Documentary Rape
digital file Colour Sound 1980 4:28
Summary: Made by Terry Flaxton, Tony Cooper, Penny Dedman as part of the Video Art group Vida, Documentary Rape is set in San Francisco and is a satirical, scathing video which critiques the making of travelogues and ‘Portrait of a Place’ documentaries.
Title number: 22977
LSA ID: LSA/30200
Description: The film begins with an American man on the telephone in his office, talking about a British film crew coming to town to film a ‘social misery’ film. He says he is looking for a ‘Black, Jewish, Lesbian Anarchist’ to present. The film then cuts across the skyscrapers and modern cityscape of San Francisco. Next, we hear a voiceover from a man and woman describing the street scene, in the style of John Smith’s The Girl Chewing Gum (1976). A young man walks up to the camera and becomes the narrator of the film. He critiques the making of documentaries, the ‘ravenous cameras’ that misrepresent places to millions of people within cities with various staged sequences, including a faux street interview where he asks a man if he likes San Francisco. To which he responds, ‘It’s nice’. Then, the camera pans down to their feet and you hear them discussing his performance.
Credits: Terry Flaxton (Director); Tony Cooper (Director); Penny Dedman (Director); Vida (Producer)
Keywords: satire; skit
Locations: San Francisco
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