Cast: Diane Lane, James Gandolfini, Tim Robbins
Director: Shari Springer Berman, Robert Pulcini
Screenplay: David Seltzer

Synopsis: A behind-the-scenes look at the making of the first American family to be the subjects of a reality TV show [1].

Review:

Cinema Verite is a detailed look into the production of the 1971 film “The American Story.” What is fascinating is that we get to see this recounting of the lives of the Loud family as well as the production crew, and the struggles they went through in the making of the first reality television. The controversies from “The American Story” stem from people reacting to the fact that American families had problems, and up until that time, most American families would have two faces. One face would be a carefully groomed and vetted realty to all those outside the home, and another face would be dealing with home life. America reacted to this show because it was a reflection on their own lives, and that most families dealt with divorce, anger, domestic abuse and infidelity, and brought to the attention that the American family was not like the families on the fictional television shows at the time. When “The American Story” aired, people were outraged because it openly demonstrated these issues, including having a homosexual child, which were all sins repressed by religion, stemming from our Puritan ancestors. It seems that audiences at that time simply did not want to deal with these issues in a public forum, and instead would rather deal with them privately. Once these issues were brought to the forefront of the American consciousness, these true family issues could be repressed no longer, evidenced by the correlation of the public controversy surrounding the show and the significant spike in divorces around that same time.

Most audiences probably don’t realize or probably care that most if not all of the reality television that we see today is a scripted reality. Audiences enjoy the voyeuristic escape into the lives of these pseudo-non-fiction lives because they are lives that the average person does not live. These shows demonstrate lives that maybe some of us wish we could live or at least have tried out, but because of the struggles of everyday lives, there is no money or time to try them out ourselves. It is simply economically viable to sit down after a long day of work, and watch someone else living out these fantasies, then to save up and go live these adventures ourselves. That escapism is the primary driver behind the success of these shows, as well as the feedback loop with having discussions with family and friends about these shows and how ridiculous they are. Most of the American population is simply not drawn to most television shows or movies for their artistic or moral merits, but for entertainment, something to relax to after a long day of trying to survive in present day America.

In summary, the film nicely illustrates the struggles on the screen as well as off the screen. What was acceptable in 1971 in regards to documenting a family’s difficult struggle with a pending divorce is easily eclipsed by the type of material that is filmed in today’s culture of reality television. As much as the material seems of little value and without much cultural merit, the fact is that if there was not a commercial market for this type of television, then this type of material would never get filmed. Audiences tend to gravitate towards this material because it is a type of hyper-reality detached from their own everyday lives, one in which the audience acts as a voyeur into the lives of others. Studios love this material because it is much cheaper to film hours of footage and cut it in post for a show, then to deal with screenwriters, sets, directors, or any crew for that matter. Does reality television contribute to our society? Maybe not, but in reflecting back at the past decades, we tend to gleam over the horrible television, music, movies, and other culture elements because the rose tinted glasses only allow us to remember the things we enjoyed and minimize the effects bad elements of culture had on us.

 

References:

    1. “Cinema Verite.” IMDb: The Internet Movie Database. IMDb.com-Amazon.com, 1990-2014. Thurs. 6 March 2014. <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1623742/?ref_=nv_sr_2>.
    2. “Cinema Verite.” Rotten Tomatoes.com, 2014. Thurs. 6 March 2014. <http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/cinema_verite_2011/>.
    3. “Cinema Verite.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., 2014. Thurs. 6 March 2014. < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinema_Verite>.
    4. Associated Press. Divorce rate falls to lowest level since 1970. NBC News, Inc., 2014. Thurs. 6 March 2014. < http://www.nbcnews.com/id/18600304/ns/us_news-life/t/us-divorce-rate-falls-lowest-level/>.