“Inside Story” Page: 27
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Herzog has said that in Chauvet cave we can witness "the awakening of the modern
human soul" (Topham). It is an audacious statement, that through a few paintings we may
witness a moment in time, before humans were the dominant species on the planet, when the
organization of human thought began to change. The paintings are representations. No other
animal creates representations. The paintings also infer that their painters made causal
attributions. Their thought must have included agents, obstacles, actions and results - the stuff
of narrative. More than opposable thumbs, the wheel, or fire, this type of representational,
narrative thinking was the engine that drove the descendants of those painters in Chauvet cave
to develop language and become the dominant species on earth.
With Inside Story I want to emulate Herzog and make an audacious statement. The
combined voices of the characters of the film say that stories are not just for children. Story is
fundamental to our thought. Story is the foundation of our perception and what we know of
the world. Audiences may take stories for granted, but after viewing Inside Story I hope they
realize that understanding story may significantly elevate their understanding of the world.
I am drawn to the work of Errol Morris more than that of any other documentarian. I
have studied and reviewed his works more than any other filmmaker. Most of Morris's work is
built around interviews. Most of my documentary work has been based on interviews. Inside
Story is founded on interviews. So, it would seem that it might be useful to emulate Morris's
technique. But, in reviewing his films I find that his technique is profoundly different from the
way I have chosen to build my film.
Morris invites his audience to be skeptical about what his interviewees say, to question
the veracity of their answers. The graphics and archival footage he uses counterpoint rather
than support the person being interviewed. There is a dialectic tension created in the editorial
flow of his documentaries that impels the audience to question the subjects and think critically
about their answers. Morris is very aware that people want to understand and explain the
meaning of their existence; that as humans we share a desire to be connected to each other
and the universe through something certain, something true. But, his subjects seem to assert
strangely incongruous and odd explanations of their worlds.27
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Crawford, Jim D. “Inside Story”, thesis, May 2014; Denton, Texas. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc500092/m1/32/: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; .