Fauxtography
Documentarian extraordinaire Errol Morris explores the subversive and increasingly widespread phenomenon of fauxtography. Issues like this have always been a primary consideration in the art of documentary filmmaking so there’s no one better to take a whack at it than Morris. Take it from a film school grad.
What does it say, though, that the Big Questions have become so diminished in this intellectually watered-down post-modern world? You can’t address “What is Life?” anymore without getting into an argument about the unfortunate fate of pre-born children sacrificed on the altar of “choice.” You can’t ask “Is There a God?” without an accusation that you’re a religious nut who must believe in the 5,000-year-old Earth.
No, the Big Questions have been reduced to this: “What is real?”
Unfortunately Morris’ first interviewee fits the expected New York Times-style of expert template, chattering a lot of insight-free psycho-blather you’ve probably heard before.
He even starts off with the caveat: “The short answer is: I don’t know.” Well then why the hell should we continue reading? Does he really need a middle school teacher to tell him that there are different types of learning? We thought he was the expert.
Morris’s second interviewee, however, coined of the term fauxtography. And Charles Johnson offers some hard information about how he goes about spotting a manipulated image.
As a bonus, buried in that second interview he also puts forth what might be termed “Johnson’s Razor:”
You should never attribute to cleverness what can be easily explained by stupidity.
What is real? We know one thing that’s real. Here’s an answer in this video:
Russian armor rolling by you on the highway. That, my friends, is real.
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