immediately clear argument or narrative it is not a

worthwhile piece. Brooks’ critique and that of others is typical of a western-

based thinking that seeks to identify and explore a problem, and then reach a

solution. This approach is evident in the structure and content of most new

documentaries. If the topic is more open-ended and meandering the filmmaker

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performs or interacts to ground the audience’s experience, so viewers are not

left in the middle.

In Sans Soleil the art of linking and structuring becomes not only the film's

subject but also the task of the spectator who can experience and analyse the

fictional characters’ associations. What is structurally similar between films like

Sans Soleil, Lucky People Center International and Uncertainty, is the

challenge to the audience to actively interpret and make connections between

plateaus. In order to make the most of each film, audiences have to actively

participate and work to elicit connections.

Story-telling and story-making lie along a spectrum: neither is mutually

exclusive and audiences never receive a story without interpreting it based on

their own templates. There are different degrees of audience interactivity with

the text. The more explanatory the links and signposts are, the less audiences

have to work to process the sensory information. Nichols (1994) comments on

the changing nature of documentary towards its subjects:

Traditionally, the word documentary has suggested fullness and

completion, knowledge and fact, explanations of the social world and its

motivating mechanisms. More recently though documentary has come to

suggest incompleteness and uncertainty, recollection and impression,

images of personal worlds and their subjective constructions”. (p1)

Bruzzi (2000) concurs that many documentaries are effectively chronicles or

chains and do not impose narratives that will render them retrievable or

comprehensible (p102). She gives examples like Keiller’s mock travelogues,

London and Robinson in Space, both of which prioritise the personal and

incomplete. However, both these films have fictional characters offering a form

of cohesion for the fragments.

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Hatred (1995) by Mitzi Goldman offers plateaus. The film artfully explores the

emotion of hatred through political, social and cultural lenses. It is a journey

film in which the filmmaker sets out to gain a greater understanding of the

emotion, hatred, through viewing it from political, social, cultural and personal

lenses. In this sense it is pluralist; however, the filmmaker’s presence provides

a stabiliser, grounding what is presented by an individual human form.

Goldman’s presence is quite effective in this case because her father’s story is

the impetus for the film and is an integral part of the narrative.

There are few examples of less narrative-driven documentary that are not

consolidated to a degree by the filmmaker’s or actor’s presence in the

voicetrack and/or vision. Theorists regularly neglect the possibilities for a

documentary text comprised of plateaus: “multiplicities connected to other

multiplicities by superficial underground stems in such a way as to form or

extend a rhizome” (Deleuze & Guattari, 1988, p22).

Structurally, the oscillation between different modes of identification and

diverse content, are useful in creating dynamic texts. Uncertainty attempts to

do this through its interplay of various plateaus to stimulate different

associations in the brain.

What some neuroscientists have in common is the belief that higher mental

functions originate from a process of loops that reverberate through the brain.

This is particularly the case between the thalamus and the cortex. The

thalamus is described as the primitive area of the brain and the source of so

many crucial signals. Whereas the cortex is described as the newer, more

sophisticated part of the brain associated with ‘higher’ reasoning.

Quite a number of scientists focus on the bidirectional connectivity of regions

of the brain, through which areas "resonate" to each other and are somehow in

sync (Scaruffi, 2003). Texts that use this process of oscillating between, or

simultaneously encouraging ‘higher’ reasoning and sensual, emotional

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engagement, could be described as mirroring the interconnectedness of

cognitive processes. The main documentary texts explored here use this

device.

In Lucky People Center International, “key phrases act as anchors, or

philosophical signposts in an otherwise map-less global tour” (Brooks, 1999).

These key phrases, which are extracts from the interviewees’ dialogue, play in

a loop. The audience is drawn into an entrancing percussive beat that

heightens the dreamlike possibilities offered by a cinematic environment. There

is an interplay between language and emotive sound/imagery.

The opening scene of Uncertainty is a visual metaphor for a stage in evolution:

a progression in consciousness whereby we emerge from the primeval sludge

to the beginnings of what we term ‘knowledge’, represented in the montage by

the entrance of the snake. It is set to a sound rhythm intended to build

suspense, without resolving. This visual motif and sound track reappear at a

faster pace as the discussion moves into childhood perceptual development: it

breaks up a substantively language-based discussion.

The interplay that reoccurs between language-based discussion and emotive,

dreamlike montages throughout Uncertainty, and to a lesser extent in Lucky

People Center International, asks audiences to move between a cerebral

interaction with the text to a less reflective, more sensual involvement. This

learning style, wherein more emotional content breaks up and merges with the

discourse, mirrors the interconnectedness of how our brains function.

