Week 3 Screening 3.

Bernadette. Notes on a Political Journey. 2011. Lelia Doolan.

Huston Screening.

This documentary, which was filmed over the course of nine years in conjunction with its subject (Bernadette Devlin), sets its stall out early on in stating that it is a “series of interviews”. The interviews form the basis of the documentary; as a result of this and the collaborative involvement of Bernadette Devlin it takes the form of an autobiographical film. One of the earliest quotes from Bernadette herself performs the function of puncturing the quotes that follow; she states clearly that the media have created an image of who she is. This seemingly perfunctory comment very intelligently deconstructs the only other voices in the documentary. Any other voice that portrays her it is perceived in light of the idea that it is a media construct; the structure of the documentary has seemingly become an extension of her skills of oration. The first (and one of the only) uses of music in the film is used to reinforce the ideas that have been articulated verbally (Loenard Cohen. Everybody Knows. “the dice are loaded”).

The primary voice in the film is of course that of Bernadette Devlin herself, but the fact that it has been demonstrated that she has integrity means that the viewer comes to trust her word. The other voices are themselves given constructs through which they are viewed, ie; “the image makers”, or “they created the profile in America”. This ironic use of a construct on forces that constructed her image is just one of the ways that the film is a manifestation of her intellectual dexterity in the form of a documentary. Bernadette at one stage describes herself as “an amplifier of the peoples voice” and continues describing herself in the third person as if joining in with the process of constructing an identity for Bernadette Devlin. At one stage while she is talking there are a series of images that are related to the subject she is discussing, these images are completely changed by her voice-over and this is the crux of the documentary; once we have established who we identify with in the film everything else is then colored by her perspective, but the integrity of the interviewee is the strength of this documentary.