A Comparison Of The Documentaries Citizenfour And Blackfish: Understanding Their Differences And Similarities

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Select one of the topics listed below. Respond to the topic or question in the form of a short essay using the terms and concepts developed in the course. Library research and the re-­?screening of selected films is an expectation of the assignment. 

Topic 1. “Activist documentaries” are films meant to provoke political and social change. Evaluate two of the following films according to their differences and similarities using the terms and concepts from the course, and comment on whether one is more successful in achieving its apparent goals than the other. 

Citizenfour (Laura Poitras, USA, 2014)

The Square (Jehane Noujaim, Egypt/USA, 2013)

The Corporation (Mark Achbar/Jennifer Abbott, CAN, 2004)

Blackfish (Gabriela Cowperthwaite, 2013) 

Topic 2. Waltz With Bashir and The Square are both about political unrest in the Middle East, but take radically different approaches to the subject matter. Evaluate each film according to their differences and similarities using the terms and concepts from the course, and comment on whether one is more successful in achieving its apparent goals than the other.

Topic 3. “Reflexive” films turn the lens on the filmmaker as well as on the documentary subjects themselves. Evaluate two of the following films according to their differences and similarities using the terms and concepts from the course, and comment on whether one is more successful in achieving its apparent goals than the other.

Grizzly Man (Werner Herzog, USA, 2005)

Catfish (Henry Joost/Ariel Schulman, USA, 2010)

My Kid Could Paint That (Amir Bar-­?Lev, USA, 2007)

Thesis of Citizenfour

Citizenfour and Blackfish both focus on the dark side and the brutal truth of reality. Though both the movies are very different from each other still the seriousness of each of the movie forms a deep impact on the audience. Blackfish is a thriller whereas Citizenfour is a documentary about NSA system. In this film he offers the inside information and wiretapping details of NSA and other intelligence. On the other hand Blackfish is a thriller movie which talks about a beast, i.e. a killer whale which is a threat to both humans and whales. Both movies wrestled with the mystery of the dangerous fact that has a tremendous effect on the audience, the significant information that is derived from both the films helped the audience to understand better about the scenario. There is a similar tension in both the films which absorbs their audiences. The music choice of both the movies is very secular in nature. Blackfish use two types of music, one with a deep, malevolent effect and other on a positive note, whereas the soundtrack of Citizenfour has been taken from the album `Ghost I-IV’ (Artieri, Giglietto & Gemini, 2016).

Truth can set you free buy it also can make you a prisoner. Citizenfour is an American documentary film made by Laura Poitras, who has taken a very bold step by revealing the truth and taking a step forward to tell the story of Edward Snowden. According Edward Snowden was able to access anyone’s record, bypassing code and email ids (Scott, 2014). The film begins with a voice over of Poitras who was telling about her experience while working on a film about dismantling of personal freedoms after the attack on 9/11, when she began to receive all those encrypted  emails with the when she was working on a film about the dismantling of personal things which revealed about the desire to come forward with astonishing information about the government surveillance (Tunnicliffe, 2015). The making of the film reflects its historical moments and influencing it at the same time. This film can be one of the defining documents of 21^st century. It is deeply concerned with democracy. The central idea of the movie is to bring out the truth that how the government in the name of fighting terrorism, kept track of every American and non-American citizen of all step and broke into their personal details, just to keep a track of they are doing. The film includes an open discussion between Snowden and the journalist Glenn Greenwald.

Outline of the Story

This film is made for the audience, so that they could understand the seriousness of this. This film includes the audience as well in such a way that is praiseworthy. Poitras in her storytelling questions the audience and ask them to understand the responsibility they have between individual rights and network security.  The understanding of is necessary, in today’s world the internet plays a huge role in people’s life yet it is not safe and how it uses and safeguard an individual’s fate, free expression, rule of law and access to opportunity (Hunt, 2015).  

The storytelling style of Poitra has a unique style, her narrative styles and values are very secular in it. Her bohemian personality and living choice makes her understand more about the characters of her films. Her creation of circumstances of the meeting points of her selected themes and people are extraordinary. Her films are mostly abstract; she is very compassionate and deeply moralistic person who reflects in her films. The documentary techniques is very different, she takes her time, after her meeting with Snowden in Hong Kong and ten with the help of Glenn, her persuading technique made Snowden agree to do this film.  The sound effect of the movie created a different level of attraction and anticipation. Even in the hotel where the interview took place the constant background music has projected a more suspicious and goose bumping effect on the audience (Verner, 2015). What a mobile can, and how they too out information from this device has created terror in the audience mind.

 Blackfish is a film which tells the story of a Killer Whale named Tilikum who is the largest killer whale and is a threat to both humans and whales. This documentary is about the Tilikum which was first captured in Iceland in the early 1980’s. This story is unique because it showcases SeaWorld and the performances of the animals that are in captivated.   This species is known for killing three different trainers at his time as a show whale. In the documentary there has not been any actual death of a human by the killer whale. This story is a passionate story and has a strong way of delivering the story. This film in a very unusual manner creates a strong bond between the Tilikum and the audience, that even the audience felt bad for Tilikum at the end. SeaWorld may not have caged the whale but in their marine amusement park they have captivated it for over 40 years. Gabriella Cowperthwaite, in this movie Blackfish has given the attention to the condition of SeaWorld’s Orca (Ferdman, 2014). Though in this film most of the evidence suggests that the SeaWorld should continue exhibiting to attract attention, yet there are some who disagrees with this idea and believe that whales should be released from the park.