Rhizomes

Uncertainty was structured intuitively. The final film embodies many attributes

of a rhizome in structure.

Connection and Heterogeneity are the first key principles of a rhizome, as

identified by Deleuze and Guattari (1988). Any point of a rhizome can be

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connected to anything other, and must be. This is markedly different from

arborescent forms that plot points, and fix an order (p7). Many Hollywood plot

structures provide a clear illustration of fixed orders wherein conflict, climax

and resolution appear at predictable points in the narrative timeline. I

attempted to avoid linear structuring in Uncertainty. The film is comprised of

fifteen plateaus that can be read in any order and hopefully each can be

considered whole unto themselves with the possibility of enrichment through

associations with other plateaus.

I also wanted to avoid didacticism through presenting a few different

perspectives and hopefully the finished film can integrate into other rhizomes

that encounter perspectives in psychology, education, science, art, philosophy,

spiritualism etc. This reflects the quality of a rhizome which ceaselessly

establishes connections between semiotic chains, organisations of power, and

circumstances relative to the arts, sciences, and social struggles (Deleuze and

Guattari, 1988, p7). As well as traversing many fields, Uncertainty also

attempts to cross different social boundaries and highlights the struggles of

displaced people, like refugees, artists and religious fundamentalists.

These qualities of connection and heterogeneity are evident in the

documentary, Sans Soleil. Marker traverses different social and cultural

semiotic chains in the fluid structure of an individual’s recollections which are

apparently haphazard unless the viewer attempts to forge associations and get

into the filmmaker’s fabric. The basis of Marker’s aesthetic is the power of

montage, and to serve it he has made films that are nothing more than

compilations of stills (Sheehan, 1991). Here the possibilities for connection are

exponential.

Lucky People Center International could be considered as an extended

montage. Audiences are alone with no narrator or presenter to guide them

through the subterrain of people and places that feed back into each other

through flash frames and repetitive beats. With no signposts, audiences meet

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assemblages of diverse people in equally diverse contexts, and the active

participant can forge an abundance of connections. An alternative reaction is to

become entranced in the hypnotic beats and rich visuals within a cinematic

environment. Engaging on this level may also provoke strong cerebral

connections when experiencing the content retrospectively.

When experiencing Lucky People Center International a second time I engaged

more cerebrally in what appeared to be an exploration of the differing

relationships amongst human-animals with our animal origins. Those

relationships included escapism, destruction, denial, acceptance and

assimilation, and they all crossed each other’s paths. For example, the

developers hoping to destroy the rainforest are connected through Lucky

People Center International’s editing with the people who have lived there for

centuries in harmony with the environment. This is in accordance with another

main principle of a rhizome: Multiplicity.

Multiplicities are defined by the outside: by the abstract line, the line of flight

or deterritorialization according to which they change in nature and connect

with other multiplicities (Deleuze and Guattari, 1988, p8).

In accordance with Deleuze and Guattari (1988) in relation to a rhizome, if the

elements of a documentary are presented on a ‘lane of exteriority, on the

same sheet’, past, present and future would be evident, as well as concepts,

individuals, groups and social formations (p8). In Uncertainty I tried to provide

different pathways and side streets, composed of strata and lines of flight. This

may have been achieved in Joe Wagner’s scene. Joe discusses his experience

in World War II as an Austrian in the German army under Hitler’s rule, and

offers glimpses of his present day life in Eumundi, Queensland. We see current

images of refugees in Australian immigration detention centres during his

interview, and political references to Howard and Ruddock amidst the montage

of activists en route to Port Hedland. It could be argued that past, present,

future, individual, and different social formations exist together in the one text.

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There is a rupture in the rhizome whenever segmentary lines explode into a

line of flight, but the line of flight is part of the rhizome. These lines always tie

back to one another that is why one can never posit a dualism or a dichotomy,

even in the rudimentary form of the good and the bad (Deleuze and Guattari,

1988 p9).

Assignifying rupture is another main principle of a rhizome. To offer a potential

example from Uncertainty, during Vic Nurcombe’s near death story the scene

cuts to a man manipulating a wooden puppet in what appears to be a 3D

space: we are taken on a line of flight. During this sequence, Jeffrey Shaw

colours a spectrum between the material and immaterial, preparing the

audience with ‘anti-dichotomy resources’, prior to experiencing Vic’s scientific

insights into his near death in childhood. There is a rupture and line of flight,

but it ties back and around.

