Stranger with a Camera (Essay Sample)

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Stranger with a Camera
The film, "Stranger with a Camera”, is one of the most moving films that is centered on a place and people that remains misunderstood, more often than not, by the outsiders. The documentary bases its plot on an event that took place in 1967. Hugh O’Connor, the Canadian filmmaker, with his crew, had just visited the Central Appalachian Mountains to make a documentary on poverty that had struck the area. Unfortunately, Hugh was short by a local property owner who resented their presence in his property. Elizabeth has taken into analyzing the situation that took place. One point that remains clear is; a film may never represent any single community in entirety, regardless of the elements they capture.
The filmmaker, Barret, who is an Appalachian native, takes advantage of the death of O’Conner and uses it as a lens in exploring the multifaceted relationships that exist between the people involved in the making of films geared towards promoting social change and the ones that they represent their lives in the films. With the setting of the film in the first account approach, viewers plunge into a quest, which probes Barret into examining her double-facet role, both as a media producer and as belonging to the community that she portrays, Appalachia. By using the definition that Geertz advances regarding culture, the account that Elizabeth has of the shooting may be possible to unearth.
According to the definition of culture given by Geertz, culture is "a historically transmitted pattern of meanings embodied in symbols, a system of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic forms by means of which men communicate, perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and their attitudes toward life" (Norton 25). From his definition, it is conceivable that culture may never be a force, rather; contexts in which people live out of their personal lives. He reasoned that people would normally establish various symbols and signs, which enable them, understand experiences as well as help in shaping their behaviors. As such, meaning is very significant in order for people to be able to maintain their lives in the social realms. He went ahead to state that, "man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun; I take culture to be those webs.”
The main aim of the film is to evaluate both the two sides of the situation, the conflict. In this case, the perspective of the insiders, the Appalachians, and the outsiders, the various groups who are trying to analyze the case. Barret, being an insider, is mainly seeking to highlight the way the views that a people have of their community affect the manner that they perceive the outsiders against the insiders, people who live amongst them. Rather than posing as a group of people looking into the event from the outside perspective, she decided to present herself as an insider. The members of the community had the feeling that the media was, in real sense, portraying Kentucky the wrong way, making most of them hate the attention that the media gave them. Indeed, within the documentary, one woman by the name, Mary says outright that she was upset by the way the films failed to take an account of the people or their culture, beyond the poverty. She said, "Some of the films insulted me" (Stranger with a Camera)
Some people from the same community had a different feel about the people who constantly came to the community; they argued that the visitors tried to influence them in a way, to share in the same ideals. When the film is nearing its end, Barret is confused as to whether the media can really represent the situation accurately. One of the individuals Barret’s interviewed states that the cameras may never lie as they only tend to show what truly is there; however, the same person states that the cameras may never give the story in entirety, "cameras only capture what can be seen" (Stranger with a Camera). In this sense, the implication is that the cameras can never give the story behind the picture that is there, and which it can see. This is very much in agreement with the definition of culture by Geertz. He said that culture is supposed to be a means of people to give the expression of how they communicate and come up with an attitude towards their culture.
The filmmaker eventually decides never to take any sides; rather, she feels that she should show the facts and reality of the situation in entirety. By taking sides, she could only display the various aspects that may only be of benefit to the community in which she belonged. She states, "This is my community. My life is here. As a filmmaker I have the responsibility to see my community for what it is, to tell the story no matter how difficult." Her approach aims at showing what really happened without spinning to bring out both sides of the issue, with both the good and bad parts (Stranger with a Camera). All through the documentary, it is very evident that the various cultural aspects of a community brought out in a film are never everything that make up the dynamics of such a community.
Works Cited
"Stranger with a camera”. Watch Stranger With A Camera (1999) Free Online. (2000)
Accessed from: /stranger-with-a-camera-9202a8c04000641f8000000012e90ecd.
Norton, Matthew, et al. Interpreting Clifford Geertz : Cultural Investigation In The Social Sciences. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. Discovery eBooks. Web. 14 June 2015.
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