The Sweetest Sound

For my first reaction paper I chose to watch “The Sweetest Sound” by Alan Berliner. I originally chose this documentary because I had seen one of his earlier docs, “Nobody’s Business”, which I really enjoyed. I looked forward to seeing how he used his unique filmmaking techniques to explore what I thought was an interesting topic. But I must say that the film fell short of my high expectations.

Although the film wasn’t my favorite there were still some positive aspects to the film. As a documentary director I think that Alan Berliner does a nice job of using as many different elements as he can to tell his story. For this film he used a lot of black and white stock footage to back up his commentary about people and names. He also played with the use of sound and particularly the sound of a typewriter. That was a motif throughout the film. We would hear a typewriter as different names were spelled out on screen for us but we would also hear the sound of a typewriter in sync with action on screen. Perhaps he used this effect to create a normalcy throughout and to place everyone on the same level. People are reduced to a name typed out for them.

I found the subject itself to be ineffective. It just didn’t seem to go anywhere. I thought the concept was interesting; what’s in a name? What meaning does it have? Does it shape who we are? But I didn’t feel that he expanded on those questions, he merely stayed on the surface of those questions and never delved into anything deeper. I kept wanting him to use his experimental style and find something, maybe come to some conclusions but I never felt like he ever got there. He spent a lot of time talking about his own name, which was interesting. And he spent a lot of time introducing us to the other Alan Berliner’s that he met, which was interesting. But that’s about all that it was-interesting. Needless to say he didn’t really make me care or feel passionately about anything. He might have made me think about my own name for a few seconds, but not even enough for me to google the other Chelsea Wofford’s of the world.

One scene that I found to be particularly effective was when he was out on the street asking people about names. He would give them a name of someone and ask them what kind of person they pictured when they heard the name. It was interesting to hear the different responses, and they were all different. One person could have found the name Alan to be a fat old guy, while another person found the name Alan would belong to a young man. I thought it was particularly effective because it was a nice insight into how we derive meanings from names. I think it comes mostly from past experience. If we knew a mean Jennifer in Jr. High then we would most likely associate the name Jennifer to be someone that is mean. The other interesting point brought out in this scene was how we feel about people with the same name as us. Some people felt apathetic, but it seemed that the majority of the people didn’t like people with the same name. No one wanted to share that one part of themselves with another person. So I thought these interviews were affective in telling his story.

As far as point of view goes I felt this film was quite one sided. It was all from the point of view of Alan Berliner, the documentary filmmaker. We basically watched him as he did a personal experiment for his own pleasure. I didn’t feel manipulated and I didn’t feel that he was unfair in how he presented is story, but basically I didn’t feel like there was a lot to work with so there wasn’t a lot to be manipulated by. All in all it was an interesting concept that didn’t go very far. But he did do a nice job of putting it together.