More Than a Hoax

MORE THAN A HOAX: WILLIAM KAREL’S CRITICAL MOCKUMENTARY DARK SIDE OF THE MOON HENRY M. TAYLOR In a world saturated with an endless stream, circulation, and recycling of images, there comes the moment when it might seem impossible to determine what is purely image and what is reality, because, in effect, they have become inseparable. We become uncertain about whether reality has caused a particular image to exist, or whether the given image has instead produced the reality. What is cause, what effect, and can the latter precede the former? Daniel J. Boorstin dealt with this theme from a realist perspective in his classic study The Image in the early 1960s, well before Baudrillard’s notion of the “agony of the real.” In the cinema one of the most powerful and mysterious treatments of the nature of images and their relationship to an independently existing, external reality was presented by Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow-Up (1966). The question is particularly acute with images of purportedly factual discourses. Hence, in recent years, the fake or mockdocumentary—better known in the abridged form of mockumentary—has become increasingly popular and recognized as a genre in its own right. Presenting fic- Volume 26, No. 3 tion as fact, or at least to some extent appropriating classical documentary techniques such as the Classic Objective Argument, and traditional documentary observational techniques including hand-held camerawork as well as characters’ direct address, in recent years there has been a growing sense of the codification and conventionalization of these (often made-for-tv) fakes. With precedents at least as far back as Orson Welles’ radio play of War of the Worlds of 1938, his “News on the March” spoof newsreel sequence in Citizen Kane (1941), notable examples of the form include, among many others, Jim McBride’s pseudo-autobiography David Holzman’s Diary (1967), Welles’ own classic of unreliability, F for Fake/Vérités et mensonges (1975), Woody Allen’s comedy-biography Zelig (1983), and Rob Reiner’s “rockumentary” This Is Spinal Tap (1984). There are also horror-mockumentaries, such as Man Bites Dog/ C’est arrivé près de chez vous (1992), or The Blair Witch Project (1999), the first independent production to be successfully hyped by intensive internet marketing. Jane Roscoe and Craig Hight trace the emergence of the mockumentary as a dis- 90 Post Script form, finally, deconstruction, which critiques the assumptions of documentary, and operates reflexively with respect to filmic constructions of and statements on reality. As Roscoe and Hight observe, however, this latter category is seldom explored by the genre, most examples being either parodies or satires (68–75). And indeed, the majority of films labelled as mockumentary tend to be quickly recognizable as fictional, the convincingly subtle hoax-documentary generally being the exception. One such exception is William Karel’s 52-minute Dark Side of the Moon (Opération lune, France 2002), a mockumentary co-produced by Point du Jour and the Franco-German tv channel ARTE about the fake moonlanding of the Apollo 11 mission on July 21, 1969.1 Karel’s highly entertaining and prize-winning2 spoof first of all pays homage to the cinematic legend and myth surrounding the late Stanley Kubrick, and in particular to his cult film 2001—a Space Odyssey (1968). Karel set out to make a film about Kubrick, discovering in the latter’s estate information about his collaboration with NASA during the making of 2001, and then started to ask “what if . . .?” questions, forming hypotheses about one of the 20thcentury’s most dramatic events.3 Beyond that, however, Dark Side of the William Karel, author of Dark Side of the Moon. Moon raises critical questions about documentary’s generic conventions and viewers’ assumptions regarding factual authority. It interrogates the modes: the more or less unreflexive parody complex relationship between images and as a nostalgic and conservative perspective sounds in film generally, raises questions of on certain aspects of culture, largely uncritinarrative unreliability, and is, last but not cal of its subject and the assumptions of least, also about the nature of popular documentary in society, while appropriatculture’s fascination with conspiracy theoing non-fictional techniques for purposes of ries. Beginning with secret documents from ironic contrast and humor; the critique Kubrick’s estate accessed by his widow which—like Tim Robbins’ political satire Christiane one year after his death in 1999, Bob Roberts (1992)—is critical of its subject Dark Side of the Moon sets out to answer the matter, and partly reflexive but still by and question ostensibly plaguing film critics for large endorses and reinforces the validity of 25 years, why NASA had allowed Kubrick factual discourses; and the most radical tinct form partly to the exhaustion and commodification (or reification) of classical documentary techniques, the requirement of feature fiction film for