http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/aug/23/the-imposter-review
Truth? So who was telling the truth? The family? Do they know what happened to their son? Interesting how even the FBI woman doesn't want to believe the lie detector. What will she believe?
Who is the victim? The family or Frédéric? He gets himself in so deep that he cannot escape. Is this because of the family's frantic desire to believe he is Nicholas? The family has been conned but why do they let themselves be conned when they have no confirmation that this is Nicholas.
Interesting how Frédéric states that he fed off the media attention of the reappearance of "Nicholas" to authenticate and make "real" his position. Yes, people do turn to the media to give them their reality.
Interesting how mediated representations of both Frédéric and Nicholas contain signs, ie ears, which enable the Private Eye to conclude the falseness of Frédéric's Nicholas.
Very little is dramatised: mainly scenes which would be corroborated by independent witnesses. Most of the film is talking heads and background scenery, leaving us in the position of listening to words and trying to draw conclusions. Documentaries are weakened by reconstructions. "First hand" accounts carry more gravitas than a reconstruction (this would be second or third hand attempt at reality).
How much of what we see is real? The photo montages, the home video, the interviewees. How much is scripted. What is edited out? What is re-shot?
As it is we have layers of mediation:
- The cinema:a place where we are immersed in a virtual experience (environment, company, visibility)
- The film: mixed media: documentary/authentic realia/dramatisation (audio/visual/95 minutes)
- The interviews: mediation of real life events by the real protagonists (edits, scripting, make up, cinematography)
- The film within the film: mediation of the words of the interviewees (scripting, cinematography, editing, casting, acting, directing)
- Frédéric representing Nicholas (an act)
- Actors representing the family (an act)
- Frédéric representing himself (an act)
- The family representing themselves (an act)
- An actor playing Frédéric representing Nicholas (acting acting)
- The authentic images/footage: showing Nicholas' childhood
- The authentic images/footage: showing Frédéric playing Nicholas
We have some handy ready-made stereotypes:
Editing: how much is the director responsible for guiding us to our assumptions? Inclusion: We only find out about the brother's disinterest in Nicholas' disappearance and police interview the drug overdose towards the end of the film. Learning of this all chronologically would have destroyed the suspense. Exclusion: We know little of the police's actions when the boy is reported missing. Perhaps there were suspicions then of family involvement. What kind of film would we have had with this kind of information? How important is the narrative structure in creating gaps, doubts, surprises, suspense?
A complex web on the mediatation of realism. Real or realistic? Striking a balance, but ultimately in the hands of the film director.
If these are the actual people what do they have to gain from appearing in the film and how much of a veto do they have over the edit and the content?
the blue eyed, blonde American boy who plays basketball and gets into trouble
the dysfunctional family in the deep south
the half-Arabic criminal from a broken home
the drug addict brother
striving for the American dream
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/video/2012/aug/22/imposter-documentary-video
