Oil and Bullshit: The Case of Flaherty's Louisiana Story

Published in Louisiana Folklife Journal, Vol. XXXVI Oil and Bullshit: The Case of Flaherty’s Louisiana Story Keith Dromm Robert J. Flaherty’s film Louisiana Story (1948) has been categorized alternately as a documentary and a fiction film. Over sixty years after it was made, there remains no consensus among film critics and historians on the film’s genre. In 1949, it won in the category of Best Documentary Film at the British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards, while being nominated for Best Original Story at the Academy Awards (the Oscars) along with the western Red River and the film noir Naked City. Its inclusion in the former category is not surprising given that its director has often been called “the father of the documentary film” and it resembles Flaherty’s other films—all less controversially documentary films—both in style and content. Nevertheless, it possesses many of the salient properties of fiction films, including an original story. I argue that it was an inappropriate selection for the documentary category, but not because of its possession of these properties of fiction films (in this respect it is like many widely recognized documentary films). Instead, I argue that it is not a documentary because it is bullshit. I borrow my definition of “bullshit” from the analytical philosopher Harry Frankfurt’s popular book, On Bullshit. My application of his definition can be used to exclude similarly problematic films—such as propaganda films—from the category of documentary. Their exclusion from this category, as I will explain, does not 1 automatically place them in the fiction category. I will offer one reason for believing that bullshit films are a type of fiction film. Louisiana Story is set in the bayou country of southern Louisiana and revolves around a Cajun boy, Alexander Napoleon Ulysses Le Tour (played by a non-professional actor, Joseph Boudreaux). His father leases the family’s land to an oil company. The company brings in its derrick and begins drilling. A blow-out of the well occurs, threatening the environment, but the conscientious, kind oil-workers—who have befriended the boy and his father—succeed in capping the well. When they leave, the only evidence of their prior presence is the well-cap or “Christmas tree,” as they endearingly call it, which symbolizes the film’s central message that, as Erik Barnouw captures it, we should “have no fear, the wilderness is safe” (218). The last sequence of the film shows the boy’s family, which consists of him and his two parents, enjoying all the goods they were able to purchase with the oil company’s money. There is also a subplot involving the boy and his missing pet raccoon, which he believes was killed by an alligator. He hunts down and kills the alligator, but during the film’s denouement, we learn that the raccoon has been alive the entire time. He just ran off, perhaps because he was frightened by the arrival of the oil derrick. It is a masterfully made film, especially in its opening sequence, which begins with several shots of the lush, primeval bayou country. The boy is introduced through a long shot that suggests his integration with this environment. The sequence concludes with noises and glimpses of an oil derrick moving in, interrupting the tranquility and setting up the tension that is finally resolved in favor of oil exploration at the end of the film. In his book on documentary films, Representing Reality, Bill Nichols closely 2 compares the opening of Louisiana Story to the famous opening sequence of Orson Welles’ film noir Touch of Evil (1958). Although all the shots which comprise Louisiana Story possess what Nichols calls an “indexical fidelity” (i.e., they were filmed where the story was set, whereas the border town of Touch of Evil was created in Venice, California, many miles from Mexico), an important property of many documentary films, these shots, like those in the opening of Touch of Evil, feature “a fluid, poetic camera and a strong sense of rhythmic movement” (182-3). There are other features of Louisiana Story that make apt a comparison with a fiction film. The film used actors. Although they were all non-professionals, they portrayed fictional characters. The boy’s parents in the film, for example, were not his actual parents. While Flaherty did not work from a strict shooting script, he did work from a story, and he gave the actors some of their dialogue. Flaherty and his editor, Helen van Dongen, used many of the editing techniques of fiction films, for example, point of view, reaction shots, and parallel editing. Also, the film employed a musical score (a very effective one composed by Virgil Thompson).1 However, none of these features sufficiently distinguish Louisiana Story from other documentary films. They were common to documentary films before the emergence of styles like cinéma vérité in the 1960s, and are still found in many documentary films today. For example, the documentary films on Discovery or The History Channel about our pre-human ancestors or periods like the Revolutionary War will often include reenactments that involve