further product differentiation in a media-saturated market increasingly transforming factuality into “infotainment,” and the growing reflexivity of documentary forms in postmodernity (Roscoe/Hight, 76–99). On a political continuum ranging from conservative to progressive, they distinguish three main Volume 26, No. 3 91 Post Script ducer and other witnesses— are actors reading lines from a script, with statements made by White House interviewees presented out of their original context; the film is shown to be a hoax, intended to be, as Christiane Kubrick confirms, just “good fun.” FALSE PREMISES The power of Karel’s documenteur 4 resides in genuinely appropriating the format of regular television “The smoking gun”: documents from Stanley Kubrick's documentaries, and its beestate (from Dark Side of the Moon) ing a hoax deriving credibility from so many exposés, half-truths, and popular to borrow from them a one-off, top-secret, conspiracy lore of recent decades. Feeding million-dollar Zeiss lens intended for phoon recent scandals during the Bush presitographing spy satellites to shoot the stundency, the film clearly benefits from public ning candlelight scenes in his period film disillusionment with the current adminisBarry Lyndon (1975)—only to unravel an tration, anti-Bush sentiments in Europe, amazing, far-flung plot with links between and much criticism on both sides of the Hollywood and NASA’s Apollo program, Atlantic over how the public was hoodthe White House, and Kubrick: highly imwinked about the justification of the Iraq pressed by the latter’s visionary 2001, and war, especially in its difficult aftermath. in order to forgo any potential risks of the Taking a wider view, the once-held belief in Apollo 11 mission failing or producing no “the camera doesn’t lie” and in images usable footage, President Nixon decided to indexically tied to their referents “out have Kubrick shoot the moonlanding on the there” (and hence authentic) has been seset of 2001 in London and to have the fake verely undermined in the last 15 years or so footage broadcast for real; participants in by the proliferation and increasing sophisthe scam were subsequently hunted down tication of computer-generated imagery and eliminated, and Kubrick himself forced (CGI), with the now almost limitless possito withdraw from public and live in seclubilities of image manipulation, and, finally, sion. As a thank-you gesture, NASA years the circulation and liberal use of archive later allowed the solitary filmmaking gefootage, especially on television news nius to use their one-of-a-kind spy lens for shows. Barry Lyndon. Underscored by ChaplinThe moon-hoax theories—suggesting esque music, the end-credit sequence comthe Apollo moon landings in 1969–72 had posed of outtakes then reveals that some of been shot on an earthbound studio set— the interviewed people—including NASA had become widely known in the wake of experts, astronauts, their family and Bill Kaysing’s bestselling book We Never friends, Nixon’s advisers and staff (among Went to the Moon in 1974, and were given a them former Secretary of Defense, Donald fictionalized Hollywood gloss in the 1978 Rumsfeld), CIA officials, a Hollywood proconspiracy thriller Capricorn One (with the Volume 26, No. 3 92 Post Script setting changed from the moon to Mars). Involving the usual suspects from the 1970s, the first “Golden Age of Conspiracy,” with the discredited Nixon administration, Water- “Proofs of a Conspiracy”: strange reflections and a photo gate and all the other political accidentally forgotten on the fake moon. scandals and revelations of that era, and extensions right into Kubrick regarding 2001, or the question the present Bush administration, Dark Side whether Nixon actually had prepared and of the Moon builds on an increasingly maintaped a speech in case of failure of the stream distrust of political authority Apollo-11 mission and loss of the astro(Goldberg 259), even authority tout court, if nauts. Many issues concerning the facticity in ironical fashion. It still relies on our beof the film cannot be resolved simply by lief in the authoritative commentary of recourse to textual analysis, but require voice-over and “experts,” only to subseextratextual (real-world) and intertextual quently deconstruct that kind of authority, (filmic) knowledge, and comparison with or without providing us in its place with anyresearch into factual sources. Hence it is inthing resembling the truth. teresting to see at what point individual Made for the conventional tv docuviewers begin to distrust the narrative and mentary slot, it carries all the paratextual realize they’re being conned. Upon showmarkers of the genre, including slick voiceing the film to an undergraduate audience over (an anonymous, assertive male comin a sociology seminar on conspiracy theomentary), and a sophisticated blend of inries, 5 without informing them they were terviews and stock footage dramatically going to see a mockumentary, I was fasciunderscored on the soundtrack. Cleverly nated