Ethics of care in documentary filmmaking since 1968

Abstract

The study of documentaries asks us to consider non-fiction films as sites for the articulation of ethical relations that develop between filmmakers, their subjects and viewers. Faced with the moments of crisis, vulnerability, instability and change often at the heart of documentary films, scholars have accounted for the mutually constructed social and political reality that filmmakers share with their subjects, as well as the impact of these filmed encounters on their communities. This special issue of French Screen Studies refocuses the ethical debates arising around documentary film on its relationships with a relatively new field of pragmatic philosophical and political inquiry known as the ethics of care. Presented here are articles on documentaries that address a variety of situations, ranging from the fight for women’s reproductive rights to the current refugee crisis, by scholars interested in examining the implication of documentary film in care projects as they have played out in French and Francophone documentary filmmaking since 1968. Documentary filmmakers and theorists have long grappled with the ethical, epistemological and aesthetic implications of their choices of how to record and show any given part of reality, while interrogating the imperative to provide ‘authentic’ representation. It bears asking to what extent documentary filmmakers comment upon the world – or build the world through their films. For instance, in The Subject of Documentary, Michael Renov suggests that ethical inquiry in this regard begins with the relationship of a given documentary film to dominant and emergent narratives, and then to the filmmakers’ responsibilities towards both their subjects and viewers (2004). He recognises how difficult it can be for ethical examinations to compete with a quest for knowledge, in what he has observed as ‘this pitting of ethics against epistemology’ (161). Ethical inquiry of this nature is therefore iterative, responding to changes in industrial practices and technology, and responding to the ever dynamic cultures of politics, journalism, law, medicine and health. Which strategies of engagement can motivate viewers to invest in the position taken by a given film, to learn about and from it – even trust it? Like labours of care, the work of documentary and its effects on viewers at times resists intelligibility and determinacy. It nevertheless always has the potential to change the conversation on a subject matter that calls for attention, while cultivating receptivity and a sense of responsibility and justice. The issues at the heart of the ethics of care can enrich this line of questioning by refocusing what is ethically at stake in the relationships between the filmmakers and their subjects as caregivers and recipients of care, as well as on viewers as witnesses to care, to the vulnerability of others and, ultimately, their own. Originally focused on the private and intimate spheres of life, the ethics of care has evolved into a philosophical inquiry, political theory and vision of advocacy aimed at a broader understanding of and public support for caregiving activities within a network of social relations. It assumes that there is both significance to the relationships between caregivers and care-receivers and general interest in all human relationships in a wide range of contexts, public or private. Specificity of context, relationality and vulnerability are fundamental to understanding the decisions that caregivers make in terms of the FRENCH SCREEN STUDIES 2022, VOL. 22, NO. 1, 1–5 https://doi.org/10.1080/26438941.2021.2003551