The other night I saw a screening of a documentary called Domestic Violence at MoMA. The director is a man named Frederick Wiseman, who is sort of a documentarian’s documentarian – outside of fans of these sorts of things I haven’t met many people who have heard of him. It doesn’t help that Netflix doesn’t even carry DVDs of his movies. And so what I am about to do is tell you about a movie you likely cannot watch, unless someone near you decides to do a retrospective or something. I apologize for that, because what I have to say is that the movie is quite good, if overlong at three hours and fifteen minutes. (The first thing I said upon exiting, to a friend: “My kingdom for an editor!”)
The documentary is a collection of vignettes from footage Wiseman took at a domestic violence shelter in Tampa known as The Spring (which still exists, as you can see at the link – the movie itself came out in 2002). He seems to have been granted more or less full access to the facility – no one has their face blurred out or otherwise obscured – and we as viewers are even invited to sit in on internal staff meetings where some pretty gory personal details of one family – never seen onscreen – are discussed. This is one of those documentaries where life is observed as if no camera was in the room, and other than the occasional glimpse of a boom mike, or a child staring directly at the lens, there is little sense that the participants are affected by being watched, though they must have been.
Nonetheless, the women featured – there are men at the shelter but they were not shown onscreen – often managed to come out of themselves. “This isn’t fair,” sobbed one who was being stalked by the partner she’d left two years earlier, and who was told by the shelter’s (kind of jerk-ish) lawyer that her best option was to simply “disappear.” “Why do I have to change my life?” Another woman has been with her abusive husband for almost fifty years, and is clearly happy as a clam to be at the shelter rather than at home, but she too breaks down when asked to actually describe the abuse. And while these images are affecting and revealing, they did not really tell me anything I didn’t know.
I don’t want to be a hypocrite. In my professional life I’ve sat in more than a few rooms like those ones, where I have to go through the grim laundry list – “And did he kick you? And how many times did he kick you, often? And whereabouts did he – oh, I know this is upsetting, I‘m very sorry, I just need the information.” And every single time, I’ve felt like an asshole, needing the gory details so that someone will be convinced that this meets the requisite level of seriousness, so that someone will do something for this person. When I was in school we used to have arguments about boxes, and how it seemed that the whole of the law was devoted to shoehorning people’s experiences into categories that didn’t quite fit, which leads to awkward questions and conversations when the law runs into actual human beings.
Nonetheless, when I am engaged in that work, I’m not offering these women’s painful personal histories up for public consumption to an audience snacking on popcorn and Junior Mints. I often tread this strange line of keeping things private while trying not to make the people I am speaking to feel shamed about their experiences. In an ideal world no one would be ashamed of these things, but this is not an ideal world – it’s this one, and in this one the frequently frail psychological state of the victim seems to me it ought to be paramount.
See, around the time that Wiseman allows his cameras to listen in on details about one family’s experience of sibling-on-sibling rape, I started to worry about shock value and about those children one day seeing this documentary and hearing what’s going on. For the audience, perhaps it’s instructional, perhaps motivational; for the children it’s their lived experience. When the documentary came out, I can see from the reviews, Wiseman was praised in all quarters for offering such a stark view of the reality of these women’s lives. I guess he did that, but what I don’t see – and this is something I’ve been wondering a lot about lately – is any greater awareness cultivated by this particular document. It’s preaching to the converted – at such a long length Wiseman knew perfectly well that no one would ever sit through it, and the fact is, for that purpose, I am not sure I understand the ethical choice made here. Documentaries are always tricky that way – you’re making a spectacle of a person, and that’s always a dicey thing to do. And though there isn’t a hint of judgment anywhere in Domestic Violence, it might just show that even the statement of committing someone’s life to film is, no matter how neutral, potentially stepping over the line.
I know this isn’t about the movie, but this, ““This isn’t fair,” sobbed one who was being stalked by the partner she’d left two years earlier, and who was told by the shelter’s (kind of jerk-ish) lawyer that her best option was to simply “disappear.”” is one of those things about the world that makes me so impotently angry that I feel all this energy inside me with no outlet, and I end up with a migraine or crying or shouting at someone.
There are senselessly violent things about this world, infuriating people, cruelty, and the kind of misogyny that leaves you feeling sick inside. None of these things are ok, but generally there’s a response. Even if you’re talking about someone who rapes babies, it’s like–that’s illegal, we all agree it’s monstrous and evil. Domestic violence in general, is not just illegal but explicable, though the laws don’t do much and the explanations make me angry.
But the response to stalking makes me feel crazy in a way that presumably far worse crimes don’t leave me feeling. Men who shoot a room full of women because he’s a misogynist is unthinkably horrible, and I don’t want to create a hierarchy of crime or terror, but I can recognize that a man who kills 13 women is different from a man who stalks a single woman. But the way that stalkers and stalked victims get dealt with is so enormously frustrating to me, because “disappear” just should not be an option. If a lawyer tells a woman that her best bet is to disappear from her life, then something should be done about the stalker. Something serious, not just a restraining order. And it leaves me with this sense that we don’t care about women. Maybe that’s it. That the response to stalkers who haven’t killed anyone yet is representative of a world, a legal system, that privileges violent men over female victims. That our best response to stalked women is “disappear,” as if she did something wrong. That men who incite this kind of terror don’t have to do anything while she has to spend money and time and energy disappearing from her life. At the risk of getting killed. It isn’t fair, in the way that leaves me feeling helpless, like we’re never going to win against these people.