to see how “gullible” some particicombining fact and fiction, it begins with pants seemed to be, though of course this credible questions and initially follows assessment is somewhat unfair since they what appears to be a versimilitudinous traweren’t film students alert to the medium’s jectory, before bending reality to increasmore subtle powers of manipulation. In one ingly fantastic and ludicrous claims. Even case, a student believed the film’s claims after the film finally reveals itself as mockuright up to the mock end credits; others mentary, thereby disqualifying its main were more sceptical and had seen through claim of the moonlanding hoax, viewers the scam earlier on. But hardly any one may remain uncertain about many other seemed to have realized that already the points made, such as the instrumentalipremise concerning the Zeiss lens was false. zation of the NASA space program for miliTo be sure, Kubrick had shot Barry tary and strategic purposes during the Cold Lyndon’s candlelight scenes using an ultraWar, the relationship between NASA and Volume 26, No. 3 93 Post Script EARLY MARKERS OF UNRELIABILITY fast Zeiss lens made for NASA; but Zeiss had originally manufactured ten such lenses for NASA still-photography cameras, and Kubrick was able to purchase two of them through traditional channels and had them subsequently adapted for mounting on a film camera; their existence was certainly not, as Karel’s film asserts, top secret, and obviously nowhere near the “million-dollar” price range; indeed, a photo insert accompanying the voice-over at the point in question shows a Zeiss lens which commercially sells for several hundred dollars. Thus, the film’s initial claim is only partially, if significantly false. But to a lay person, the premise may sound quite convincing, requiring for its falsification extratextual specialist knowledge. To check details, I did a Google search, and then quickly came up with contrafactual evidence. But this kind of claim, based more on half-truths and exaggeration than on plain falsehood, is symptomatic of many of the assertions made in Dark Side of the Moon, especially in the sequences prior to the major conspiracy theory put forward just before the narrative’s midpoint. After the premise and main titles (literally showing the dark side of the moon, with its left side gradually being illuminated, a metaphorical and conspiratorial play of light and dark), the film flashes back in time to the archive footage of President Kennedy’s 1962 moon speech.6 As in the rest of the film, soundtrack and voice-over commentary weld the medley of stock footage and photo material together. Accompanied by pathos-laden, patriotic sounding music, we hear Kennedy declaring: “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.” As the voice-over declares with suggestive anticipation, Kubrick’s borrowing of the top secret lens was “the culmination of a story that had begun fifteen years before.” This insinuates the dramatic structure of a paranoid thriller, in which typically a protagonist of lowly status—here represented by the filmmakers—stumbles upon and unravels a major conspiratorial network extending “right to the top”; hence we are being prepared for some major revelations. At first, most of the claims being made—primarily by the narration—sound quite convincing, though we are already being led astray; hence the commentary states that after Gagarin’s spaceflight, and the “triumph” of the Soviets in Korea, Berlin, and Cuba, the Americans were left with the moon as a strategic target, declared by Kennedy to be the top priority of his administration. This latter claim is partially false, as Korea and Berlin were divided into Communist and Non-Communist spheres of influence, and the US “containment” policy would make sure in Lofty ambitions: Kennedy's 1962 moon speech (from Dark 1962 that Cuba posed no Side of the Moon) Volume 26, No. 3 94 Post Script direct military threat; similarly, the space program was indeed part of the Cold War rivalry between the two superpowers, but that the “moon” had been Kennedy’s top priority is an overstatement. Subsequent sequences cover the background of the Apollo program, with former top CIA official Vernon Walters, NASA Technical Director Farouk Elbaz, and astronaut Jeffrey Hoffman informing on the space project in interviews. That Walters speaks French throughout the film is, however, a subtle marker of unreliability, despite his reputation of being fluent in a handful of foreign languages. We are then shown stock footage of top Apollo scientist Wernher von Braun and his Nazi past, ruthlessly using concentration camp inmates for the construction of V2 rockets targeted at Britain— and NASA’s indifference to von Braun’s compromised biography. With setbacks and loss of life in the space programs on either side, and the failure of the USSR to land a man on the moon on the fiftieth anniversary of the October Revolution in 1967, we are told the moon landing was given top priority in the White House—an exaggeration, though