Through each plateau the conceptual strands and abstract imagery in

Uncertainty try to encourage audiences to stray off course and flow back into

the general area at a leisurely pace. The term ‘fascist concretion’ is used by

Deleuze and Guattari (1988) to denote a text with an overbearing thesis that

draws any stray thoughts back to the determined dogma (p10). This exegesis

seems paradoxical in light of the term ‘fascist concretion’, as I am citing

literature and examples that substantiate an argument. There is a fine line

between lines of flight that tie back into one another and lines of flight that fall

back to a singularity. Since the argument is proffering multiplicity perhaps it

avoids the label of ‘concretion’ through its fluidity. However, I prefer to

produce work through the film medium as it allows me to work more

intuitively. It seems reasonable that the product of intuitive, less laboured

processes is less likely to enter the realms of fundamentalist concretions.

There are no definitive answers as to the boundaries between concretions and

a rhizome structure. For example, in Nicholas Barker’s (1997) Unmade Beds

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four characters offer fragments of their histories in dating and relationships.

Bruzzi (2000) discusses Barker’s view that he is a portraitist who believes that

the scrutiny of the ‘surface texture’ can reveal ‘certain underlying psychological

truths’ (p162). This idea of underlying truths negates one of the main

principles of a rhizome – multiplicity, as defined by the outside rather than

anything concealed.

Through the film’s subjects and cinematography the audience peers into the

personal lives of strangers, all longing for fulfilment through intimate

relationships with others. Audiences may be drawn more to an arborescent

mode of thinking whereby the characters’ thoughts and actions are branches

stemming from the same psychological tree stump of loneliness and desire.

This underlying idea throughout Unmade Beds does not offer me many

possibilities for connections or ruptures.

Perception is also an important influence on the number of possibilities arising

from a text. Structures can promote more open and inquisitive interactions

that complement our thinking at its uppermost potential, keeping in mind that

human-animal’s thinking often tends towards reductionism. We are often

uncomfortable with ambiguity and there are different levels of respect for the

audience’s intelligence amongst filmmakers. Whichever level is established can

be regarded as part of an invisible contract a communicator implies to the

audience. According to Rabiger (1992), each film signals how it intends to treat

its audience, what issues it will confront, and under what general premise. He

believes that the best films usually put forward their ‘contract’ in the first

moments and create an enjoyable prospect of suspense and promise (p9).

Uncertainty presents its general premise at the beginning of the film: “A story

about making meaning through stereotypes and belief systems…like science,

art, religion, culture. Belief systems and stereotypes…ways we make sense of

experiences”. Then the audience is set loose on the text without further

guidance other than the occasional series of related words to roughly signpost

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a plateau. It was difficult to decide on the degree of signposting to offer the

audience, and I am still unsure about the usefulness of the opening statements

in the film.

I think that the problem is one of perceptual semiotics, as highlighted by

Deleuze & Guattari (1988):

It’s not easy to see things in the middle, rather than looking down on

them from above or up at them from below, or from left to right or right

to left: try it, you’ll see that everything changes…….Never is a plateau

separable from the cows that populate it, which are also the clouds in

the sky. (p23)

Audiences tend to prefer a position. Through providing the opening statements

in Uncertainty I think audiences are afforded a degree of positioning but then

immersed in the thick of it. In these respects, the film can be described as

‘chaordic’, existing in the realms between chaos and order.

Hock, the founder of Visa, introduced the term ‘chaordic’ to describe

organisations that are self-organising and self-governing. They operate not

through hierarchies of authority, but through networks of equals:

Life is not about controlling. It’s not about getting. It’s not about having.

It’s not about knowing. It’s not even about being. Life is eternal,

perpetual becoming, or it is nothing. Becoming is not to be known or

controlled. It is a magnificent, mysterious odyssey to be experienced.

(Meadows, 1999)

Chaordism can be applied to both organisations and organisms, and to fields of

inquiry and expression. The term celebrates the dynamic space between chaos

and order. If the human heart beats in uniformity we die, and if it beats at a

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consistently irregular pace we die. When stripped bare of manmade systems

and structures, life is chaordic.

This leads into the final principles of a rhizome as identified by Deleuze and

Guattari (1988): Cartography and Decalcomania, both of which signify how a

rhizome is a stranger to any idea of genetic axis or deep structure. It is a map

not a tracing. Perhaps this exegesis is a tracing of the map Uncertainty. A map

should be open and connectable in all of its dimensions and can be reworked

by an individual, group, or social formation (Deleuze and Guattari, 1988, p12).

