CHAPTER 4
User Beware: Evaluating the Archival Record
The extraordinary power and appeal of the audiovisual record and works derived from it stem in part from the fact that we are seeing and hearing it for ourselves, and therefore believe it to be real. But as filmmaker and scholar Bill Nichols notes, documentary films do not reproduce reality, they represent it. In arguing about why ethical issues are central to documentary filmmaking, Nichols notes that the photographic image “is subject to qualification because:
◾ An image cannot tell everything we want to know about what happened.
◾ Images can be altered both during and after the fact by both conventional and digital techniques.
◾ A verifiable, authentic image does not necessarily guarantee ...
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