most viewers of this self-declared exposé will probably “buy into” the assertion. There is even a certain amount of contradiction between the voice-over and the statements of interviewees: according to Walters, the top priority was not the space program, but military defence; the point of the program had not been to land a man on the moon, but the Americans’ fear of the Russians having “these huge rockets” (Elbaz); the military pressure had been enormous (Hoffman), and the space project part of the military program, since moon rockets and ballistic missiles were more or less the same (Walters). A semi-hoax claim, however, is subsequently made, the voice-over declaring the Apollo program to have been the first major step towards the “Star Wars” missile shield. To underscore this point and to mark the fiction increasingly entering the film’s discourse, the soundtrack at this point uses mystery motifs from Bernard Herrmann’s score for Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958), while we are being told that the space program was part of a propaganda effort to persuade the public to support huge public spending for what was, in effect, the Cold War arms race. Again, we are confronted with exaggeration and tenuousness of facts rather than outright falsehood. And when we are told by the commentary in the next sequence that the spoils of the space program were divided according to “classic mafia family rules” between California, Florida, and Texas, Nino Rota’s music from The Godfather (1972) is used to emphasize the illicit and conspiratorial ties of Big Business to politics, asserting that later Presidents Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, Bush senior and junior received substantial campaign financing from the big corporations that benefited from the space program. This is visually supported by a conspiratorial aesthetic: Johnson and Nixon as shadowy, silhouetted figures in the White House, a photo insert of George Bush senior in the Hush-Hush: Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon in the back of a limousine, and a shot of a “for sale” placard supportWhite House (from Dark Side of the Moon). Volume 26, No. 3 95 Post Script ing the claim that the moon was simply an alibi to persuade the public of the peaceful intentions of space exploration, while in effect a gigantic apparatus serving military and political interests was put together. This is reminiscent of the sinister implications of the “military-industrial complex” insinuated by Oliver Stone’s JFK (1991). A heterodoxy of images, taken out of their original contexts and suggestively colored by Rota’s music, are anchored by the relative speed of the montage and the unifying force of the commentary. NASA,” asserts Jan Harlan, Kubrick’s brother-in-law and executive producer since Barry Lyndon. Astronaut Jeffrey Hoffman tells us how overwhelmed he had been upon seeing 2001, seconded by David Scott, Apollo 15 crew member. According to Farouk Elbaz, Kubrick’s film influenced the designers and engineers working on the Apollo program, telling us that 2001’s spaceship “Discovery” and Apollo looked almost identical, “it had a pointed top, it went down [straight], and it had the engine in the back”—a ridiculous statement not only contradicted by images from the film, but all the more hilarious because one wonders where else the propulsion should be on a rocket if not at the bottom? And indeed, during this entire discourse interviewees aren’t quite able to keep a straight face. Fascinated by Kubrick’s imagery, the voice-over claims that NASA technicians changed the astronauts’ suits and made everything more colorful, while a shot from 2001 reveals the astronauts’ outfit in the film to be quite different (orange as opposed to white) from the Apollo suits. But despite these intratextual contradictions, Dark Side of the Moon is confident in its thrust towards the exposé that not all viewers will become aware of the unfolding hoax dropping hints about its own unreliability. Gradually Karel’s film ups the ante. In the following sequence we get to hear the memories of a middle-aged man walking his dog in New York, with the Statue of Liberty in the background, introduced as former Paramount producer “Jack Torrance” (Jack Nicholson’s character in The Shining). Since the moon race was a war of images between the Soviets and the US, and NASA’s Cape Canaveral installations were “laughable,” it was decided to pep up the space program and turn it into a Hollywood show. Interlaced with shots of the launch site, “Torrance” recalls how “all Hollywood” interrupted their regular work to descend on Cape Canaveral with seven hundred technicians, designing new space suits, altering the rockets, relocating the ONLY IMAGES: HOLLYWOOD TAKES CHARGE So far, Dark Side of the Moon is a relatively straightforward documentary with only implicit markers of unreliability. The relationship of NASA, space and Cold War stock images and anonymous voice-over is primarily illustrative, with relatively close correspondences