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"There are three sides to every story: my side, your side, and the truth. And no one's lying. Memories shared serve each one differently."--legendary Hollywood producer Robert Evans

I've been thinking about truth lately. Notice that's "lower-case" truth. I'm not talking about the meaning of life or the great spiritual truths, but rather the truth of history, the truth of stories, the truth of memory. If you read many magazines or contemporary literature, you already know that what I call the "shaded memoir" is one of the fastest-growing modes of storytelling. An author presents his version of a part of his life, a version he freely admits is biased, probably fuzzy on the facts, and completely fictional in certain details when it suits the story. Not exactly fiction but with no specific claim to the whole truth and nothing but, this form of expression seems peculiarly suited to our post-postmodern age. When our ability to communicate truthfully is called into question, what do we have left but to offer highly subjective autobiographies? The writer gets to write about something he knows and maybe settle a grudge or two, and each reader can either accept it as factual or not (Oprah and Larry King will, Charlie Rose might). Arguments of authenticity are irrelevant, and no one takes offense, or at least they shouldn't given the parameters of the genre.

The same evolution is taking in place in film documentaries. No longer the domain of the omniscient historian and various talking heads, documentaries now routinely offer up the subjective perspectives of their directors and subjects without any commentary or corrections. And nowhere is that better seen than in the new movie 24 Hour Party People. Directed by the always eclectic Michael Winterbottom (The Claim), this is ostensibly a history of Manchester, England's hugely influential Factory Records, which provided the catapult for some of the biggest bands of '80s New Wave: Joy Division, New Order, the Happy Mondays.

The movie focuses on the label's charismatic founder, Tony Wilson, and moves from the inception of the Factory nightclub through the rise of the record label and to its dissolution. Along the way, we observe Tony's first and third marriages, his growing friendships with various musicians, and the pain of drug addiction. All of this is told through a combination of normal movie scenes, voice-overs from Tony Wilson (played by British comedian Steve Coogan), and extraordinary sequences when Wilson steps out of a scene and directly addresses the camera.

This last format makes for a highly distinctive presentation. Often, Wilson, who looks and acts as if he's in Manchester circa 1980, will suddenly comment on events that happen much later. The effect is disorienting and exhilarating at the same time. In an early scene, Wilson has taken his girlfriend Lindsey to the first Sex Pistols show in Manchester. While we watch the performance (and the audience dancing around), Wilson breaks down the fourth wall and comments on the various participants: "He's Paddy who will go on to be Joy Division's manager," "He later sleeps with my wife." But as he's offering this running commentary, he also participates in the scene: kissing his girlfriend, getting up to dance. In other words, Wilson seemlessly shifts between a participant in 1980 events and a typical talking-head commentator in 2002.

The effect is to highlight the subjective nature of what we're seeing and hearing. This history is being told from the viewpoint of someone who lived through it (and, therefore, has his own memories, self-serving or otherwise) and also someone who is looking back on it, interpreting events in light of how they turned out. Of course, all documentaries do the same thing, but they rarely highlight that dichotomy in such an original way.

The movie's first scene is probably its best. Tony Wilson is about to fly a hang glider for the first time. He's talking into a microphone. At first it's not clear why, but we soon realize it's for a British television show But the commentary is both directed at a 1976 audience and a 2002 audience. It's both a fictionalized re-creation and a commentary about a "historical" moment. Did the hang glider event actually happen, or is it merely a metaphorical reference to Icarus? Or maybe both. Winterbottom never makes it clear, and that lack of clarity intentionally undermines our confidence in the depiction of historical events that follows. In many ways, 24 Hour Party People is less a re-creation of Factory Records and more an examination of how stories are told, how memories are recalled, how history is made.

If this sounds philosophical and highly abstract, you're right. I unfortunately found the actual story somewhat boring, particularly once Factory Records really gets going. The film's second half feels like a mediocre "Behind the Music" segment, though with much higher production values, courtesy of the great cinematographer Robby Muller (Dancer in the Dark). Of course, "Behind the Music" has its own interesting relationship with constructed history and self-serving memories.

The same is also true of Chain Camera, a new documentary opening this Friday at Facets. The film's gimmick is that ten different video cameras were given to ten different students at John Marshall High School in Los Angeles. The students had the cameras for a week and were asked to document their life, though they were free to film anything they wanted. After a week, the cameras were given to ten other students, and so on each week throughout the 1999-2000 school year. At the end of the year, director Kirby Dick selected segments from sixteen of the students and edited their material into five-to-six-minute slots. The result is Chain Camera, a fascinating if uneven documentary.

Marshall High is an appropriate choice, as it represents over 4000 students from numerous ethnic and social categories. That means the movie features students from many different walks of life: poor and middle-class, white and black, asian and hispanic, male and female, smart and not-so-smart, straight and gay, virgins and sexually experienced, etc.

As you might expect, many of the segments revolve around boyfriend-girlfriend relationships. There's Amy, who's blissfully in love with Christian; Alan, who tries to get his girlfriend Lisa to simulate oral sex only to see her break down in a fit of laughter; and Tim, who's never had a girlfriend and sees this as an opportunity to advertise for one. Other hot-button issues of race, grades, and the future also come up frequently. It's tempting to group the various participants by category--the boys talk about sex much more than the girls do--but the exceptions undermine those generalizations.

But of course, we'd have to be naive to assume that we're watching the raw, unedited thoughts and actions of contemporary teenagers--that we're seeing the "real world" of adolescent life. For starters, it's apparent that the teenagers are highly conversant with "reality" television and the performance techniques involved. One young man actually simulates a WWE-style wrestling match with his friend, another films himself singing protests song while sitting on the sidewalk (no cliche there), and a girl confesses about her struggles with bulimia and suicide as if she were auditioning for the Oprah show. All of the teens are clearly acting, situating themselves within a style of storytelling that emphasizes dramatic action in the guise of real life.

Furthermore, each one is performing. The very presence of the camera changes the dynamic. They're crafting an image. It's not that the teenagers aren't being truthful or real, but their "realness" is constructed with a view to presenting themselves as they want to be seen, not necessarily as they really are. It's their version of the truth, and it might be pretty close to The Truth, but we'll never really know.

Then there's the influence of Kirby Dick to assess: out of the 500 students, why choose these 16? And of the hours of footage each one shot, why those five minutes? Again, it's not as if Chain Camera is some sort of underhanded documentary. These are the kinds of choices and dilemmas every documentarian faces, but it does highlight that the "genuine insight" Dick purports to present is one that has been carefully crafted by all parties. It's the cinematic equivalent of the shaded memoir. That it's compelling and entertaining viewing is testimony to the teens' charisma and Dick's skill.  
 
By J. Robert Parks 9/11/2002

24 Hour Party People 
Chain Camera