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The poetic mode was introduced into documentaries in the 1920’s. As Bill Nichols stated, the poetic mode “moves away from the ‘objective’ reality of a given situation or people, to grasp at an “inner truth” that can only be grasped by poetical manipulation.” When considering which mode of documentary to develop a project for, a personal story immediately came to mind that I thought could only be told utilizing the poetic mode. I needed the freedom to join together images and ideas that do not intertwine in any way outside of the subjective interpretation of the poetic mode. Like Joris Iven’s Rain and George Antheil’s Ballet Mechanique, I wanted to create a strong tone and a visual story that did not depend on reality or narrative to convey.
During my years in high school, I had a dear friend by the last name of Stone. Our relationship went back and forth in a predicable pattern until a breaking point was reached in 2009. After an incident involving Stone self medicating and coming to school claiming that I was some sort of idol to him and displaying an unhealthy attachment to me, Stone was diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. His condition persists, and despite my attempts to distance myself from his destructive, obsessive, and intrusive behavior I still get the occasional harmless message from him. I suppose I always will.
This poetic documentary was made in the memory of our friendship and an effort to capture the conflict and emotional distress he caused to himself and his relationships. With accompaniment by a song from the band La Dispute titled A Broken Jar, the film begins rather slow and calm, and then progresses to be manic and jarring. This evolution is to convey the arch of my relationship with Stone. All of the video footage is footage taken and unwantedly sent to me in his attempts to reach out. The blurry, distorted nature of the documentary is a representation of Stone’s point of view on the world and his difficulty connecting to reality. Additionally, the quotes are all directly from text messages written to me from Stone as he desperately tried to make me understand the isolation and frustration in his own mind. The disjointed imagery and non-narrative quality is what I believe make my project an effective poetic documentary.