between sound and image. As the claims in the second half of the narrative get more grandiose and absurd, the relations between text and visuals loosen, becoming associative to the point of complete tenuousness. The stakes of the game the film is playing with the viewer are raised in the set of sequences dealing with how Kubrick’s stunning 2001 convinced NASA officials to turn the Apollo 11 mission into a spectacle to enthral the masses, and of how, in effect, 2001 was instrumentalized as propaganda for the space program. (This despite the fact that Kubrick’s epic was initially rejected by many critics and only later became the cult film it is today).7 To a photo of Wernher von Braun with Walt Disney, the commentary tells us that von Braun had been the first to realize that only Hollywood could turn a banal rocket launch into a spectacular—at which point Johann Strauss’ “The Blue Danube” fades in. Upon its first screening in the White House, 2001 supposedly became an instant sensation. “The film is clearly a tremendous PR exercise for Volume 26, No. 3 96 Post Script Samantha it’s the unknown, an adventure”), apparently unaware that two hundred staff in mission control were listening in, as we are shown black-andwhite images of astronauts skipping and stumbling on the moon and of laughing ground crew members. Arguably, this is the crudest kind of humor in Karel’s otherwise sophisticated spoof. CONSPIRACY THEORY The major plot point of the film—that the moon landing never took place—is carefully Stanley Kubrick on the set of 2001—A Space Odessey set up by building on testi(from Dark Side of the Moon). mony of authentic witnesses, Buzz Aldrin and his wife Lois, seconded by statements of fictional characters played by aclaunch site to line up with the sun, and, last tors. After the astronauts’ return to earth, but not least, decorating the rocket engine being cheered by the masses and in the miswith gold leaf “of absolutely no use.” In resion center, and being greeted by President turn, Hollywood was promised that in one Nixon (illustrated by authentic footage), of the next elections, one of theirs would Buzz Aldrin, the second man on the moon, become President. And indeed, Ronald so we are told, suddenly fell into a severe Reagan became President of the United depression. Aldrin’s wife confirms he beStates! came an alcoholic (which he actually did), To stock footage in color of the launch backed up by Aldrin acquaintance “Maria of Apollo 11, the soundtrack features the Vargas” (Ava Gardner’s character in The upbeat folksy song “We guard our American Barefoot Contessa), claiming that Aldrin had border, we guard the American dream”— been “stumbling about, raving” around. He taken straight from Barry Levinson’s political had supposedly been shaken up by Presiconspiracy satire Wag the Dog (1997), another dent Nixon preparing and taping a speech hint of unreliability and media-savvy mato the nation in case of Apollo 11’s failure, nipulation of the public not all viewers will supported visually by footage of Nixon situnderstand as such. In the following seting at a White House desk with cameras in quence, we encounter ostensible NASA front, saying that on the previous day he ground crew member “Dave Bowman” (the had laid down a wreath in memory of these protagonist’s name in 2001), recollecting brave men. The punch line is delivered by Neil Armstrong’s reaction to having to Aldrin himself: “Did people go to the moon speak the pre-scripted historical line “One or not?” small step for man . . .” (“Who wrote this Using Nixon’s former secretary “Eve crap?”), as well as the jokes Armstrong Kendall” (Eva Marie Saint’s character in made before entiring the capsule (where the North by Northwest) as an entree, we are subduty-free shop was?), and his sex-talk on sequently treated to what is in many ways the moon (“With Betty it’s safe, but with the film’s crucial “setpiece,” a wonderful Volume 26, No. 3 97 Post Script Kuleshovian montage of creative geography involving present-day statements by Donald Rumsfeld, Henry Kissinger, Lawrence Eagleburger, Alexander Haig, all of them former advisers and staff members of the Nixon administration, as well as then Director of Central Intelligence, Richard Helms. The setting is an office in the Pentagon. By using short snippets from interviews and outtakes gleaned from his previous three-part documentary on “The Men in the White House” (Les hommes de la Maison-Blanche), 8 director William Karel creates the impression of all of them—including the fictitious “Eve Kendall”—sitting in the same room and reacting to each other’s statements. The mood is relaxed and jovial, the “bad guys” coming across as having a good sense of humor.9 After Kissinger recalls that this was “a long, complicated story,” Rumsfeld promises to tell “a fascinating story, off the record.” In a montage of statements never showing two of the people present in the same shot, with continuity purely the effect of editing, and with actual references to the moon plot only made by “Eve