Yeah, Cimorene, I wasn’t fond of how the lawyer was presenting that path, because he seemed to find that the woman was being unreasonable insofar as she didn’t want to have to disappear again when in his view this was clearly the only solution. But on the other hand I can see that it was the only option. One observation made in that vignette rings very true here – stalkers are usually smart enough to learn the legal ins and outs of what they can and cannot do. And so the law is pretty useless in that regard.
Some day, when I am free from present constraints, I will be writing a long screed about the abstraction of law and how much that makes it a status-quo preservation tool. But for now, just know I’m with ya.
I’ve seen this, actually. I worked at a DV center, and we watched it there. My only thoughts upon seeing it were that I found it very realistic and very representative of the job that I did on a daily basis, as a therapist there.
But I don’t see many people actually wanting to sit down and watch this. Either they wouldn’t be able to handle the information discussed, or they’d be bored.
I get really concerned when I see documentaries with kids in them, because one day those kids are going to grow up, and know that somewhere out there, that instance of their life is frozen in time, available for anyone to see. I think filmakers need to be cognizant of more than what works in the film ‘right now’, but what will the grownup version of that child think about that scene?
And yes, I have a similar problem when people post all about their kids all over the internet. That information is out there, and no child will appreciate that coming back to slap them in the face when they are an adult.
Wiseman’s movies are always long; that’s just his style.
Would you feel differently if the people who appeared on camera had signed consents beforehand? I would be shocked if they hadn’t. That doesn’t preclude regretting having done so later, of course, but it does mean that the women in the film had some control over their appearance and that of their children.
I’m reading a novel called “Atlas of Unknowns” by Tania James in which the morality of documentary filmmaking comes up, although not in the context of domestic violence. I recommend the book.
Oh, mm, you are totally right, I should have mentioned that. But on the other hand in this context I am somewhat concerned about the ability of the parents to sign this right away on their children’s behalf, you know? I also wonder about the children who were never shown onscreen but discussed in great detail; did their parents sign waivers?
I completely agree PS. At a certain point you have to ask, what is the ultimate point in filming these women’s horrific stories of abuse for an audience. Like you point out, its preaching to the converted to a large degree. On the other hand these women shouldn’t be invisible, forgotten by the rest of the public. I don’t know what the answer is.
It’s my understanding that the consent would only apply to their appearance or voice; being the subject of discussion doesn’t require a waiver.
It’s a delicate problem. Not allowing parents to consent for their kids to be videotaped would create all kinds of problems, particularly in research. Parents have to make decisions for their kids that the kids, upon becoming adults, might not agree with, the vast majority in good faith-or at least I believe that’s the case. Having said that, I agree with Ms M. As a parent, you are the guardian of your child’s privacy, and we give that precious possession away all too easily these days. Research is one thing; any clown with a camera is something else. Although I wouldn’t put Wiseman in that category at all.
Yeah, I agree, mm, Wiseman is a hard case. This isn’t To Catch A Predator type stuff.
although i haven’t seen this movie at all, i think a potential solution to the sticky consent issue is to create space for women to tell their own stories, in their own voices. not sure how this would mesh with the documentary format, but i think it’s more rewarding and honest and less voyeuristic to hear about violence against women from those women, in the format they feel comfortable sharing in, in their words.
at western washington university, students here have taken the vagina monologues, and created an alternative – the vagina memoirs. the cast of women spends 3 months writing their memoirs to preform for audiences, and while not all memoirs are as polished as eve ensler’s monologues, they are extremely powerful. i’m interested in spreading this idea of women having the authority to tell their own stories, and that it is valuable to listen to them.
Related – a recent documentary that addresses many of these issues (speaking for oneself, the law and domestic violence, exposing one’s story to strangers): Sin by Silence. A woman who was convicted of murder after she killed her abusive husband and sent to prison, started a support group for other women in the same situation. The work of the group eventually led to changes in laws related to their cases. The doc shows the women in group sessions and individually telling their horrific stories – it’s gut wrenching. But throughout, the director conveys the women’s agency as they take part in the group and in the doc, so it doesn’t feel purely voyeuristic.
I saw the director (Olivia Klaus) speak at a screening and she explained that she originally intended to just create a standard doc. What happened instead is that she got caught up in the movement the women started and the doc has now become part of it as well. Maybe that brings up other issues about the “objectivity” of the film and director and whether that matters. The audience cheered at the end of the doc and many of us filled out postcards to be sent to the prisoners. Additionally, people involved with the doc have stated that they have seen useful reactions after the doc was shown in certain towns.
My synopsis doesn’t begin to convey the experience of seeing this film or the many issues that it brings up; highly recommended if you get a chance. It’s currently being screened on campuses, at festivals, and by legislative and legal groups; or you can get the DVD (though not through NetFlix yet).
On the subject of consent, documentary ethics, etc…
I also just want to add that, no matter how petty this concern may seem, I imagine those women’s stories are always going to come across differently when a man is behind the camera. I just can’t imagine a scenario in which a woman who has been abused and stalked and terrorized by a man in her life isn’t going to be more than a bit leery of men in general. And we see everyday through a feminist lens how the very presence of a man can change the course of a dialogue – or even a monologue. Although it sounds like Wiseman probably has good intentions, I’d be curious to know how the film might have been handled differently had it been in the hands of a female director – or had it been sparked by a movement created by the women, such as the one in the doc Ames mentions.
Agree that providing a place for these stories to be told is a huge service to these women. One that outweighs the apparent violation of privacy here. When you’ve been abused this way, you are already ashamed and craving validation that you’re not crazy and not at fault. Telling the story lets in sunlight and diminishes the power of the abuse.