Central Idea

This documentary was made after the death of the senior trainer Dawn Brancheau in 2010. This film as got many controversies and debate where the animal activist protest against the SeaWorld and want it to shut down (Hemingway, 2014). The central idea of this document is to show that the whales have gone through extreme stress when their offspring was captured ad separated after bleeding at water parks. The idea to analyze this particular film was to give a point of view to the audience and to give them an idea of what actually goes on, so that they can have an opinion.

This documentary has lowered down the profit margin of the SeaWorld. Brancheau has used original footage and has incorporated extracts from interviews to create a proper narration rather than using just voice over, which makes the documentary more engaging. The dark background of the text graphic use makes the visual even more appealing. The documents have received a great amount of positive response from all places. This is a very emotional and rousing film which completely changes the view of the people in Orcas captivity (Brammer, 2015). The viewers of the Blackfish movie have a positive response for the captive whales. Even though the income mostly affect the SeaWorld because of the Orcas but by replacing them in the new tanks will make the people happier and will improve their revenue.

‘Citizenfour’ and ‘Blackfish’ both are very different from each other and yet they have a similarity in some point. Both the films have been hailed with critics as both the documentaries shows the reality to the audience and disclose the truth. Citizenfour is far more serious topic than Blackfish and therefore it has scored a lot better in box office than Blackfish. Citizen has earned more than 1 million in box office whereas Blackfish has done average. Citizenfour has been in the nominee of the best picture. Citizenfour is a much more famous documentary than the Blackfish.  Both the topics deal with entirely different topics. One deals with a fiction thriller, which is of course based on a true story while the other is based on a politics base story which the whole nation wants to, that deals with terrorism. Therefore the main difference lies on the subject matter of the story. The storytelling process of both the films is kind of similar; both have live interviews and voice over. Oscar Nominee Laura Poitra’s style will obviously be better from Gabriella Cowperthwaite (Marek, 2015). Citizenfour offers much more than Blackfish, it gives a better running democracy and access to fundamental rights. The understanding building of Citizenfour makes it better in all terms, even though the documentary does not give any answers but it projects many questions toward the audience and leaves it on the audience to understand. Similarly Blackfish does the same it provokes the audience about the injustice happening with the animals in the SeaWorld and leaves it on their understanding. The only loop holes lies in Citizenfour that they have not shown the great number of surveillance file that has been given to Poitra by Snowden.

Thesis of Blackfish

In terms of a documentary movie Citizenfour is much better than Blackfish as it deals with larger aspect. Terrorism has always been a key interest of the audience and therefore the reaction from the audience for this movie has been huge, and has been appreciated worldwide, whereas Blackfish deals with SeaWorld which engages a small number of people who have been to this marine amusement park and seen these whales, only those particular group will be able to understand the story. Although on a general level Blackfish does attract attention from the people of various parts of the country, yet the effect will be far less than the story of Citizenfour. Apart from the story aspect, the style and the structure of both the documents have been well organized and both of the storytelling is strong and effective.

Conclusion:

To conclude this essay it can be said that documentaries are made to make people think about the situations that are happening around the world. Citizenfour reaches all the mark of a good documentary, nothing can be more relevant than this topic and it thought provoking. It is dramatic as a movie and it not exaggerated. In fact the Poitra could have made it more dramatic by introducing more background music, but she has kept it realistic and more rational. Therefore as a documentary film it has correctly covered all the goals to be an award winning Film. On the other hand Blackfish has its own way of engaging people, and making the audience feel bad about a beastly creature yet, it can never match the level of Citizenfour in terms of a documentary film for the obvious reasons. Even though t is difficult to refuse that Blackfish was profoundly good in setting its agenda but Citizenfour is an Oscar winning film and there is no comparison of it with any other documentary.

References:

Artieri, G. B., Giglietto, F., & Gemini, L. (2016). citizenfour: internet publics and the imaginary of privacy a content analysis of twitter commentaries around the 2015 oscar winning documentary. aoir selected papers of internet research, 5.

Brammer, R. (2015). Activism and Antagonism: The" Blackfish" Effect. Screen Education, (76), 72-79.

Ferdman, R. (2014). Chart: What the Documentary ‘Blackfish’Has Done to SeaWorld. The Wall Street Journal.

Hemingway, M. (2014). A Documentary in Name Only; Blackfish vs. SeaWorld. The Weekly Standard, 10.

Hunt, W. A. (2015). Heroes of a new revolution: the push-back against the surveillance state. Queen's Quarterly, 122(2), 192-204.

Marek, N. E. (2015). Tourism in crisis: A qualitative content analysis of SeaWorld's Twitter response to Blackfish (Doctoral dissertation, Eastern Michigan University).

Müller, N. (2016). Crisis Communication on Social Media–Content Analysis of SeaWorld’s Crisis Communication after the Release of the Documentary Blackfish.

Scott, O. (2014). Intent on defying an all-seeing eye:‘Citizenfour,’a documentary about Edward Snowden. New York Times movie review.

Tunnicliffe, C. (2015). Panoptic reality: a review of Citizenfour.

Verner, E. (2015). Citizenfour exposes US spy state. Green Left Weekly, (1044), 22.