Perspectives on Documentary Filmmaking

Subjectivity and Story in Documentary:

The Barkley Marathons: Where Dreams Go to Die

In their manifesto “Beyond Story,” Alexandra Juhasz & Alisa Lebow declare, “We need documentary. We need it to help interpret the world.”[footnoteRef:1] The authors condemn cinematic, fictional storytelling as inherently polluted by commercialism. Conventional commercial filmmaking, they say, takes individuals out of the communities which produced them, thus alienating them from the economic, social, historical, and other material forces in the eyes of the audience. In other words, documentaries have a political power to convey truth that conventional cinema does not by rooting narratives in fact rather than story. In stark contrast, Trinh Minh-ha, “The Totalizing Quest of Meaning,” argues: “There is no such thing as documentary… Truth and meaning: the two are likely to be equated with one another. Yet, what is put forth as truth is often nothing more than a meaning.”[footnoteRef:2] In other words, although documentaries purport to convey absolute truth, in fact, they convey a very specific version of that truth and should not be confused with objective reality. [1: Alexandra Juhasz & Alisa Lebow, “Beyond Story: An Online, Community-Based Manifesto,” World Records, vol. 2, no. 3 (2018): 1.] [2: Trinh Minh-ha, “The Totalizing Quest of Meaning,” in Theorizing Documentary, (New York: Routledge:1993), 90-91.]

The 2018 documentary The Barkley Marathons: Where Dreams Go to Die, directed by Ethan Newberry encompasses elements of what Juhasz and Lebow both celebrate and despise. On one hand, it is very much not a Hollywood documentary. It is produced by a very small filmmaker, taking advantage of the new availability of YouTube as a way to disseminate content. It is about a relatively obscure sport (ultra-running), chronicling one of the most difficult events in the sport. The Barkley Marathons is such a challenging race, few people ever finish it. On the other hand, it is very much a story-based event, following the attempt of the Canadian runner Gary Robbins to finish the race. Rather than focusing on a larger social and political context, which Juhasz and Lebow see as the radical potential of documentaries, it is a story which also has parallels with many popular fictional narratives—not just that of a sports film which focuses on a big race or game, but also the idea of human beings against nature.

Another distinct feature of the Barkley Marathons is its cultural context. It takes place in a very rural area of Tennessee. As many of the runners are based internationally, or outside the rural South, there is a strange mystique surrounding the organizer “Laz Lake” Cantrell, who is portrayed as a kind of mystical figure in the film, uttering obscure phrases in the background. Unlike most conventional running races, the start of the race is uncertain (people camp out, waiting for the signal for when it starts at the sound of the blowing of a conch, which could be at any time Laz wants for it to begin). Navigation is difficult, and there is no clear path through the woods, and the various loops of the course can be treacherous. The narrator ominously warns the viewer about the dangers of the race, as more and more runners drop out of the race. Very few runners have ever finished the race, and many become obsessed with finishing it, returning again and again after subjecting themselves to grueling training.

The subjectivity of the perspective outlined by Minh-ha in his essay on the nature of the documentary medium can be seen in the way that the quest of the runners is presented in an idealized way. There is no questioning as to whether their goal of completing the race is noble and a challenge of human limitations versus a questionable investment of time and resources. Runner Gary Robbins is asked about his preparation for the race and how he hopes to rebound from a previous failure, but not why he became so obsessed with the race in the first place, other than the fact it is a challenge. The level of control and mystery Laz has over the runners is also portrayed as if he is a wise man subjecting them to a great challenge of their endurance, even though he seems to have little regard for their safety in terms of how he designed the course and his arbitrary rules which are very different even from more conventionally run ultra marathons (Barkley’s runners are not allowed to use GPS watches, for example, to enable them to find their way in the strange woods). The viewer is encouraged to embrace and accept this rather than to question the value of the sports or adventure quest. The documentary presents many real facts about running the race—including how the runners navigate the terrain, fuel with food, and strategize—but this reality is still filtered through a very specific perspective, to idealize the race and a sport where people place themselves at risk for apparently no clear purpose.