Introduction: The Ethics of Documentary Filmmaking and the Politics of Identity

Documentary films are inherently subjective: they construct a recognizable likeness of the world, speak for the interests of others, and make a case for a particular view of the "visual evidence" they present to an audience. A filmmaker consciously or unconsciously shapes the construction of a documentary through his or her attitude toward a subject, who expects the filmmaker to represent him or her in a responsible way, and the viewer adopts specific intellectual and emotional outlooks when making sense and meaning of a documentary. Subjectivity-which assumes the mediated nature of any visual representation-is thus inseparable from the processes of making, appearing in, and consuming documentaries. If documentary filmmakers attempt to satisfy the audience's desire for and pleasure in knowledge, they do so by turning upon their subjects what Don Alan Pennebaker describes as the "fearsome machinery" of the camera. Given the inherent subjectivity of documentary filmmaking, a question arises: what ethical obligations do documentary filmmakers have to their subjects and audience?

Ethics becomes a measure of the moral implications that arise from negotiations between filmmaker, subject, and audience. Sometimes, the interests of filmmakers and subjects are at odds with each other. As a representative of the group he or she films, or of the institution that sponsors him or her, the filmmaker wants to make a compelling documentary. As an individual, the subject wants his or her social rights and personal dignity respected before an audience. Viewers of a documentary assume that the text's sounds and images have an indexical relationship to the historical world we share. The tension that often arises from the interdependent expectations of this triad of participants raises the question of ethical rights and responsibilities in documentary filmmaking.

Postmodernists argue that this question of ethical rights and responsibilities is interwoven with the concept of identity politics. Various identifications (in addition to class) now serve as key determinants of identity: feminism, sexual politics, national liberation, and black struggle. Paralleling this rise of a politics of identity have been debates about the indexical relationship between "truth" and reality and about how to represent the pride and integrity of marginalized or ostracized groups.

Different modes of documentary filmmaking provide means of establishing frameworks within which individual filmmakers may address the politics of identity....