Counter-documentaries: when subjects of investigation go on the attack
Recently Louis Theroux revealed that the Church of Scientology is looking to neutralise his forthcoming documentary about them by producing their very own film about him. In the US there’s a saying that “the best defence is a good offence” and L Ron Hubbard, the founder of the religion, was a believer: “Don’t ever defend, always attack,” he once instructed his followers.
It’s not surprising then, that such “counter-documentaries” are a staple of the Church. They’ve done one on John Sweeney, the Panorama presenter who memorably lost his cool while interviewing Scientology’s then chief spokesman; they’ve done one on CNN’s Anderson Cooper and they’re likely to do one on any public figure who comes even remotely close to criticising them in broad daylight.
One imagines that somewhere in the belly of the Church’s “spiritual headquarters” in Florida, a rapid-response unit of counter-documentarians waits, ready to defend its honour. At the moment, it’s being kept on its toes: HBO recently released a hatchet-job Scientology documentary, Going Clear, and now Theroux, backed up by the producers of Man on Wire and Searching for Sugar Man, is having a go at the subject as well.
Going Clear: the film Scientologists don’t want you to see
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In the right hands, a film about Theroux would be fascinating. As a presenter, he’s uniquely skilled at getting people to bare their souls on camera and, despite the usually pally relationships he strikes up, you wonder whether they always thank him for it after seeing the TV version of themselves. He’s made so many films that most people are familiar with his style but, as he’s always the one asking the questions, you realise you don’t actually know that much about him.
Judging by their past output, it’s unlikely the Church of Scientology will produce a nuanced or fair-minded investigation into Theroux’s methods. The 2007 counter-documentary about John Sweeney was an odd mixture of personal mudslinging and a more schoolmasterly tone that reprimanded the reporter for breaking the BBC’s code of conduct. Their piece on Anderson Cooper opened with a shameless dog-whistle: “Anderson Cooper pulled from his closet and dusted off a year-old media story.”
With such high-profile subjects, will the genre of the counter-documentary start to gather steam? With the possible exception of The Great Global Warming Swindle in 2007, which aimed to rebut An Inconvenient Truth, there have been very few comeback movies that have made as big a splash as the originals.
Given the enormous financial and reputational damage documentaries can do, this is surprising. In recent years, major businesses have been scalped by exposé-style docs: in the wake of Blackfish, which revealed the danger of keeping killer whales in captivity, SeaWorld’s shares tanked and its CEO resigned; the unforgettable grotesquery of Super Size Me forced McDonald’s to alter its image as well as its menu. So there’s every motive for organisations that have been put in the spotlight to give their side of the story.
Blackfish director Gabriela Cowperthwaite on her documentary Guardian
Just as celebrities endorse products in adverts, one can imagine trustworthy presenters being hired to make documentaries by, say, a church or NGO. To work, these would need to avoid out-and-out spin (Church of Scientology take note). A crude propaganda film, along the lines of Leni Riefenstahl’s infamous Triumph of the Will, won’t appeal to a modern audience, but a more balanced piece, done by a well-known face, could make a compromised organisation look credible.
Now that documentaries are able to bypass traditional broadcasting media, there is nothing stopping more counter-films from being made. They could reach large audiences without having to adhere to editorial guidelines. In which case, the genre may turn into a wild west of clashing points of view, with each investigatory film sparking a counter-film from the accused.
JG Ballard made the point in his novel High Rise that a documentary can be used as a weapon. Playing with the idea of a knight storming a castle, he has a character, Richard Wilder, climb up a postwar point-block building to confront the villain at the top, but instead of wielding a sword, he carries a camera to shoot a documentary as he goes.
In Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, a documentary about the Chinese artist-activist, you see him confronting local authorities in the aftermath of an earthquake in Sichuan; he is trying to gather the names of each young victim, which have been withheld by the state. As he squares up to the police, they film him while his supporters film them. It gets a bit meta: multiple stories are being recorded which will then do battle to present an official version of events.
The film team review Ai WeiWei: Never Sorry Guardian
Although counter-documentaries are likely to sometimes come from unpalatable places, they may still be valuable, if only because they reveal what has been left out of a discussion. Documentaries can take years to shoot, but in the editing room they must eventually be whittled down to just an hour or two. Theroux was candid about this process in 2008, when he said: “In all journalism, you are taking an encounter and packaging it as something else.” The making of any film involves leaving out bits that don’t quite fit into the neatly parcelled story. For an audience, it’s useful to know what has been cut out and what has been chosen to be gift-wrapped. If and when counter-documentaries do take off, we should embrace them for the depth of coverage they’ll add to any given story.