Documentary ethics 3

• Robert Aibel (1991) presumes that since the public has become increasingly sensitive to the moral irresponsibility of the documentarists, many people are now wary of taking part in any documentary. They fear, Aibel suspects, that they would be defamed by a film-maker-in-search-of-success (Aibel, 1991, p. 117) . In the meantime, documentary subjects have become in the focus of a competitive market, based upon a supply-and-demand principle, in the hunt for the more striking subjects to the audience. This, in Bakker's point of view (2006), puts the concept of 'informed consent' under pressure because 'it is a kind of corruption; the appearance in the film has become a paid contract' (Jolliffe & Zinnes ‏ , 2006, p. 56) . Subjects, thereby, should not merely be considered as passive victims, Bakker (2005) recommends. They may turn against the filmmaker because they already know their opportunities.
• One of the most notable examples in this vein is the judicial conflict between the French filmmaker Nicholas Philibert and the subject of his acclaimed documentary Etre et Avoir (To Be and to Have) (2002). The film depicts everyday life in a rural classroom in the French village of Saint-Etienne-sur-Esson, and became an unexpected French cinema success when it was released in 2002. Through a vivid narrative line, the film particularly focuses on Georges Lopez, the passionate teacher and the effectiveness of his teaching methods, which made him a star as the film was being shown, hitting the box office records with 1.8 million spectators in the cinemas. The teacher, the film subject, refused a one-off payment offered by the documentary makers and triggered an acrimonious lawsuit, claiming that the film's success rested entirely on his personality, and that his teaching methods, made famous by the film, were his intellectual property. He demanded £170,000 payment, in return, which was rejected by the court. The teacher, in the court judgment, had no grounds to argue he should be treated as an actor because he was filmed as he went about his everyday professional duties.
• The Spectator:
• The act of watching a film implies an ethical stance as well. Just as documentary makers have an obligation to their subjects, they also have the same to their audiences. The spectator expects documentaries to show some kind of reality. Documentary makers then must not exaggerate or twist facts so as to produce an attention-grabbing story (Ethics and Documentary, 2010) , or to meet the standards of a producer or a network or a television show. The spectator, as Bakker (2006) claims, 'isn't that innocent anymore' (Jolliffe & Zinnes ‏ , 2006, p. 58) . Reconstructed reality should also be unmistakably marked.
• Furthermore, the spectators' understanding and perception of any documentary are surrounded by their moral and ideological environment. Bakker (2006) deems that the spectator should be conscious of the fact that the representation of the documentary and his/her own interpretation of it are both guided by the world views of respectively the filmmaker and the spectator (Jolliffe & Zinnes ‏ , 2006, p. 58) .