Kendall,” none of Nixon’s former staff explicitly refer to the conspiracy and hence do not incriminate themselves. We are told that Helms had been alarmed at the time that the Russians would be able to land a man on the moon first. Nixon had applied pressure to speed up the Apollo program. With NASA informing the President that possibly there might be no pictures to broadcast, the President had urgently insisted on the whole world wanting to see an American on the moon. And this is the point where the film makes that “paranoid leap into fantasy,” that “leap in imagination that is always made at some critical point in the recital of events” typical of the “paranoid style” (Hofstadter 11, 37). According to “Eve Kendall,” either Helms or Rumsfeld had suggested to Nixon to shoot the first steps on the moon in a studio. Nixon had finally told his staff they had two weeks to prepare everything. Rumsfeld (“it was a big idea”), Haig, and Kissinger (“he was the Volume 26, No. 3 President, and he deserves respect”) supported Nixon’s “difficult decision.” The voice-over provides the crucial link to Stanley Kubrick: with principal photography in the London studio of 2001 wrapping up (we see a black-and-white photo of the famous director behind the camera), why not use the existing set, especially as —following the logic of symbolic exchange governing this conspiratorial yarn—the Pentagon had given Kubrick access to top secret Pentagon rooms when he was shooting his previous film, Dr. Strangelove (as we see Ken Adam’s studio set of the latter film’s War Room)? Credibility for the ploy is offered by having Vernon Walters recall his warning the President that presenting the public with such a fake (we see a photo insert of Nixon sitting at a desk) was very risky and inadmissible in a democracy. But Nixon had told him to go ahead with it nonetheless. As the commentary explains, Rumsfeld suggested to get in touch with Kubrick (“Now that is someone, impressive!”), had flown to England with Kissinger and talked to Kubrick about the idea, who had found it amusing but was initially sceptical. Finally Kubrick had given in. The fake moon landing was shot in the MGM Borehamwood studios, with a minimal crew of two technicians and two extras, all four CIA agents (as we see dissolving photos of the MGM studio tower, the film set, and of Kubrick). Being a perfectionist, and dissatisfied with the CIA agents’ lack of technical skills (!), Kubrick himself supervised the reshoot over a weekend. The two subsequent sequences detail the various would-be-scientific conspiracy claims regarding the images of men on the moon as we see footage of an astronaut skipping on its surface. First, the credibility of these claims is bolstered through repudiations by NASA employees Hoffman and Elbaz, the former calling these conspiracy theories utter nonsense, the latter denying them more diplomatically. We are then introduced to “Dimitri Muffley” (named after the Russian premier and US president in Dr. Strangelove), a former So- 98 Post Script viet agent, spelling out the various mistakes the American plotters had apparently made, interlaced with well-known archive photos: the American flag on the moon moving in the wind (there is no wind on the moon); the Hasselblad 500 camera used to take the pictures that could not have operated properly under the extreme lunar temperatures; peculiar light sources and shadows actually caused by studio lighting, etc. The hoax mode is made most explicit when we are shown a picture of the “wrong studio moon” surface on which someone had carelessly dropped a photo depicting Stanley Kubrick . . . Incidentally, NASA had planned to publish a book by Jim Oberg in which every single one of these conspiracy claims was to be refuted scientifically, but cancelled the publication late in 2002, “based on the possibility of an outcry raised by people who felt such a book would ‘legitimize’ the very belief it would have debunked.”10 top CIA agents eliminate the witnesses. We have entered the familiar territory of the political thriller. In the present-day Pentagon office, Nixon’s former staff and advisers recall their agitated discussions at the time. The descriptions of a restless, fearfully preoccupied, paranoid Nixon (Eagleburger: “Nixon drank”) tie in neatly with our knowledge about Watergate, and filmic treatments of his personality such as Robert Altman’s satiric chamber piece Secret Honor or Oliver Stone’s controversial biopic Nixon. The President finally decided to revoke the assassinations: to stock footage of Nixon on the phone, we hear him (in superimposed dialogue) addressing someone as “George,” and making sure that said George has made an agreed-upon telephone call. It is interesting to note here how image and sound are married together and situated in a narrative context. As Noël Carroll points out, visual representations in film encompass three modes: an image of Clark Gable in Gone with the Wind is first of all a physical portrayal of Gable; but it also depicts a class of