#3 Involvement or Influence?

Nichols’s documentary modes help explain how filmmakers shape meaning and position themselves within their work. The Reflexive and Participatory Modes both involve the filmmaker’s presence, but in very different ways. The Participatory Mode focuses on direct engagement between filmmaker and subject, turning that interaction into the center of the story. The Reflexive Mode, on the other hand, steps back to examine the filmmaking process itself, asking viewers to think about how truth and representation are constructed. This contrast can be seen clearly when comparing Faces Places (2017) and Uncle Yanco (1968) with Surname Viet, Given Name Nam (1989).

In Participatory documentaries, the filmmaker’s involvement is visible and personal. Agnès Varda and JR’s Faces Places is a good example. The film follows the pair as they travel through rural France, meeting locals and turning their portraits into giant murals. Much of the story unfolds through Varda’s conversations and her growing friendship with JR. Their interactions become the emotional core of the film. The presence of the filmmakers isn’t hidden; instead, it becomes part of the experience. The result is a film that feels collaborative and spontaneous, where meaning grows out of connection rather than observation from a distance.

Varda’s short Uncle Yanco shows a similar approach, though in a more playful and self-aware way. The film documents her visit to a long-lost relative living in California. Rather than pretending to be objective, Varda leans into the artifice of filmmaking: scenes are staged and re-shot, and both she and Yanco comment on what’s happening. The film feels more like a conversation than a film, with Varda and her uncle performing for and with the camera. It’s participatory because the relationship itself, between filmmaker and subject, is the real focus. The viewer is invited to enjoy the process of discovery and connection as it happens.

The Reflexive Mode works differently. It turns the camera toward the process of representation and questions how documentary truth is made. Trinh T. Minh-ha’s Surname Viet, Given Name Nam challenges the conventions of ethnographic and interview-based films. At first, it appears to feature Vietnamese women telling their stories, but later it’s revealed that these “interviews” are performed by actors reading translations of real testimonies. This revelation challenges the viewer, making it clear that even seemingly direct documentation involves interpretation. Trinh uses this structure to critique how Western audiences view images of Vietnamese women and how translation itself can distort meaning. Instead of claiming to tell the truth, the film asks whether truth can ever be represented without manipulation.

Comparing the two modes, the key difference lies in focus. Participatory films like Faces Places and Uncle Yanco invite viewers to share in the joy and humanity of real encounters. Reflexive works like Surname Viet, Given Name Nam encourage viewers to question what they’re watching and how meaning is constructed. Both approaches admit that the filmmaker is never neutral, something I myself have had to come to terms with over the course of learning about these documentary modes. Whether through collaboration or self-examination, these works expose the camera’s influence on what we see and believe. I have found that each of these types of modes has its pros and cons from a viewer's standpoint. Involving the filmmaker too heavily in the Participatory Mode can make the audience feel as though it can never truly be 100% honest because of their influence. However, the way the filmmaker continues to make the camera a part of their life shows that they are partially just documenting events as they happen, which takes a lot of the planning out of the process. The Reflexive Mode has the con of taking the viewer out of the experience, showing them that, while this is a documentary, it is still a filmmaking process. However, it gives the viewer the advantage of allowing them to question the truthfulness of everything they watch and lays all of their cards on the table, exposing where things have been altered or not.

In the end, the Participatory Mode builds intimacy through interaction, while the Reflexive Mode builds awareness through critique. Varda’s films show the power of shared experience, while Trinh’s film highlights the limits of representation. Together, they show that documentary truth is not simply found, it’s shaped, questioned, and created through the process of making the film itself. The idea that truth is viewed differently through different lenses is a reconciliation I still have to make, but Trinh’s film especially showed me that truth can be translated from more than one place.