COURSE BLOG for GWSS 3307: Feminist Film/Media Studies (Fall 2007)

It was interesting watching No! and Beyond Beats and Rhymes within two weeks of each other. Both films deal with content that is very important, but in terms of stylistic execution, the two couldn't be further apart. I'm just gonna say it: stylistically, No! is a terrible documentary. Almost every formal aspect, every stylistic choice is ill-concieved. It's poor execution make the film needlessly difficult to watch, paced in such a way that the film feels like its ending for an entire half-hour. Beyond Beats and Rhymes, in contrast, is one of the most entertaining and stylistically captivating documentaries I have ever seen, and it uses its stylistic conventions in an inteligent fashion that doesn't put it into the "style over substance" camp that many contemporary documentaries fall into. It does a great job of examining multiple perspectives and multiple voices in relation to the issue of masculinity within hip-hop culture.
The stylistic problems with No! cannot solely be atributed to film's lack of resources. The problems run much deeper than this. In praising Beyond Beats and Rhymes for its style, I want to make it clear that I do not feel that documentaries need to or should be heavily stylized. Generally speaking, the more stylized a documentary is the further it becomes pushed into the realm of fiction/ideology. Some of my favorite documentaries are extremely sparse in their usage of stylistic conventions. Titicut Folies for instance, a 1967 film which examines the inner workings of a mental institution without utilizing any formal elements that extend beyond the diagesis of the film, a film which is completely free of any kind of emotional pandering. Another documentary is After Innocence which focuses on the stories of inmates who have been released from prisons following DNA evidence proving them to be innocent. This particular film doesn't appear to be made for a lot of money, but its handling of the material is very minimalist and stark, allowing for the subjects of the film to speak for themselves. The biggest problem with No! is that it doesn't allow for the subjects to speak for themselves. Instead, the viewer inapropriately uses an emotionally pandering musical score, cheesy and unnesecary historical reenactments, freeze-frames during the interviews, and other annoying stylistic conventions which take away from the power of the stories that the women in the film are telling. These stylistic conventions are not necessary for the film, and in fact, do a great deal to take away from the reality that the film is meant to reflect. It is not merely a question of budgetary constraints, for the film would have actually been cheaper to produce if the material was handled in a more formally minimialist style.
While the poor execution of No! brings down the quality of the film, the content that is explored by the film is still able to shine through. As a viewer of a documentary such as this one, it is important to extract whatever content a film is conveying, even while the execution of such a film may not be of the highest quality. However, one needs to be careful while discussing and analyzing a film such as No! as it is irresponsible to copmletely ignore the stylistic flaws of such a film and overpraise it because it conveys a good message. It is highly important to be able to assess a film's message as well as the success of a message's execution, as the formal qualities within a film such as No! can actually work to undermine a film's message.