Maxine Baker and ‘Beyond explanation’

Evita Peron’s, Don’t cry for me Argentina (1978) is one of the most known movies and musicals ever made. In ‘Lessons for life’ Maxine Baker talks about what she has learned about making documentaries. Starting off going to the cinema and becoming a doco maker Baker thinks it is more behind the production of it:

“Documentary is sometimes about seeing that there might be another side to any published story” (Baker 2006 p. 256).

What I can learn from Baker’s lessons is how to improve as a journalist and as a filmmaker. Baker talks about the importance of keeping on to the child curiousity and always ask questions figure out everything not just the facts and the background, but the details and what underlies within them. Another important learning lesson Baker mentions is that one learns more from mistakes than the right: because one never does them again.

In ‘Don’t cry for me Argentina’ (1978), Argentina’s political situation is explored through the romance of Evita and Peron. The Peronists were considered to be the biggest threat and mentioning the name Evita was politically dangerous. This because Peron had been in exile for years and he was returning back to his wife Evita in Argentina, where she was going to run for president. Baker, as an investigative inexperienced filmmaker in 1971 had to sneak in to the documents and pictures about Evita and Peron after closing time and travel with the rolls of unprocessed film stock in her handbag. It was the timeline, not much talking and taking no risk that for Baker worked, and she left Argentina shortly before the military coup of dictatorship began.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Spy3Nd2D6w

In terms of investigative, undercover or otherwise researching in dangerous location, one must be aware of own risks and be careful. What sounds like a gifted investigator as Lisbeth Salander (The Girl with the Dragon tattoo) is simply Maxine Baker:

-Not being afraid to ask stupid questions.
-Protecting her character.
-Knowing the Media Law in the selected documented field.
-And sometimes getting release forms signed and approved.

Another example is ‘Beyond Explanation’, the talent talks about the upbringing through the winds of politics, war and the Auswitch deport. It is a very strong and very well made doco in terms of the selection of grabs, images and sound design. The dramatical past of the talent is seen in the deep absolute truth from the war times.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D536CLOVWII

The vulnerable points are touched on and the talent speaks the about the truth of the past with the topics of keeping on to the inner strength, identity and rising above the humiliation: ‘This is to pass bad things into good things to others, and it is a proof of living’. This together with the use of overhead and linking a cinema to his past becomes the successful result of a production, about reconstructing a war thorn society and survival, into a documentary.