STORIES WE TELL (2012)

- Sarah Polley

In their responding and composing, students consider the ways in which
conflicting perspectives on events, personalities or situations are
represented in their prescribed text and other related texts of their own
choosing. Students analyse and evaluate how acts of representation, such as the
choice of textual forms, features and language, shape meaning and influence
responses.

Meaning is a dynamic process through which responders engage with texts, and
involves the incorporation of understanding gained through texts into a wider
context.

Truth seems to exist when a markers of authenticity is used to support the
articulation of the documentarians viewpoint. Cinematic, aesthetic or
technological elements of documentary filmmaking, that through repeated use
over time, have become inherently associated with genuine, reliable, and
trustworthy representations of reality in documentary form.


Markers of Authentic in Documentary genre


VOICE OVER NARRATION

MANIPULATION OF FOOTAGE

TALKING HEADS or CONFESSIONAL INTERVIEW

DOCUMENTARIANS ON-SCREEN PRESENCE

STAGED ACTION






THREE LEVELS OF
REPRESENTATION
LEVEL 3:
The meta-narrative. The story of the making of
the documentary itself and films the process of
its filming. Intentionally blurry , out of focus,
muddled and unclear
LEVEL TWO
hand-held camera, shaky, and mobile;
the shooting style is informal. The
look is intentionally filtered,
muddled, containing black strips and
clarity imperfections to make it
appear vintage and old
representing the past.
LEVEL ONE
documentary-like
footage
static lens, in
focus

The self referential documentary is a pastiche of family
interviews, talking heads, resurrected home movies and
grainy dramatizations of events.

It examines the elusive nature of narratives, memories
and truth. It explores levels of storytelling unified by the
larger theme of story telling itself.

She opens the documentary with a quote from Canadian
Margaret Atwoods Alias Grace: When you are in the
middle of a story it isnt a story at all, but only a
confusion Its only afterwards it becomes anything like
a story at all.

The narratives of the three levels are interconnected
and often hard to tell apart because the movie
emphasizes ambiguity.

DANCING IN THE DARK
The author, Peter Brent, trivializes the debate about the
carbon tax, and illustrates the carbon tax as a means by
which political parties pull in votes.
Headline Dancing in the Dark Double Entendre
Politicians are celebrating but are unaware of the
insignificance of this win with regard to the impact It
has on their campaign for the next election.
The impact which the win will have on the environment,
which could potentially lead to a dark future.
Or its been indirect as it was in 2010, when a politically
timid prime minister and a hollowed-out party machine, using
market research as a crutch, produced a political malfunction
Metaphor for the instability of the Labor Party following the
replacement of Kevin Rudd as PM. Highlights the political use of
the carbon tax to gain public favour.
Then came Tony Abbott. short truncated sentence
reinforces how the issue of carbon tax has been raised with
many subsequent government to an extent which has become
tiresome
The political power of the carbon tax has been an integral
element of Australias political narrative But the story and
the reality separated long ago.
Juxtaposition
Now, the vast majority of Australians would have trouble
describing the difference between the carbon tax and an
ETS. (Answer: its mostly semantic.) - bracketed
commentary
Liberal members rather self-consciously gathered to enact a
ritual of high fives, hugs and pats on the backs.




DANCING IN THE DARK
Last week, watchers of Australian politics were treated to a curious spectacle.
It was late on Thursday, just before the House of Representatives adjourned. The
Abbott governments eleven carbon-price repeal bills had passed the chamber and
Liberal members rather self-consciously gathered to enact a ritual of high fives, hugs
and pats on the backs. As you can see, some smiles looked a little forced.
The same bills, in slightly different format, had got through the House back in
November, but been rejected in the Senate. They still have to get through the Senate
(and probably will). So it seemed a rather empty performance. Who was it for? How
many Australian households erupted in celebration on seeing this snippet on the
nightly news?
When the Gillard governments carbon bills became acts it late 2011, Labors
popping corks were also incongruous, but for different reasons. Most Australians
didnt want the bills to go through because they feared what it would do to them, and
to the economy, and resented the prime ministers broken promise.
The political power of the carbon tax has been an integral element of Australias
political narrative for the more than three years since Julia Gillard announced it in
February 2011. But the story and the reality separated long ago. Now, two years after
it came into operation, it is a fourth-order issue in voterland, if that.
When opinion pollsters ask Australians if the Labor opposition should allow the
government to abolish the carbon tax, they tend to respond in the affirmative. After
all, it was a high-profile promise taken to last years election. But when surveyed
about their own policy preferences, their responses are susceptible to how the
question is worded.
Last weekend, Essential Vision asked, Which of the following actions on climate
change do you most support? Of the four-in-five respondents who chose one of the
available options, 41 per cent opted for Dumping the carbon tax and not replacing it
at all. At the other end of the spectrum, Replacing the carbon tax with the Liberals
direct action plan got just 11 per cent support.
In between were Keeping the carbon tax (20 per cent) and Replacing the carbon
tax with an emissions trading scheme (27 per cent), or a combined 47 per cent
favouring a price on carbon and 52 per cent in favour of direct action or nothing.
(Due to rounding the numbers add to 99, not 100.) Maybe thats a dead heat.
Now, the vast majority of Australians would have trouble describing the difference
between the carbon tax and an ETS. (Answer: its mostly semantic; Kevin Rudds
carbon pollution reduction scheme was an ETS with a one-year fixed-price period;
Gillards an ETS with a three-year one.) If it was left untouched, the carbon tax
would become a fully fledged ETS in July 2015 anyway.
A post-budget survey by Reachtel found majority support for a vague description of
the governments deficit levy, and a week later the same company found most
respondents preferring a price on carbon for companies with high emissions to the
proposed deficit levy as revenue raisers. As I said, the phrasing of the questions
matters. Figures like these can be interpreted in several ways. But evidence for hatred
of the carbon tax, much less of carbon pricing, cant be found.
A large amount of mythology has also evolved about the Rudd governments April
2010 decision to dump its long-cherished Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, or
CPRS. Most commentators seem to assume it was unpopular at the time otherwise
why walk away from it. Only weeks after the announcement, though, a Nielsen poll
found 58 per cent support for an emissions trading scheme for Australia.
Earlier that year, in February, Newspoll had a majority, though definitely a shrinking
majority, supporting the CPRS. (The shrinkage was assisted, no doubt, by the
Coalitions changed position, and probably by the prime ministers now slowly-
deflating bubble.) A month further back, though, an Essential poll had validated what
the parties qualitative research was no doubt finding: that when the pollsters pointed
out that a price on carbon would increase the cost of energy, and if they used the word
tax, support could turn into apprehension.

