“There are so many hang-ups in the documentary world about this idea of ultimate truth,” says Gabrielle Brady. “There’s only subjectivity in documentary. It’s all a construction.”
Ever since Louis Lumière filmed workers leaving his factory in 1895, documentary film has struggled with the idea of authenticity. Lumière’s 17-metre film is regarded as the first ever made yet even this modest document is a lie: it was filmed not on a work day but a Sunday. The ethnographer Robert Flaherty staged scenes in his 1922 documentary Nanook of the North, and it was Michael Moore’s crafty editing that made Roger and Me an emotive box office hit.
