The Power of Testimony

Film is a powerful medium for interpretation.  Filmmakers combine stunning images, provocative narration, eyewitness accounts, the insight of experts, imaginative editing, pacing and poetic musical scores to create rich and memorable experiences.

While films are often intended to draw out a particular response from viewers, the medium of film offers a unique opportunity to explore multiple points of view and allow viewers to come to their own conclusions.  First-person testimony involves the audience in the project of finding meaning.

First-person testimony involves the audience in the project of finding meaning.

In the past few years, I’ve had the privilege of participating in several film projects for parks in my region of the National Park Service that typify this kind of exploratory search for meaning.

A film for Pipestone National Monument, Minnesota, tells the story of a very special site where American Indians of many tribes have quarried stone for sacred pipes for centuries. The film conveys the story through the voices of American Indians working in the quarry and crafting pipes. The people in the film have different associations with the land and its history, but their stories share common themes of cultural survival, religious freedom, and respect for ancestors.

Scenes of American Indians in their quarries straining to clear away the incredibly hard Sioux Quartzite rock layers above the pipestone layer effectively bring home themes of perseverance and determination. An American Indian elder celebrates the survival of his culture, that, like the pipestone, continues to persevere. His testimony conveys a sense of the site’s sacredness with an authenticity that no description could match.

While the Pipestone film has some brief bits of narration to carry along the story line, a recent film for Homestead National Monument of America, Nebraska, contains no voice-over narration at all. The film addresses the influence of homesteading in 30 states over a period of 120 years. The challenge was to make a story with such a broad scope interesting and relevant to visitors. This film succeeds because personal anecdotes and family histories bring a rich mosaic of meanings and personal connections to the legacy of homesteading. From start to finish, the voices in the film are the voices of real people — descendants of homesteaders, historians, American Indians, and even modern homesteaders from Alaska.

From start to finish, the voices in the film are the voices of real people — descendants of homesteaders, historians, American Indians, and even modern homesteaders from Alaska.

Narratives from a single perspective run the risk of seeming didactic and
one-dimensional. The story of homesteading could easily have slipped into nostalgia and romanticism, a simplistic celebration of a bygone era. The film, however, incorporates contrasting points of view to make the story three-dimensional. The varied perspectives and stories of American Indians, historians, living homesteaders, and descendents of homesteaders collectively demonstrate history’s complexity, and challenge viewers to consider their personal concepts of opportunity, success, and failure.

I remain profoundly respectful for all the different practices of interpretation, but I have a particular regard for films that allow for a range of reactions and meanings that provoke rather than simply inform and entertain. Films certainly can teach, but they also can carry viewers to a high level of reflection about the very essence of our natural and cultural resources.

Tagged as: film, getting personal with media