keep to the Fen Causeway
Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
It should be remembered that, at the time, movie cameras had only been recently freed from cumbersomeness by Monsieur Coutant. Suddenly movie technology could encompass spatial improvization.
It was of course our old friend serendipity. Music on film, previously, had always been a performance specifically for the camera, or within the physical limitations of a performance on stage, live or in a studio. But essentially rehearsed. The Sixties was the first time that Rock'n'Roll could just happen and be filmed. Where the presence of cameras was less interesting than the event, and thus cameras were more invisible - or deprioritized.
That, to me, is documentary film. That what is happening within the frame is more important than the fact that it is being filmed. Camera as pen. Hard to give rules about what is 'documentary' - but most people used to know it when they saw it.
Reality TV is not documentary. The presence of cameras is priority number one. The 4th wall is constantly acknowledged.
Documentary as a genre is as 'false' as Reality TV. In both, 'reality' is constructed in the editing room. I'm not saying one is better, just that they should not be confused. They both observe behaviours, but documentary has much more intellectual insight. imho. You can't be me, I'm taken
You must have been otherwise engaged! "Any economic unit can emit money. The serious problem is to get it accepted" Hyman Minsky
I 'spose I was too posh, but I never went south of the A127 ('tween Billericay and basildon). Too uncivilised and dangerous, they're right in that trailer, there was always an undercurrent of violence; now we'd describe it as chavvy.
And Canvey was the fag end of the Essex universe, when you were the lowest of the low, when even Basildon or dagenham didn't want you, you went to Canvey. Reject Island. All run down council estates and abandoned, the UK equivalent of a trailer park. You didn't go there unless you had business and there was no good business to be had on the island.
Back then when the refineries were there, there were so many volatiles leached into the ground from bad practices that it actually had permafrost. It had one bridge on and it might as well have had a skull and crossbones flag on it for all the welcome you got. and always, the Essex skies looked down. Cold and hard and craxy. keep to the Fen Causeway
