Weeping men and singing women: voices in Finnish documentaries

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on voices that are heard in Finnish documentaries. In this context, the concept of voice indicates different points of view and expressions which are present in a film. In addition to the voice of the film-maker, the voices of subjects comprise essential components of documentaries. Voices are created in the complicated film-making process. In a way, this consists of a game between intentions, plans and openness, a tension between the financing institutions and the film-maker’s ideals of freedom. These tensions and games imply that several voices can find their ways into finalised films: for instance, the voices of financiers and institutions, but also the voices of history and myths. Because several voices appear in documentary films and impact the film-making process at the same time, documentary films can be considered through the metaphor of choric expression. The concept of Bakhtinian polyphony is used to understand the present state of the documentary film in general and Finnish documentary film in particular.

KEYWORDS:

• Voices of documentary film
• Finnish documentary film
• new documentary
• dialogism
• polyphony

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Bakhtin considered the traditional novel as monologic, because there is only one voice present. For instance, Tolstoy’s narration is monologic. The modern novels, such as Dostoevsky’s works, are polyphonic, because they have several voices. The narrator’s voice is only one among others, and these voices are equal, interacting with each other in a dialogical relationship. The characters of a novel are not only objects, they are also subjects and have their own voices.

2. For Aho & Soldan’s documentaries, see Sedergren and Kippola (2009, 299–309).

3. Compilation films make use of news reels, educational films and old documentaries as well as fiction films and commercials. More about compilation films: Martin (1963, 86), Leyda (1964) and von Bagh (2002).

4. The Kalevala poems were collected by Elias Lönnrot in the early nineteenth century in Karelia in Eastern Finland, mainly in the area now belonging to Russia.

5. Transnational cinema studies is a relatively new approach, studying the interaction and influences between film cultures and national cinemas (Bacon 2013, 7–8; Hjort and MacKenzie 2000, 4–5).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jouko Aaltonen

Notes on contributor

Jouko Aaltonen is a documentary filmmaker and researcher. He is a Doctor of Arts, Adjunct Professor (Docent) and visiting researcher at Aalto University’s Department of Film, Television and Scenography. He has published several articles and five books. He is an active film director and producer, and has directed about 20 documentaries for national and international distribution, several of them awarded (see www.illume.fi).