If you watched any of the RNC this week you undoubtedly saw the tribute videos, each one designed to give an emotional telling of a player’s compelling biography.
As each one played I couldn’t help but feel there was something missing. It was during the one last night for Sarah Plain tonight that I figured out what it was1.
A story.
Before I elaborate I want to say that I do find each of the GOP candidates’s life stories to be compelling. Despite my electoral preference this year, I’m not so jaded by the Republican Party that I’ve become callous. These are people, after all.
My problem with the videos was that they had stunning imagery with a narrator rattling off just the facts. I suppose that’s fine and good for a history lecture. But political conventions are also discourses… conversations if you will.
If you think for a moment to documentary film making, what is it you notice about them? For one, they’re not objective. In fact, they’re not supposed to be objective. By design they’re giving you exactly what they want you to have.
But more importantly they tell a story by engaging you with the narrative, by reaching into your heart. And how do they do that? Just like any good storyteller does… by showing you what they want you to see.
Ken Burns is arguably the greatest film documentarian who’s ever held a camera. If all he did was feature wooden narration over the top of his wonderful imagery he’d never be allowed to make another film.
What Burns does is find people who’re passionate about the subject at hand — jazz, baseball, the Civil War — and gets them talking about their passion. Who better to testify about the candidates than those who love them?
Consider the video played at Barack Obama’s acceptance speech:
Here’s Sarah Palin’s RNC video:
Why didn’t the RNC talk to people close to those they profiled?
Granted, Roberta McCain had a line or two in the tribute to her son2. But there wasn’t any of that in the other tributes I saw. Not for Palin. Not for George H. W. Bush. Not even for Ronald Reagan.
As a result, the videos — which could have been fantastic — fell flat.
To the people who watched them, too:
What did you think?
Read elsewhere
- Commentary: McCain turns to old GOP themes, buzzwords
- In His Speech, McCain Needs to Reassemble the Nixon-Reagan Conservative Coalition
- Analysis: GOP convention marked by nostalgia
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