Last week, a highly anticipated Faculty of Humanities seminar saw renowned documentary film-maker Michael Rabiger challenge the assumption that, as an artist, you are hustling for a small piece of a small pie. The pie is infinite, he says, because there is an infinite demand for voices that are fresh, vibrant and relevant.
Rabiger, who is something of a legend in documentary circles, has written and directed many award-winning short films. He thrived during a long and demanding stint at the BBC as a resident film-maker, and his book, Directing the Documentary, is considered by many to be the proverbial bible of the art of constructing documentary films.
The esteemed speaker began by pointing out that he was addressing his listeners as equals, and had not come with presumptions of espousing his own methods over anyone else’s. Rabiger sees art and creativity in all vocations, and believes that we should each seek to do the work that really fulfils us. One nugget of wisdom he offered was that the work we love gives us energy, while any other work - be it tedium, toil or drudgery - takes energy away.
An early bloomer into the film world, Rabiger worked as a youth with his father on such classics as Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. When he first entered the world of film as a lowly make-up artist at just 16 one’s place within the larger picture of a film crew was rigid and one didn’t know any more than was absolutely necessary to perform a very specific task.
This early culture of inflexible roles in film-making has been flipped upside down of late. Modern equipment has, miraculously, enabled any individual to assume the roles of an entire production studio and craft a film on their own. Today’s challenge is to use that miracle with passion, joy and a sense of responsibility.
Rabiger does, however, still see great value in collaboration. “Associations have power. Individuals don’t,” he noted. He invoked the timeless metaphor of the individual as a leaf on a great tree, nourished by the same roots and moved by the same breeze as all the others.
He also espouses some rather unconventional teaching philosophies such as practice before theory. The trend when Rabiger first started teaching film was that students should master the craft, technique and technologies of film before they could “have something to say”. Rabiger reverses this trend by sending his students out into the streets, camera in hand, on their first day of study. This method is grounded in the belief that everyone has something to say, and that the human mind is most content when actively engaged in creation of some kind. Curiosity about theory comes later.
“A work of art is a corner of nature seen through a temperament”. The words of French novelist Emile Zola resonate with Rabiger and have significantly influenced his thinking. Rather than teach technologies and techniques, at the expense of artistic drive, Rabiger emphasises the development of story-telling and the crafting of inspirational story ideas. At its best, a documentary is work of art infused with warmth, intricate detail and a uniquely human point of view.