actors following a script. When these re-enactments portray events for which there is no direct historical record, such as a Neanderthal hunting for food, the story will be original. The editing techniques used in these and other sequences can be found in fiction films. Also, musical scores are frequently used in documentary 3 films and for similar effects. These examples reveal that it cannot be the absence of these properties that distinguish documentary films from fiction films. Rather, a documentary film is distinguished by a certain kind of commitment to the truth. A documentary film tries to portray the world as it actually is (or was). It might get this wrong, but there is at least a sincere effort by the filmmakers to get the world right, so to speak. As Patricia Aufderheide puts it: “A documentary film tells a story about real life, with claims to truthfulness” (2). The filmmakers might get real life wrong because of unrecognized bias, carelessness, or simply by presenting some widely-held but wrong belief of their period. Nevertheless, there is an effort to get it right, and this is reflected in the expectations of most viewers of a documentary film: that it will attempt to represent the world truthfully. As Aufderheide further says: “viewers expect not to be tricked and lied to. We expect to be told things about the real world, things that are true” (2-3). The bullshitter lacks the documentary filmmaker’s commitment to the truth. In fact, the bullshitter, according to Frankfurt, is indifferent to the truth: “Her fault is not that she fails to get things right, but that she is not even trying” (32). When she speaks, what matters to the bullshitter might be what she says, how she says it, and sometimes just that she says something, but not whether what she says is true or false: “the motive guiding and controlling it is unconcerned with how the things about which [the bullshitter] speaks truly are” (Frankfurt 55). This is unlike the liar, who must be concerned with the truth if he is to lie successfully. The liar attempts to misrepresent reality. To do so, he must have some beliefs about what reality is actually like. The bullshitter, by contrast, “does not care whether the things he says describe reality 4 correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose” (Frankfurt 57). This purpose is something other than conveying an accurate (or inaccurate) picture of reality. It is to convey a picture of reality that conforms simply with the wishes of the bullshitter. Take as an example an ill-prepared presenter at a conference fielding a question to which he doesn’t know the answer. He can admit to that, or he can—as we say—“bullshit his way through.” He might end up saying something true, but that’s not his purpose in bullshitting—that is, to share some truths with his audience—rather, it is to give a particular impression of himself to his audience, for example, that he does possess a lot of true beliefs that he is capable of sharing with others. Frankfurt points out that what the bullshitter says “need not be false” (48). The deception perpetrated by the bullshitter is at the level of whether he even cares about the truth or falsity of what he says (or shows). So, it is not the false picture of oil exploration’s minimal impact on the environment that makes Louisiana Story bullshit. Rather, it is its indifference to whether this picture is true or false. This can be revealed through a consideration of its motivations. According to Frankfurt, this is where bullshit begins, in the intentions of its creators. Standard Oil financed the film. After some discussions with Flaherty, they gave him $175,000 to make a film that had something to do with oil exploration (after another advance after filming was done in order to complete the film, the total cost to Standard Oil was $258,000) (Rotha 250). Flaherty was given complete creative control over the film (Barnouw 216).2 He would own the distribution rights and control all of the revenue of the film without having to pay back Standard Oil (Rotha 236-7). Standard Oil’s 5 sponsorship was not acknowledged in any part of the film (there is only a credit title that thanks their employees on the oil rig). Richard Barsam concludes that Standard Oil “did not want a film about itself . . . but rather one that would enhance the overall image of the oil industry” (100). Perhaps based on their preliminary discussions with Flaherty, or their familiarity with Flaherty’s other work, they believed that he would make such a film. They might have arrived at the same view about Flaherty’s motivations that Jack Coogan does in his article on the film, “Louisiana Story and an Ecology of the Imagination.” Coogan argues that what motivated Flaherty to take this assignment was a desire to make a film that would portray how human technology and the environment were compatible. This desire was instilled in Flaherty after completing the predecessor to Louisiana Story, a film commissioned by the United States Film Service titled The Land (1942) and whose subject was soil conservation. It portrayed the devastating effects of the Dust Bowl on both the environment and humans. Coogan argues that Flaherty wanted to make a film that showed how the wise use of human technology could provide long-lasting benefits to humans while not destroying the environment.3 A part of this vision gets expressed in the opening titles of The Land: This is the story of how rural America used machines to achieve an unbelievable production—but at a terrible cost to land and to people through the waste of erosion and poverty; the story of the beginnings of reconstruction, and the hope of a world of freedom and abundance through the workings of a democracy and through man’s mastery of his own machines. 