F Is for Phony

by Juhasz, Alexandra

• ISBN13: 9780816642519
• ISBN10: 0816642516
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-09-22
• Publisher: Univ of Minnesota Pr

Summary

Fake documentaries mimic documentary genre expectations, unraveling the documentary's authority and dismantling understandings of identity, history, and nation. The interdisciplinary essays in F Is for Phony discuss a broad scope of works and explore issues raised by "fake docs" such as the fiction/documentary divide, the ethics of reality-based manipulation, and whether documentariness derives from form or reception. Defining the borderline between fact and fiction, the contributors reveal what fake documentaries imply and usually make explicit: that many documentaries lie to tell the truth, and that the truth is relative. Contributors: Steve Anderson, Catherine L. Benamou, Mitchell W. Block, Luis Bunuel, Marlon Fuentes, Craig Hight, Charlie Keil, Alisa Lebow, Eve Oishi, Robert F. Reid-Pharr, Gregorio C. Rocha, Jane Roscoe, Catherine Russell, Elisabeth Subrin. Alexandra Juhasz is professor of media studies at Pitzer College. She is author of Women of Vision: Histories in Feminist Film and Video (Minnesota, 2001). Jesse Lerner is associate professor of media studies at Pitzer College.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Phony Definitions and Troubling Taxonomies of the Fake Documentary	1	(38)
Alexandra Juhasz
Jesse Lerner
PART I. HISTORY AS BUNK
Steel Engines and Cardboard Rockets: The Status of Fiction and Nonfiction in Early Cinema	39	(11)
Charlie Keil
La Venganza de Pancho Villa: A Lost and Found Border Film	50	(9)
Gregorio C. Rocha
Trashing Shulie: Remnants from Some Abandoned Feminist History	59	(8)
Elisabeth Subrin
No Lies about Ruins	67	(9)
Jesse Lerner
The Past in Ruins: Postmodern Politics and the Fake History Film	76	(15)
Steve Anderson
PART II. DOUBLE-CROSS CULTURAL FILMMAKING
Land without Bread	91	(8)
Luis Bunuel
Surrealist Ethnography: Las Hurdes and the Documentary Unconscious	99	(17)
Catherine Russell
Extracts from an Imaginary Interview: Questions and Answers about Bontoc Eulogy	116	(14)
Marlon Fuentes
Makes Me Feel Mighty Real: The Watermelon Woman and the Critique of Black Visuality	130	(13)
Robert F. Reid-Pharr
PART III. DECEPTION
The Artifice of Realism and the Lure of the ``Real'' in Orson Welles's F for Fake and Other T(r)eas(u)er(e)s	143	(28)
Catherine L. Benamou
Forgotten Silver: A New Zealand Television Hoax and Its Audience	171	(16)
Craig Hight
Jane Roscoe
The Truth about No Lies (If You Can Believe It)	187	(9)
Mitchell W. Block
Screen Memories: Fakeness in Asian American Media Practice	196	(27)
Eve Oishi
PART IV. CONCLUSIONS
Faking What? Making a Mockery of Documentary	223	(15)
Alisa Lebow
As a Finale: Reflections on a Phantasm	238	(3)
Alexandra Juhasz
Jesse Lerner
Filmography	241	(4)
Nizan Shaked
Contributors	245	(4)
Index	249