objects, i.e. an adult male; and finally, in its nominal function, it shows us the fictional character of Rhett Butler. While physical portrayal has been especially significant in documentary filmmaking, historically, the nominal function has been the dominant mode of fiction films; nonfiction, however, regularly makes use of the depictional mode, too, and in some cases, also of the nominal function (Carroll 240– 241). Hence, in Dark Side of the Moon, we find a gradual shift from images of physical portrayal to depictional and—especially in the second half—increasingly nominal uses of stock footage completely taken out of its original context and placed in new, fictitious contexts with increasingly tenuous image-sound relations. When we are told that “George Kaplan” had snapped and gone ahead with the assassination plan, we see a crowded sidewalk, a man in a dark suit carrying a briefcase, accompanied by the dramatic musical leitmotif from North by Northwest. AFTERMATH: GOING ALL THE WAY By now the claims of Dark Side of the Moon have become so gross that the hoax nature of the film should be evident to most viewers. As the voice-over tells us, former CIA agent “Ambrose Chapel” (the spies’ center in Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much) had refused to take part in the plot, and had become a pastor in Baltimore, as we see present-day shots of a church interior. After 30 years, with Kubrick having passed away, “Ambrose Chapel,” sitting in one of the pews and addressing the camera directly, is ready to inform us about the conclusion of this amazing story. While all participants were payed off handsomely, and had to vow eternal silence, being provided with new identities, new appearances, and new lives in remote spots, Nixon and his advisers started panicking, thinking the witnesses should disappear for good. To nocturnal shots of the White House, we are told that Nixon talked to his military attaché Colonel “George Kaplan” (the nonexistant decoy in North by Northwest) about having Volume 26, No. 3 99 Post Script Black-and-white footage shows military officers examining the model of a Vietnamese village, as we learn that the witnesses, all Vietnam veterans, have escaped to Southeast Asia, pursued by a CIA assassination team. In what appears to be presentday Vietnam, local inhabitants recall the Americans entering their village—and it is not clear to us whether they are referring to the escapees or the killers sent after them. Here the bawdy humor in the vein of extremely heterogenous images showing troops boarding a plane, paratroopers descending, aircraft carriers at sea, planes taking off and landing, helicopters over the Egyptian pyramids, Marines disembarking, etc. As “Ambrose Chapel” recalls, all of the filmmaking crew were ultimately hunted down and killed: an assistant director was drowned in his swimming pool (as we see a dog being thrown into a lake), the director (not Kubrick, obviously) being found in the Antarctic, the cynical CIA crew filming his killing (as we see hunters landing by helicopter on a remote island and one of them firing a shot into offspace). In a New York synagogue, “Rabbi W. A. Koenigsberg” (a reference to Woody Allen’s real name, Allen Stuart Koenigsberg) remembers hiding and teaching one of the escapees, “Bob Stein,” but the latter had not been very religious and believed that eating pork was only taboo in certain restaurants; then he had been beaten up by a gang and later died in Mount Presidential honors for the APollo 11 crew members Sinai hospital. (from Dark Side of the Moon). Returning to Stanley Kubrick’s estate, we are informed that, living in seclusion, Kubrick Armstrong’s moon jokes sets in again, with had been worried that he, too, was on the one villager remembering the newcomers CIA’s assassination list, with his telephone as indiscreet, leaving behind empty beer being tapped and mail scanned. Suggesting cans and McDonald’s bags; being pure to the filmmakers that this topic was too amateurs, one of them had accidentally shot sensitive and to be kept under wraps, himself while cleaning his gun; according Alexander Haig refers them to Vernon to other villagers, they were sex-maniacs, Walters, at the time the CIA’s number 2. smoking pot all day long, and destroying Making cryptic comments on the issue of the village life; the amused tone of the acwhether Kubrick himself was to have been counts contradicts the content of their narassassinated, Walters apparently offered ratives. Back in Washington, both Eaglethe filmmakers to continue the interview burger (“sort of amateur CIA”) and a cheerthe subsequent day, but unexpectedly died ful Helms admit that “some of this was not the very same evening of a brain embolism. done very well.” Prior to the outtakes of the epilogue, the The definitive self-revelation comes narrative concludes with an obituary on when we are told that Nixon, desperately General Walters in the French newspaper determined to silence all witnesses, orders Libération. According to Karel and his crew, 