This does not mean that the documentary filmmaker is not taking a perspective; it means that the presentation of a perspective is original within the subject matter. It does not mean that the filmmaker has not sought to understand and to capture that perspective, much the way that Scranton captured the perspective of the soldiers and Longley captured the perspective of the vying groups in Iraq.

Audiences of all stripes do what they will with images, no matter how instrumental their makers. (Rabinowitz 1)." This is the goal of documentary filmmaking. It places the information, the perspective, into the sphere of the viewer, and the viewer is then inclined, or not, to act or to develop his or her own view with the support of the documentary film's information. It does not mean that the viewer is not going to seek to inform his or herself with other sources of...
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