i'm completely unfamiliar with Wiseman, so I can't comment on his aims or results.

Of course as your quotation from the interview shows, Gayhalter wants more humane treatment of animals and wants to see food production back on a more human level as do I and as do a lot of us. The same rule applies to the distribution of food, production and distribution locally, rather than artificial availabliity of produce throughout the year. I'm not questioning Gayhalter's intentions at all, but again, am suggesting that his methods in Our Daily Bread aren't the best ones to get his position across or to gain a large audience.

In the case of the French To Be and to Have, the filmmakers are concerned with an individual portrait and so aren't particularly in need of statistics or facts, and the documentary does provide basic facts about the students, the teacher, and the locaiton of the school. It' s more the feel of the classroom, the personalities of the students, the classroom life of the teacher that the film's about, and those things come across just fine without any voiceover. Gayhalter's point or points come across without voiceover too, but they would be more accessible, effective, and clear with provision of more information and statements about more desirable alternatives, as well as some historical background (which could even be provided by onscreen texts, if he wanted to avoid a voicer). We often go to documentaries in order to be informed, and seeing images--well, despite the saying, a word (or a sentence, anyway ) is often worth a thousand pictures.

It's obviously not necessary for a documentary to have a narration, and some certainly work better without them than they would if they had one. I'm not sure what Wiseman is trying to do with his films. He does say (as quoted in the Wikipedika biography) that he is very biased and that his films are edited from 100 hours doen to 1 or 2, and very much represent his personal bias, but don't require further commentary. Perhaps he is seeking to convey a felling rather than thoughts or actions. I'm talking about polemical films dealing with big issues, such as Fahrenheit 9/11, Bowling for Columbine, An Inconvenient Truth, or Who Killed the Elecric Car? --and many others of that kind that we've seen recently -- which definitely want to inform us of specific facts and make us want to take action. Providing a body of facts in voiceover and thereby also taking a clear-cut stand seems to me more effective to draw in and influence an audience to not only adopt an attitude but become inclined toward a course of action than Gayhalter's very artistic but also very abstract method in Our Daily Breat? Or if not, why not? I'd like to hear how the film could reach a wide audience and how it would bring them around to the filmmaker's point of view about food production.