When documentaries are filmed, produced, and then viewed, the audience is
left with more knowledge and awareness than before having watched it. When I
watch a National Geographic documentary on exploitation of indigenous peoples, I
become aware of their situation and further understand the cruel world around
me. Also, my emotions are stirred up. With the awareness that documentaries
bring, also comes the waves of emotional buildup.
This is why documentaries are most effective in grabbing an audience’s
attention on a subject matter having to do with exploitation, injustice, and
racism; they show the cruelty and disrespect the victims are faced with. Four
Little Girls, a documentary directed by Spike Lee, is an example of this. He
interviews those that were involved or held knowledge of the bombing at 16th St.
Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963.
He speaks with officials and professionals, preachers, family members and
childhood friends of the four girls killed at this incident. At the same time
that these interviews are going on, there are clips from the 50’s and 60’s of
black protesters, marches, and beatings relevant to the political and social
crisis of the day. Also included are picture shots of the girls, including their
gravestones.
Lee incorporates the ongoing Civil Rights Movement with the story of
the bombing incident and the four girls that died as a result. The Civil Rights
Movement becomes more real to us when the protagonists are also made real. The
victims’ parents tell the audience through their words, stories, and pictures,
of who the girls were and how they lived. They also display the girls’ badges,
awards, certificates, and Bible that one had in her pocketbook the day she was
in the church basement attending Sunday school.
