Bruzzi's Arguments In The Times Of Harvey Milk

The importance behind Bruzzi’s argument about the Zapruder film is the differences between film as “record” and film as “representation of the truth.”

She argues that a “record” documentary is a film that shows a representation of original and authentic footage of the event but it still doesn’t explain the reason for the event. Bruzzi uses Zapruder’s film of the assassination of President Kennedy as an example of a “record” documentary. To support her argument, Bruzzi states, “Although Zapruder’s footage is an archetypal example of accidental, reactive and objective film, it has rarely been permitted to exist as such because, as Bill Nichols comments, ‘To re-present the event is clearly not to explain it’ (Nichols 1994: 121) ( Bruzzi, pg.

To support her argument about the value of narration in documentaries, Bruzzi uses the documentary, The Times of Harvey Milk, as an example of how narration can be valuable for documentaries. She argues that the narration in the film, The Times of Harvey Milk, contributes uniquely to the topic of the film, mainly because of the choice of narrator. The film uses voice-over actor, Harvey Feirstein, who was one of few actors that were openly gay at the time. The narrator, Harvey Fierstein, is compatible with the film’s stance toward its subject, gay rights. Fierstein is narrating a film about one of the first openly gay man to be voted into public office in California and assassinated because of his political views on homosexuality. This would be beneficial for the filmmaker to cast Fierstein as the narrator since Fierstein can easily relate to the topic. Bruzzi states, “Harvey Milk is clearly an ‘authored’ film, and yet it also abides by the formal unity associated with expository documentaries; not only is it driven by strong narration, but its narrative is structured around a series of collisions that emanate from the central Milk vs. White opposition that heighten, explicate and crystallise the debates enacted therein such as gays and lesbians vs. evangelical bigots, minority communities vss the white, middle-class, heterosexual minority”(Bruzzi, pg. 54). What Bruzzi is trying to say is that the narration of the film had a significant value on the subject of the film.