Despite attempts to make this exegesis more open and connectable, I think it

could be experienced as quite restricted in comparison to the film. Perhaps this

is because the process has been laboured and not the result of more creative,

intuitive processes as were the case in producing Uncertainty.

PRODUCING CONSTELLATIONS

Many new documentary filmmakers could benefit from breaking through the

boundaries and centralised structures prevalent in most contemporary films.

Rhizome theory provides good illustrations of more democratic structures and

styles. Examples that embody this theory can be found in new media mainly

through the Internet; however, limited examples exist in film and video. This is

probably due to rhizome theory’s clear translation into the decentralised

structure of cyberspace.

In searching for online examples, I found www.rhizome.org. This is a non-

profit organisation that was founded in 1996 to provide an online platform for

the global new media art community. The website provides quotations from

One Thousand Plateaus. The Rhizome.org community is geographically

dispersed, and includes artists, curators, writers, designers, programmers,

students, educators and new media professionals. They support the creation,

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presentation, discussion and preservation of contemporary art that uses new

technologies in significant ways.

Perhaps DVD technology and the possibilities it provides for fluid structuring of

content will prompt more rhizomes to appear in film and video. This is not to

say that the medium dictates the media, but technologies and approaches to

filmmaking seem to be mutually enhancing dictums.

Currently, new documentary theory has some limitations, particularly in its

interpretation of the filmmaker’s presence. In preferring the physical presence

of the author in voice and/or image for a meaningful interaction with the

audience and subject matter, theorists and filmmakers promote singularity

over multiplicity.

The idea of releasing new documentary from the belief that physicality

represents an honest example of subjectivity seems tame in light of coming

realities. For example, futurists predict that given the Internet’s current

pervasiveness in time we will all be plugged into the web. We will be so

interfaced with the web, and using it so much, it will become difficult to draw

boundaries between our individual minds as such: we’ll be a great collective

consciousness across the world (Greenfield, 2002). Visually this concept can be

understood as constellations with no central axis, but high levels of

connectivity and multiplicity.

Despite new documentary theory’s lack of foresight in some areas, it shares

many qualities with rhizome theory. Both attempt to increase variables and

interactivity, enabling for a greater number of potentials. For example, new

documentary theory does promote greater interactivity and participation

amongst filmmakers, audiences and subject matter; the restrictions placed

upon the filmmaker’s presence do not undermine the whole premise of

promoting greater interaction and openness.

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CONCLUSION

Diverse content is explored in Uncertainty through interloping plateaus, all of

which can relate to each other and function individually. I hoped to integrate

ideas from politics, education, arts, science and social science through different

individuals and groups, with scenes flowing into each other without overt

explanation through voice-over or an onscreen presenter.

New documentary theory suggests that documentaries are moving towards

greater interaction between filmmaker, audience and subject matter. This is

cause for reflection on what constitutes the filmmaker’s presence. The theory

could give greater attention to the possibilities for interactivity wherein

filmmakers absent themselves physically in sound and/or image from a text.

Texts like Uncertainty and Lucky People Center International have strong

authorship and interactivity; however, this is reached through the style of each

film rather than the physical presence of the filmmaker.

Greater audience participation could also be encouraged through structures in

documentary that exhibit principles of a rhizome, as outlined by Deleuze and

Guattari (1988). Rhizomes have no central axis and encourage the proliferation

of possibilities for points of connection. They assignify ruptures and lines of

flight that flow back into the region of departure.

The future may hold greater multiplicity and connectivity on a decentralised

level for all systems. Documentary filmmakers can benefit from opening their

styles and structures to the ideas expressed through rhizome theory, in

producing creative works that interact with audiences in an inspirational,

engaging way.

Completing Uncertainty and this accompanying exegesis has enabled me to

expand and refine my conceptions, particularly in relation to structure and

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interactivity in documentary film. My future challenges in documentary involve

producing films that proliferate connections in meaningful ways that are

aesthetically attractive, and create chaordic experiences for audiences.

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REFERENCES

Barker, N. (Director) and Wax, S. (Producer). (1997). Unmade Beds. [Film].

Barthes, R. (1973) Mythologies. London: Paladin.

Brady, T. (2000). A Question of Genre: de-mystifying the exegesis. TEXT, 4(1). [Online]. http://www.gu.edu.au/school/art/

Brooks, X. (1999). Lucky People Center International: Review [Online].

http://www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/reviews/details.php?id=241

Bruzzi, S. (2000). New Documentary: A Critical Introduction. London:

Routledge.

Deleuze, G. & Guattari, F. (1988). A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism &

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Principle [Online]. http://www.pcdf.org/meadows/visa.html

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