Private Violence
(Cynthia Hill, 2014) is a feature-length US documentary that reveals a
disturbing fact about American life: one of the most dangerous places for women
is their own home. Every day in the USA, at least four women are murdered by
abusive partners, 75% of these women are killed after they leave or in the
process of leaving. Yet “Why didn’t you just leave?” is commonly the asked question nearly every time the subject of domestic violence is
addressed. Private Violence, rather
than relying on statistic data from across the country or on a wide range of weak-worked
stories, focuses on the stories of two domestic violence survivors as a means
of bringing the audience closer to the subject and thus calling them to action.
In
this expository-observational documentary, Cynthia Hill tells the stories of
Deanna Walters — a woman who seeks
justice for herself after being kidnapped with her daughter and beaten for four
days by her husband while they were being hauled across the country — and Kit Gruelle — a domestic violence survivor and now advocate
who helps women seek justice for themselves. Through the lenses of these women,
the director shows the world of domestic violence in the United States, hoping
the documentary will shed some light on the topic and make society at least
reevaluate the discourse about this issue.
Considering
Patricia Aufderheide, in her book Documentary
Film: A Very Short Introduction (2007), Private
Violence is an advocacy film - “Advocacy films are usually highly focused
and designed to motivate viewers to a particular action (sic). They, like
propaganda films, deserve attention from anyone who wants to understand the
techniques of persuasion – and nothing persuades like reality” (Aufderheide
78). The documentary clearly advocates against a disbelieving judicial system
and a society which blames the victims.
According
to Jane Chapman, in her book Issues in
Contemporary Documentary (2009), “Documentary is representative: it
represents, and is representative of, certain cultural and social phenomena”
(Chapman 28), in the case of Private
Violence the social phenomena is very clear and it is already indicated in
the film’s title. However, as the author argues, “Representation is not simply
about capturing ‘reality’: a documentary seeks to persuade, which means that
representational issues are central to its inherent ideology” (Chapman 29).
This documentary, although it has the intention to show domestic violence per se, chooses to highlight two
specific cases: Kit’s and Deanna’s. Whereas both women illustrate spousal
violence, Deanna’s story exemplifies the women who are victims of this type of
aggression; while Kit represents the people who try to fight for justice
against the aggressors.
This
choice, as Chapman suggests, is an attempt to persuade the audience, since they
can more easily identify with the situation Deanna went through hearing it from
herself, and also feel empathy for Kit, who is willing to devote her life to
help women in need. In this sense, Bill Nichols, in Introduction to Documentary (2010), claims that “Advocacy/Promotion
of a cause [films] stress convincing, compelling evidence and examples; urge
adoption of a specific point of view” (Nichols 150). In Private Violence, Kit Gruelle and Deanna Walters are those
examples.
Furthermore,
Chapman claims that “ ‘Representation’ can be construed in three different
ways: as a photographic or aural likeness of something; as a way of standing
for views of organizations, groups or agencies; and as making a case or proposition
for some aspect of the real world” (Chapman 29). Hill uses the latter to
produce the documentary through means of testimony
(Deanna), “which offers a first-person perspective on experiences” (Chapman
29), and also exposition (Kit),
“where a third-person narration explains the situation, behavior or experiences
of other third persons. This will intend to create empathy rather than direct
identification on the part of the viewer, although audiences may well ask
themselves how they would have felt or acted in such a situation” (Chapman 29).
It
is through what Deanna tells us, and the pictures we see of her when she was beaten,
that we connect with her story, but it is also through what Kit tells us about
other domestic violence victims that we learn that Deanna’s aggression is not
isolated. Domestic violence is not a rare fact, it is something that happens
more frequently than people think, with all types of women, rich and poor,
black and white, married and single, and most of the times nothing is done
against the aggressors; instead these women have to face systems that at times
are anything but helpful, systems that fail, judge, and blame them for the
violence to which they have been subjected. I this sense, considering Nichols
once more, Private Violence also
seems to use Testimonial films as a
model, since the documentary “assemble[s] oral history or witnesses who recount
their personal experience” (Nichols 151).
But
if the director’s intention with this film is to show domestic violence in the
US, why has the director chosen Deanna and Kit to represent this issue? Cynthia
Hill, in an interview to the 2014 Sundance Film Festival channel on YouTube,
admits she felt compelled by Deanna’s story because she is an example of “a
victim transformed into a survivor” (Hill). The director also says that Kit’s
world was just fascinating to her, since the advocate represented somebody
battered women could talk to and be heard, somebody who could show them that
there is a world out there with life without violence. According to Hill, these
two women’s stories are powerful, something that people have never seen before. The director goes on saying that she
hopes the documentary can help Americans stop blaming the victims for what has
happened to them.
