Ethics. While this phenomenon is not the new talk of the town, it certainly has intensified over the last few years as people became more and more concerned about unethical manipulation by the media. A manipulation that has been embarrassingly evident as filmmakers went on to create biopics that had no relationship with reality (Dangal, Sanju and Mission Mangal being a few examples) and photographers such as Steve McCurry went on to make a photograph popularly known as ‘The Afghan Girl’ that crossed all boundaries of ethical limitations and blatantly violated the privacy and integrity of its subject.
The films, while creating a lot of buzz and remarkable box office numbers, still do not live up to the promise of being true to their word. In the case of Steve McCurry, well, the photograph won several accolades and recognitions. The line, then, between success, money, creative liberty and ethics becomes so blurred that filmmakers and artists are blindsided towards truth and ethics.
What comes into play when we talk about ethics in documentaries is the very complicated and ambiguous recipe of morals, honesty and respect towards the art and the subject. Documentary filmmakers have an extremely difficult task at hand, unlike other artists, they have to tell the truth in a commercial format (truth isn’t always so exciting) and succumbing to commercial pressures with financial limitations becomes common.
Documentary filmmakers are usually independent freelancers working on their own and selling their products to distributors, mostly on television. The question of ethics, in such cases, lies in their own judgement and is then put out to the world for close scrutiny and criticism. What the world doesn’t see however is the fact that what’s supposed to be THE reality is filmed, framed, and edited from the filmmaker’s perspective and is bound to be inclusive of some biases. Hence, documentaries and the scrutiny behind ethics and morals might suggest that the expectations we have of documentaries are too restrictive and that they limit the filmmaker’s freedom to create what is ultimately a form of art.
So, for a documentary to pass the test of ethics and principles entirely is impossible. Is it possible to some extent? Yes, but then again, it ultimately lies within the filmmaker’s individual judgement keeping in mind that they themselves face constant limitations while filming a documentary.
At the heart of an ethical endeavour is the relationship between the filmmaker and subjects – not often an equal balance of power. And for the most part, it is the filmmaker who determines how that will be managed. Documentary filmmakers need to keep in mind that the lives that they are dealing with are 100% real and their subjects are not actors but people with their own stories that only impacts them but also the people around them and it not only affects their present but also, their future; and these stories with such high stakes will be out for the world to see. The most basic and possible way to maintain a code of ethics, then, becomes consent and God knows how important that is today. The social actors in the film must know what they’re getting themselves into and must be informed of the context that their stories will be incorporated in; these people must be protected to build a relationship of some balance and respect.
Two challenges that documentary filmmakers most commonly face are the ones that often compromise the filmmakers’ intentions - the sweet financial pressures and the burden of commercial success (both of them overlapping each other in different contexts).
The story becomes complicated as filmmakers ought to deal with deadlines, financial pressures, efficiency and funding as they are required to churn out materials faster and at cheaper rates. In such cases, where documentaries ought to be twisted and censored (as other parties with their own vested interests fund projects) pertaining to certain parameters, the line between reality, honest storytelling and efficiency becomes terribly blurred. This also restricts a filmmaker’s in-depth understanding of their subject, leading their stories to be inevitably somewhat contaminated and compromised.
Then comes the real beast: the commercial aspect of documentaries and make no mistake about it, is also the key source of income which either lures a filmmaker to follow through with disregard for the code of ethics or compels and forces them to take a path where their principals are often left compromised.
In one case, a filmmaker lacked exciting enough pictures of a particular animal from a shoot, and the executive producer substituted animals from another country. The filmmaker believed this to misrepresent the conditions of the region but could he do anything about it with the time constraints he had? No. Filmmakers have often admitted to rearranging facts and sequences of events to tell a more effective story, to inflate drama where perhaps no drama existed – the feeling of excitement over amplified, the danger intensified or the emotions exaggerated. This might be a breach of the code of ethics but nevertheless makes for an exciting watch that the audiences are bound to latch onto, no matter how much they criticise it later.
While documentary filmmakers must do everything they can do to ensure a film that can be associated with the word ethics and morals, it becomes highly impractical for people to believe a documentary to be the absolute Bible of ethics. We need to accept the fact that such a perfect scenario is unattainable and we must learn to watch documentaries as they are - a trial at true storytelling but ultimately a form of art.