‘For the spectator, identification with certain characters is crucial to the viewing experience of
documentary films.’ With reference to the films you have studied for this topic, how far do you
agree with this view?
Undefeated (Dir. Lindsay & Martin) 2011
A Complete History of my Sexual Failures (Waitt) 2008
Undefeated - Characters are very easily identified & feelings are easily made.
A Complete History of my Sexual Failures - The character is very hard to connect. The situation he goes though is normal however it is a taboo so people are reluctant to stay with it.
Identifying with characters can go both ways when it comes to film in general. Identifying with a character makes it easier to recognise the antagonist & protagonists, it also creates a community within the film. Documentaries however may have a hard time with allowing the spectators to identify characters, especially documentaries with more than one character such as Undefeated (Lindsay & Martin) 2011. With Undefeated the spectators recognise the troubled characters & they can easily sympathise with them. Documentaries have a problem with detaching the characters from the film & therefore the spectator will zone out but a good documentary keeps the spectator engaged.
There are many characters in Undefeated that us as the spectators get to know. Through experience of other films, especially mainstream Hollywood films, we rely on character identification in order to get through the film. Undefeated does this very well, Complete History of my Sexual Failures however doesn't use the conventions of a "normal" documentary because it is a mockumentary. We (the audience) do identify the character Chris however because of the way the documentary is made, we do have a negative view on Chris. This is not a bad thing however because the character identification is still there. For some people though this will ruin the documentary experience.
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