In
this regard, Chapman claims that
The meaning of a documentary can be viewed as an
interplay between the text and the audience – a process which requires viewers
to be active, using their own experiences and identity in the way they sort the
meaning. The audience must make a comparison between their existing
understanding and what is represented on the screen, which they may either
accept or reject. A variety of interpretations of any given text are likely,
for sense-making involves a negotiation between a viewer’s perspective in a
particular situation and what the text brings to them. Influences may include
their job, class, gender, life experiences and viewing environment. (Chapman
137)
Considering
the excerpt above, one can argue that there is no way everybody understands the
same message from the movie, since the comparison made by each person between
their experience of world and the representation on the screen is completely
different, depending on their distinct backgrounds. For this reason, in Private Violence, although the
filmmakers focus on Deanna and Kit, they also show some secondary stories as a
way to prove that domestic violence occurs with people of all kinds.
These
stories play a supporting role for Hill’s thesis. While Deanna’s case shows a
woman from North Carolina who was married and had a baby, Latina’s story — the woman
who ended up in jail after killing her boyfriend who beat her so badly over the
years causing her to lose sight in one eye — shows a woman still single and
with no children but that could not escape from the aggression as well. If both
Deanna and Latina may be seen as poor and uneducated women, the movie also showed
the story of “Blondie”, a beautiful, rich and well-educated woman who ended up murdered
by her husband. There is still “Smokie”, a woman who left her abuser and sought
shelter to protect herself and her daughter, but at the end, despite the
aggressions, went back to her husband.
The
filmmakers give the audience a variety of situations hoping that the viewers
will be able to connect with one of them. If one person thinks that domestic
violence only happens to poor and uneducated women, “Blondie" can show the
opposite. If somebody’s experience tells him/her that it only happens because
women are weak and do not leave abusers, Deanna shows this is not true. It is
the filmmakers’ role to show the audience a variety of situations and/or
perspectives, so even though they have different backgrounds, they are still
able to connect with the documentary.
For
some people though, like Dan Schindel from the website Nonfics, the secondary
stories seemed confused and unnecessary. Schindel says:
the film’s effectiveness is somewhat undercut by
narrative confusion. Deanna’s story comes to us haphazardly — it isn’t until
relatively late in the film that the full details of what happened to her are
laid out on a single, easy-to-understand timeline. Vignettes in which Kit
visits the other victims seem to be placed without total regard to rhyme or
reason. Scenes that look like they’ll lead to their own story threads,
including the opening, ultimately go nowhere. It feels like the movie could
have gone through one more round of editing. (Schindel)
Whether
the editing could have gone through one more round or if it was exactly the
filmmakers’ intention to leave those secondary stories with less details, no
one can be sure of. Although, some of the stories, such as “Blondie’s” or
“Smokie’s”, could have been better produced, considering that many questions
remained answered, the importance of those stories, cannot be discussed. After
all the documentary is about domestic violence, and not a biography about
Deanna’s and Kit’s lives. Those stories were really necessary for the
argumentation of the film thesis: violence exists in different contexts, and
this should not be overlooked.
From a historical
point of view though, Private
Violence has come a long way. Since Muybridge’s horses
in motion, passing
through Flaherty’s third-person narration and subjective
tone, till
Riefenstahl’s impressive camera techniques and editing perfectionism, Private Violence has a mix of everything,
not so sophisticated though. The filmmakers make use of cuts in juxtaposition
so the audience does not feel the
abruptness of the changes of scenes, they also use camera in cars (while Kit
drives to see the victims), moving shots, angles of 180 degrees, third-person
narration (when Kit tells us what happened to Deanna) as well as first-person
narration (Deanna herself). Although there are no special-effects and no
innovative camera shooting or editing, the movie is well produced and edited.
Whether the director’s choices during editing process about the importance of
those secondary stories may be questioned, it seems they were carefully thought
to serve the purpose of documentary film: persuade audiences.
Moreover,
why Cynthia Hill chose not to show the men’s (abusers) version of the facts -
or at least show them a little bit at all considering they are the core of the
problem - may be another question to be raised about the editing process in Private Violence. Are men inherently
mean? What made those men do what they did? What differs them from non-abusers?
Nonetheless, considering that the story is about battered women and it is told
by themselves, one can argue that the film is biased intentionally to persuade
the audience and according to Chapman “The creative impulse seems to mitigate
against impartiality, for it involves an element of personalization” (Chapman 49).
The
documentary focus was on the imperfect and sometimes irrational justice system.
