'Election Day' and the State of the Modern Documentary
by Eric Kohn
A scant few hours after Hillary Clinton rescinded her presidential bid, the entire political kerfluffle of the past several months had been processed, organized and neatly tied together in a smartly edited package. The result, a video on Slate titled The Democratic Race in Eight Minutes, provides exactly the succinct overview its name suggests. Containing both a dense collage of facts and a keen satirical edge, the video shows an impressive amount of creativity in its narrative -- and qualifies as a documentary in short form. Who said journalism couldn't have a cinematic edge?
Slate's 'The Democratic Race in Eight Minutes'
The rules have changed. Filmmakers working with non-fiction materials must manage the pressures of creating topical projects without getting sloppy. It's a trend that Katy Chevigny, founder of Arts Engine Inc. and the Media that Matters Film Festival, knows too well. "There are many documentary filmmakers in the business of trying to make films quickly, so they can make a strong argument hooked into something that's happening," she said in a recent interview. "Fahrenheit 9/11 was a little bit like that." A documentarian herself, Chevigny chose a different route. "I still believe there are some documentaries where people want a longer look at something," she said, and her latest movie proves it: Election Day, which premiered at the 2007 South by Southwest Film Festival, chronicles the voting experience of a handful of Americans during the consequential rush of activity on November 4, 2004.
Shot with a classical verite style, Election Day manages to achieve an impressive level of engagement without revealing its age. This mainly has to do with the emphasis on the voting process, rather than the political leanings of the people involved in it, giving the plot a sort of universality that raises important issues pertinent in any election year. Like this upcoming one, for example. "When we were filming, we knew we wanted it to have longer lasting power, in terms of a portrait of where our democracy was in 2004," Chevigny explains. "It had to be a story about an event that we could reflect on."
Indeed, there are plenty of details worthy of analysis scattered throughout Election Day, which airs on PBS' POV series on July 1 and comes out on DVD the same day. The importance of discipline in the film lies with a man from the Republican Committee in Chicago intent on making sure the voting process goes "fairly and legally." It's his calculated approach that helps demonstrate, at least on some level, how his party managed to win the day. However, it's not the only lesson on display, since Chevigny's crew tracked the voting process in a handful of states, including South Dakota, Florida and Oklahoma. Using the voices of her subjects, Chevigny even manages to interrogate the very nature of the documentary itself. In one case, a group of conservatives, realizing that they're on camera, briefly discuss Fahrenheit 9/11. "The best form of protest is to stay home and not watch it," concludes a lone voice in the crowd.
A trailer for Katy Chevigny's 'Election Day,' which airs July 1 on PBS.
Of course, in the case of Election Day, you can stay at home and watch it -- perhaps as a break in between parsing the various channels for current election coverage. According to Chevigny, it might actually help you understand where the American people are headed. "As the news media lacks the resources or depth to cover the important stories of the day, I think people are turning more and more to documentaries for the not-so-obvious truths about what's going on," she said. "That's where the popularity lies."
None of this means that Election Day and The Democratic Race in Eight Minutes are at odds with each other. "I do think documentaries have a continuing life on the internet," explained Chevigny. "I want to see what really happened, and I want somebody to synthesize it so I can digest it. If they can show it in artful way, even better."