6 Louisiana Story fulfills this hope by offering what Coogan describes as a “compelling vision of harmony between humans, their technology, and their environment” (65-6). Barsam recognizes the same achievement, writing that “in Louisiana Story, Robert Flaherty met a challenge that had bested him in making The Land: the reconciliation of opposing forces” (102). In a promotional leaflet issued by Standard Oil, Flaherty—in what he calls the “thesis” of the film—identifies these opposing forces: “the impact of science on a simple, rural community” (qtd. in Rotha 235). All of this suggests that neither Standard Oil nor Flaherty were seriously concerned with presenting a truthful account of oil exploration’s impact on the environment. They did not set out to lie about its impact. Standard Oil did not know yet what impact oil exploration would have on the bayou country. Flaherty also could not know this, but unlike Standard Oil, he wasn’t ultimately motivated by a desire for profit; rather, it was a particular philosophical vision that was behind the story he presented in his film. What gets portrayed in Louisiana Story could have turned out to be true. What makes it bullshit is that—at a certain level—those responsible for it did not care. So far, I have only argued that Louisiana Story should be excluded from the documentary category; I have not identified the category in which it and other bullshit films more appropriately belong. Before I say something on that issue, I want to point out that documentaries that are lies should remain in the documentary category.4 As it was pointed out earlier, liars and truth-tellers are equally concerned with the truth, although for different reasons. The truth-teller needs to know the truth in order to share it; the liar needs to know it in order to conceal it. The bullshitter is indifferent to the truth. For this reason, bullshit films—even those whose makers claim are documentaries—should not 7 be considered documentaries. Being excluded from this category does not automatically locate them in the category of fiction films. While documentary is often used synonymously with non-fiction film5, there are many other sorts of non-fiction films besides documentaries; for example, there are certain experimental and avant-garde films like Stan Brakhage’s Mothlight (1963)6; there are also surveillance videos, amateur pornography and other sorts of home movies, Muybridge’s galloping horse and similar studies of motion, viral videos such as “Elmo singing Chocolate Rain,” and so on; even the Lumière actualités—considered by many to be the first documentaries—fit uneasily within the documentary category. What distinguishes these non-fiction films from documentaries is that they do not make any truth claims. As such, they cannot reflect a commitment to truth-telling which, as we have seen, characterizes the documentary film. Brakhage is not making any claims about twigs and moth wings or anything else in Mothlight, although we might learn about such things as moth anatomy from it; similarly, surveillance videos and home movies are electronic artifacts which might be used as a source for truths but do not themselves make claims; and Elmo singing “Chocolate Rain,” while delightful, is neither making any claims nor a likely source of truths. Bullshit films make claims, but they are not genuine claims. Their failure to be genuine consists not in their being false or lies (falsehoods and lies can still be genuine claims), but in their being made with an indifference to the truth. In this respect, they are like the claims that constitute fiction. Various philosophical accounts of fiction can show this, but to take one, there is David Lewis’s pretence theory of fictional storytelling: Storytelling is pretence. The storyteller purports to be telling the truth about matters whereof he has knowledge. He purports to be talking about characters 8 who are known to him, and whom he refers to, typically, by means of their ordinary proper names. But if his story is fiction, he is not really doing these things. (Lewis 40) The storyteller only pretends to make claims; her claims, therefore, are only pretend (not genuine) claims. After making appropriate substitutions, Lewis’s account fits equally well bullshitting. The most relevant sentence is the second; modified, it reads: “The bullshitter purports to be telling the truth about matters whereof he has knowledge.” Lewis says something else that could equally be said of the bullshitter: “he plays a false part, goes through a form of telling known fact when he is not doing