At no moment the abusers were heard or even the justice system was investigated
as to why its laws are so “unfair” and archaic. On the opposite, only the
women’s voices were heard. It is through Deanna’s story that the movie’s agenda
is presented to the audience. She personifies of all victims in her own, while
she seeks justice, dignity, change. The filmmakers might have considered that
exploring the situation of the women was more relevant to their thesis than showing
the insensitive side of the abusers.
From a more theoretical view
point, according to the criteria set forth by Nichols in Introduction to Documentary, Private
Violence may be considered an observational documentary - "look on as
social actors go about their lives as if the camera were not present"
(Nichols 150). The audience learns about the lives of the people in the
documentary by watching their "trials", seeing them play with their
children, hearing their phone conversations, as if they were simply living
their lives. Although there are interviews, at no moment filmmakers are seen or
heard. There is no participation of them in shaping what happens before the
camera. Sometimes it is Kit who interviews the victims herself. In other
scenes, although people know Kit is answering questions, only her responses are
heard. The filmmakers are not "on stage". The audience follows the
"characters" as if they were there with them, as if they were asking
the questions themselves, as if those women were talking to them. This is a
choice of the directors and by doing so, they focus on the problem: the
violence those women went through and the difficulty in proving it and making
the guilty ones pay for that.
Nevertheless, as Nichols
says, it is possible to mix modes in many films. Taking that into
consideration, Private Violence also
follows the expository mode. The author argues "This mode [expository]
gives priority to the spoken word to convey the film's perspective from a
single, unifying source. This, in turn, facilitates the comprehension" (Nichols
154). Cynthia Hill's documentary makes use of conversations between people,
interviews, overheard phone-calls, so that the audience can learn those women
stories. Viewers are told by their own voices (especially Kit's and Deanna's)
what has happened to them. Moreover, most of the times, it is Kit Gruelle who
narrates the story, she is the voice-of-authority,
she guides the audience to better understand what is happening on the screen.
It is mostly through her words that the audience "watches" the film.
In addition, Nichols claims
that the expository mode “assembles fragments of the historical world into a
more rhetorical frame than an aesthetic or poetic one” (Nichols 167). In Private Violence the focus is not on the
beauty of the film per se, but on the
message the filmmakers want to pass on: the laws need to be changed, the
society has to pay attention to these women, we have to stop blaming them for
what happened and start to support them, to "rise" for justice.
In
conclusion, as Dan Schindel claims,
Private Violence is a feature-length answer to this
question [Why didn’t she just leave?]. It addresses not just the hideously
uninformed logic behind it, but also every single possible follow-up query that
could come in response to the answers. It also explores the myriad ways that
the legal and law enforcement systems are rigged against victims, making it
ridiculously difficult to protect women or punish abusers. The film is quiet in
presentation, but the emotions it provokes are potent. (Schindel)
The
documentary is rooted in the outstanding courage of Kit Gruelle and Deanna
Walters, two women who exemplify the cycles of domestic violence and the
weaknesses of the justice system in the US. Instead of showing superficially
several victims’ stories, the director chose to focus on Kit and Deanna because
in her opinion they represent a powerful example of people who seek justice, personifying
hope and a possibility of change. However, some secondary stories were necessary
to help filmmakers build their thesis. While Deanna has a successful ending to
her burden, giving people strength to keep fighting, “Smokie”, on the other
hand, proves that in most cases, victims feel so hopeless that they end up
going back to their partners. “Blondie”, in turn, shows that sadly not
everybody is as lucky as Deanna, and this is the reason why society needs to
engage in this cause. Finally, Latina, after being failed by the justice system
as many other victims, represents what many women feel compelled to do: take
matters into their own hands. For them, jail might be safer than their own homes.
Definitely, Private Violence shows
that something needs to be changed. Both society and the justice system in the
US need to protect battered women, after all there is no excuse for domestic
violence.
Works Cited
Aufderheide, Patricia. Documentary Film: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford
University Press, 2007. Print
Chapman, Jane. Issues in Contemporary Documentary. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2009.
pdf
Hill, Cynthia. “Meet The Artists
'14: Cynthia Hill - Sundance Film Festival”. Youtube, 7 Jan. 2014. Web. 20 Feb. 2014.
Nichols, Bill. Introduction to Documentary 2nd Ed. Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 2010. pdf
“Private Violence”. Sundance Film Festival 2014. Sundance
Film Institute, n.d. Web. 23 Feb.
2014.
Schindel, Dan
. “Sundance 2014: ‘Private Violence’ review.” Nonfics: Real Stories, Real Insight, 24 January
2014. Web. 20 Feb. 2014.
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