Night and Fog and JFK Documentary

The film Night and Fog, directed by Resnais, was an interesting and intense documentary that really captivated and drew the audience’s attention.  The use of real and raw footage from the deserted concentration camps really made the documentary. The documentary is haunting, but it is also a beautiful portrayal of the Holocaust. The use of black and white images in the flashback of the concentration camps during the Holocaust and the colored images of the deserted concentration camps really draw the audience’s attention and have an impact of the destruction that the Holocaust had caused. In addition to this, the use of both black and white imaging and colored imaging made the documentary more intriguing and captivating. The images used in the documentary were very powerful, and the sequence of the images was very impactful as well. The sequence of the images was powerful in its self that the narration, it can be argued, was in a sense not needed. The narration of the documentary did not hurt the documentary, but it did not help make the documentary more impactful or powerful. The narration of the documentary was just simply a description of what the images were showing the audience or quotes from the Nazis.

The documentary film about JFK is very different in the use of editing and filming than the Night and Fog documentary. The JFK documentary was more like a theatrical movie or film than real life footage. The footage still captured the real life events and did an amazing job in doing so. The audience viewed it as if it were filmed and screened right after the events. If this documentary were all real or raw footage it would not have been the same or had the same impact, arguably. The way the film was sequenced and portrayed helped in the understanding of the film and played a big role in it. This was the same for the Night and Fog documentary; the sequence of the pictures enhanced and made the documentary powerful.

Sequence and music score has a lot to do with the films and/ or documentaries as well. The score for the Night and Fog documentary for example was rather upbeat at times and not sad or somber, like the viewer would think. It contradicted the images that were displayed. If the music was sad and somber it might not have had the same effect or given the viewer the same feeling after watching it. The music score plays a part of the inner turmoil that the viewer feels while watching the documentary because it contradicts at the end of the documentary the viewer is left with feud of seeing horrible images and rather upbeat music at times.