Given the growing popularity of documentaries, some filmmakers and movie executives say there is a need for a more vigorous debate about definitions and standards. In nominations for the best-documentary Oscar, for example, voters from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences do not scrutinize the accuracy of a film.
And unlike investigations undertaken by television news programs like Frontline and 60 Minutes, nonfiction films reflect the point of view of the filmmaker without editorial oversight. Some recent documentaries that have involved journalism-style investigations, notably the Oscar-nominated Capturing the Friedmans, have drawn questions about their balance and accuracy.
"There are a whole number of really important questions here," said Errol Morris, a documentary pioneer whose Fog of War, about former US Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, won the Oscar this year. "Does it makes sense to talk about a movie being true or false? I'm not sure it does. In fact I'm pretty sure it doesn't. Movies are movies."
Still, he said, investigative documentaries have a responsibility to seek clear facts and clear answers. His 1988 film The Thin Blue Line contributed to the freeing of a man wrongly convicted of murder.
"It's not a question of the movie but of the ethics of the person making the movie," Morris said. "Journalism is not infallible, but we depend on journalists to do something of a good job in investigating a story, whatever that means -- to be motivated by a desire to find out stuff."
Otherwise, he said, "you're just using the legal troubles of people as fodder for entertainment."
Lawsuit troubles
As their interest in documentaries grows, some movie executives are beginning to think about these issues too. Many studios passed on distributing Super Size Me for fear of provoking a lawsuit from McDonald's.
"A lot of times I'm looking at documentaries, and I have no idea of the credibility of the people putting together the information," said Joe Pichirallo, an executive at Focus Features who was formerly an investigative reporter at The Washington Post. "It's the responsibility of the distributor to evaluate and make judgments about the credibility of people putting the film together, but we're not set up to be fact checkers in the way news organizations are."
Either way, some industry professionals say that documentaries are going to continue to take up more space at the multiplexes.
"This is going to be the fastest-growing genre over the next few years," said Paul Dergarabedian, the president of Exhibitor Relations, which tracks box office results. "We may not see more US$20-million grosses. But audiences are always complaining that movies are dumb, or they talk down to them. Here you go. These movies are decidedly low-tech, and audiences are responding to that."
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