THIS IS NOT US: performance, relationships and shame in documentary filmmaking

This thesis investigates performance, identity, representation and shame in documentary filmmaking. Identities that are performed and mediated through a relationship between filmmaker and participant are examined with detailed reference to two decades of my own practice. A reflexive, feminist approach engages my own films - and the relationships that produced them - in analysis of the ethical potholes and emotional challenges in representing others on TV. The trigger for this research was the furiously angry reaction of the One Direction fandom to my representation of them in Crazy About One Direction (Channel 4, 2013). This offered an opportunity to investigate the potential for shame in documentary; a loud and clear case study of filmed participants using social media to contest their image on screen. In the space between documentary confession and the reception of a story by the audience, a dangerous moment comes, in which shame can be received, perceived, projected, internalised or imagined. The point of this research is to offer to existing documentary theory a practitioner’s understanding of the processes which produce shame and to establish for documentary filmmakers some practical ways to resist and prepare against the rupture in identity that representation can cause those they film. Engaging both theory and practice in pursuit of the same research questions, I make a self-reflexive investigation into the ethics, affect and impact of representing others, employing the mediums and methods of fans to answer their complaints. All the films, artwork, documentation of the installation, sources, written work, appendices and past documentaries referred to in this thesis can be best experienced online at https://daisy-asquith-xdrf.squarespace.com, the website hosting this PhD, but are also provided on the accompanying USB drive.