The importance of climate change to Australian politics has been an article of faith
among the commentariat since 2007, but its impact has probably been overstated. Or
its been indirect as it was in 2010, when a politically timid prime minister and a
hollowed-out party machine, using market research as a crutch, produced a political
malfunction.
In his final year as prime minister, John Howard was persuaded to feign an eagerness
to act on climate change. He promised an emissions trading scheme, and even insisted
that Australia would go it alone if necessary. It may or may not have been the wisest
course of political action.
At least some of his allies would undoubtedly have been advising Howard to go the
other route and warn of the devastation that would befall the country if Labor enacted
its irresponsible, complicated and costly scheme. Perhaps the former PM occasionally
lies awake contemplating the road not travelled.
Its generally accepted that the CPRS brought down Malcolm Turnbulls leadership
two years later, but the dire state of the opinion polls, week and fortnight in and out,
was at least a necessary condition for that spill. Had Turnbull appeared at all likely to
take government the following year, the Liberal party room would have probably
tolerated his enthusiasm for pricing carbon at least until they were in government
as they had tolerated Howard two years before. And if it hadnt been climate change
that did him in it might have been something else.
Then came Tony Abbott. Notwithstanding the publics fading enthusiasm for acting
on climate change, the Coalitions scare campaign against the CPRS would probably
have failed. Scare campaigns work for governments but not usually for oppositions;
their core theme is fear of the unknown and their chief object is to create uncertainty
about what the (by definition) untried and inexperienced opposition might unleash if
given power.
The most effective scare campaign in recent memory, Paul Keatings in 199293,
worked not just because the Liberals proposed GST wasnt popular; that policy
became an emblem of all manner of things that were worrying about opposition leader
John Hewson. Keatings often undignified ranting, like Howards in 2001, didnt
damage his image too badly because he had the institutional force of incumbency
behind him.
A wide-eyed opposition leader, screeching fire and brimstone like Abbott in early
2010 is a different commodity. The louder they shout the more difficult they
become to vote for. But in the end the Rudd government called its own bluff. Then,
on 24 June of that year, it went one better and threw away incumbency itself.
The following year, as prime minister, Gillard introduced a scheme that she
disastrously allowed to become known as a tax and a broken promise. (It did
represent a broken promise, but not the one most people believe, and it was something
the Greens forced her into doing.) The scheme was widely reviled and feared until its
introduction in July 2012, after which most Australians gradually got used to it and,
perhaps, started wondering what the fuss had been about.
Last year the reborn Kevin Rudds dramatic announcement that he would terminate
the carbon price (he meant that he was bringing forward the shift to a floating-price
from July 2015 to July 2014) was dumb politics: a counterproductive capitulation to
the Coalitions preferred terminology, which continues complicating Labors public
position to this day. In other words, it had Sussex Streets fingerprints all over it.
Now, as we enter the new Senate term, our political storytellers continue insisting the
carbon tax was important to last years election result. It has to be weve all been
obsessing over it for so long. The tomes have been printed and distributed and cannot
be pulped.
In reality, most people voted for change last September because they believed the
Labor government was incompetent and, most importantly, its spending was out of
control. Now its in government, the Coalition has stopped claiming that abolishing
the carbon price would end all the countrys ills. Now its simply a way of cutting the
price of electricity.
When asked, a majority of Australians still say they want some sort of action on
climate change, with direct action the least-favoured of the suggested plans. That
doesnt mean its an election-decider. Fury at the carbon tax, and desperation for its
repeal, is restricted to a small minority of cultural warriors and rusted-on Coalition
supporters.
But someone forget to tell the Abbott government. Either that or they were dancing
for their own entertainment.
- See more at: http://inside.org.au/dancing-in-the-dark/#sthash.bl8BUuu0.dpuf