Remember the good old days when television was scripted and documentary films were real?
You can kiss those days goodbye. The boob-tube is littered with reality fare. Has been for years. And now, with the release of I’m Still Here and Catfish, the world of documentaries, an art form with integrity, one that offers penetrating reflections on society, people, and the world in which we live, has been turned on its head. Suddenly, we don’t know whether documentary films are real or not. Aided by creative film-making and carefully orchestrated marketing campaigns, the line between reality and artifice, real and staged, continues to blur. The truth about I’m Still Here may be out in the open, but the controversy remains, a marketing coup for producers and the latest stage in the evolution of entertainment.
Why are fake documentaries the new reality TV? Because both pretend to be something they’re not. Producers of reality TV encourage confrontation to enhance the drama. Casey Affleck follows his brother-in-law around with a camera and stages scenes with actors who play roles. What’s happening is similar to advertorials parading as editorial content, or political players holding extreme signs at opponent’s rallies to discredit a cause they see as wrong-headed, even dangerous. What’s real? What’s not? What’s true? What’s false?
Often, the best and most provocative attempts to blur the lines occur when reality and artifice are mixed, creating a strange brew. Borat may be an actor but his unwitting victims are real folk who haven’t been told about the joke. Joaquin Phoenix may be playing a part but it’s easy to believe that a portion of his psyche is truly in sync with a bearded hip-hop-craving lunatic.
As an audience, we laugh, we shudder, we cringe. And the confusion in our minds about what we’re watching impacts the experience. If we know it’s just a movie, we can escape for a couple hours in a darkened theater, unburdened by lasting fear or doubt (Psycho notwithstanding). But if we’re not quite sure, if we think it’s real, or may be real, or some of it is real, we ache with the anxiety of consequences that impact real lives.
It’s unsettling, this new state of affairs. Unfortunately, unlike Neo in The Matrix, we don’t have Morpheus to show us the way, to shatter confusion with a little red pill, then welcome us into the real world. It’s a difficult problem, trying to determine for ourselves where reality ends and artifice begins.
Perhaps we should just chill out, pretend we took the blue pill, and enjoy the ride.
See Also:
 Men In Black III Global Dates By Country |
 Blue Pill Or Red Pilll Your Choice |
 Art House Spotlight: Drexel Theatre Columbus, OH |