so” (40). The difference between the storyteller and the bullshitter is that the former typically lets his audience in on the pretence; the bullshitter does not. As Frankfurt explains: The bullshitter may not deceive us, or even intend to do so, either about the facts or about what he takes the facts to be. What he does necessarily deceive us about is his enterprise. His only indispensable distinctive characteristic is that in a certain way he misrepresents what he is up to. (54) The bullshitter misrepresents an interest in the truth shared by both the liar and the truthteller; he pretends to care about whether what he says is true or false. Like the storyteller, he only plays the part of such a person. Both the bullshitter and the storyteller might say something true.7 As Manuel García-Carpintero points out: “There might be fictions such that all propositions that are fictional in them are actually true” (206). But also like the storyteller, the bullshitter does not care whether what he says is true. Since making a claim implies an interest in the truth, the bullshitter’s enterprise does not 9 involve making genuine claims. His utterances are like those in fiction; they are meant to resemble genuine claims, but that resemblance is all that matters to the bullshitter. By calling Louisiana Story bullshit, I am not automatically making a moral judgment about it. Not all bullshit is bad. When it is widespread, as it is in politics for example, then it can have a corrosive effect on our commitment to the truth. For this reason, Frankfurt believes that “bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are” (61). Lying requires a near universal respect for the truth in order to exist; when widely practiced and permitted, bullshit undermines that respect. But there are some carefully circumscribed instances or customs of bullshit that benefit society. For example, politeness is mostly bullshit, but it makes social interaction much easier. Deciding whether Louisiana Story is morally good bullshit would also require looking at its consequences and those of similar promotions of oil exploration in Louisiana. I will leave that for another paper and, most likely, another author. Works Cited Aufderheide, Patricia. Documentary Film: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2007. Print. Barnouw, Erik. Documentary: A History of the Non-Fiction Film. New York: Oxford UP, 1993. Print. Barsam, Richard. The Vision of Robert Flaherty: The Artist as Myth and Filmmaker. Bloomington, IN: Indiana UP, 1988. Print. Coogan, Jack. “Louisiana Story and an Ecology of the Imagination.” Wide Angle. 20.2 (1998): 58-69. Print. 10 Flaherty, Robert, dir. Louisiana Story. Robert Flaherty Productions, Inc., 1948. Film. ---. The Land. United States Film Service, 1942. Film. Frankfurt, Harry. On Bullshit. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2005. Print. García-Carpintero, Manuel. “Fiction-Making as a Gricean Illocutionary Type.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. 65.2 (2007): 203-216. Print. Hersonski, Yael, dir. A Film Unfinished. Oscilloscope Laboratories, 2010. DVD. Lewis, David. “Truth in Fiction.” American Philosophical Quarterly, 15.1 (1978): 37-46. Nichols, Bill. Representing Reality: Issues and Concepts in Documentary. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1991. Rotha, Paul. Robert J. Flaherty: A Biography. Ed. Jay Ruby. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1983. NOTES 1 Thompson won the 1949 Pulitzer Prize for music for his score, the first time the prize was awarded to a film score. 2 Flaherty did write that after he (and his wife, Frances, a close collaborator on this film) came up with the idea for the story, he sought the approval of Standard Oil’s board of directors (Rotha 235); the set was also visited by Standard Oil officials (Rotha 237-8 and 245), although there is no evidence that they interfered with the film. 3 The Land was criticized for not proposing any useful remedies to the problems it so beautifully presents. Flaherty was aware of these criticisms. Richard Griffith, for one, wrote that the film “is little more than a cry of pain . . . Flaherty cannot tell us what to do to help, can only shout at us at the end of the film to do something. To many people the 11 tragic beauty of The Land will not be sufficient to compensate for the fact that it provides no blueprint” (qtd. in Rotha, 224, emphasis in original). 4 An example would be the film by the Nazis of contented Jews living in the Warsaw ghetto (see Hersonski). 5 Consider the title and subtitle of Eric Barnouw’s popular book, referenced above: Documentary: A History of the Non-fiction Film. 6 Aufderheide regards Mothlight as a documentary (as does Brakhage himself [Aufderheide 16]), but it is hard to see how a film like this “tells a story about real life, with claims to truthfulness” (Aufderheide 2). It consists of images of moth wings and twigs, “natural objects,” as Aufderheide points out (16), but many films contain images of natural objects without thereby making any claims. 7 David Lewis would not have endorsed this. So, I only endorse Lewis’s theory to the extent it is compatible with this. 12