150,000 troops and “half the Sixth fleet” to Walters had seemed to be in perfect health, hunt down the escapees, accompanied by hence suggesting that there may have been Volume 26, No. 3 100 Post Script some form of foul play involved in his death. insufficient and requires the additional consideration of the viewer’s extra- and intertextual knowledge. This is particularly the case with the verisimilitudinous mockumentary, building on a careful blend of fact and fiction, on widespread cynicism and public distrust in (political) authority, and on “pre-sold” conspiracy thinking. Secondly, Dark Side of the Moon perfectly illustrates how conspiracy theories tie in with the mockumentary genre and unreliability, and how they typically function: beginning with a minor detail or riddle (the Zeiss lens), and ultimately leading to the exposure of a vast, systemic and—in this case—world-spanning conspiracy. The attraction of conspiratorial lore in the current conspiracy culture (Knight) can not be explained merely as the questioning of authority in light of so many political, economic and environmental scandals since the 1970s; nor alone as a form of cognitive mapping of a too-complex world system (Jameson), in the light of new insecurities and anxieties (Vail/Wheelock/Hill; Parish/Parker) caused by “late capitalism’s” displacement of the symbolic order by the logic of the market (ZizËek 1999). The appeal of conspiracy can not be reduced to postmodern and New Age “irrationality” lending new credence, among other things, to various forms of esoteric, pre-Enlightenment knowledge (Wheen). Neither can it be fully explained as the mainstream’s increasing attraction to forms of stigmatized knowledge (Barkun 2–38), in what may appear to be a kind of class conflict in which “the people” of popular culture are opposed to an elitist “power bloc” (Fiske) attempting to secure its authority through institutionalized definitions of historical reality. All of these aspects are involved in conspiracy theories, but one has to add to them the fictional desire akin to the folklore of urban legends, the pleasure of yarn-spinning, the endless desire of an “Other of the Other” (ZizË e k 1997), of a reality behind reality. Running through the conspiracy machine, all loose threads are woven into a wonderful narrative of historical potentiality indica- CONCLUSIONS The concepts of unreliable narration and of the unreliable narrator were first introduced in literary theory in 1961 by Wayne C. Booth. Consider his classic definition: I have called a narrator reliable when he speaks for or acts in accordance with the norms of the work (which is to say, the implied author’s norms), unreliable when he does not. . . . The [unreliable] narrator is mistaken, or he believes himself to have qualities which the author denies him. . . . Unreliable narrators thus differ markedly depending on how far and in what direction they depart from their author’s norms . . . (Booth 158–159) The examination of Karel’s fake documentary indicates, however, that the theory of unreliable narration is not only applicable to fiction, but also to nonfiction. The mockumentary, indeed, could be said to turn unreliability into a genre in its own right, with the corresponding paradox that unreliability then becomes highly reliable, especially as, in the case under consideration, the fake declares itself as such at the end—while in a further turn of the screw casting doubt on its very unreliability, as we are unsure of what specifically is reliable or not. The riddle can be solved if we regard unreliability not with respect to the work as a whole, but to narrative and film viewing as a process, in the course of which the question of unreliability poses itself forcefully, and with a distinctively paranoid edge (who can you trust?). Furthermore, unreliability cannot be reduced to textual immanence or intratextual strategies, as in many instances of Dark Side of the Moon the viewer requires extratextual, and to some extent specialist knowledge to verify or falsify claims and statements made within the narrative. Booth’s definition is therefore Volume 26, No. 3 101 Post Script 4 Literally, “lying documentary.” Karel himself uses this term in an interview with ARTE in reference to Agnès Varda’s comedy drama Documenteur: an Emotion Picture (Documenteur, USA/France 1981); cf. http://www.arte-tv.com/fr/histoire-societe/archives/operation-lune/WilliamKarel/385476.html (11/24/2005). 5 “Bilder des Konspirativen: Verschwörungstheorie und Film” (“Conspiratorial Images: Conspiracy Theory and Film”), seminar at the University of Lucerne (Switzerland), 2004/5. 6 Speech made at Rice University Stadium, September 12, 1962. 7 See Jerome Agel, ed. The Making of Kubrick’s 2001. New York: New American Library, 1970. 8 Karel in ARTE interview. 9 Personal communication by Fred van der Kooij (Zurich). 10 Cf. “Apollo moon landing hoax accusations” in the internet encyclopedia Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Apollo_moon_landing_hoax_accusations (1/16/2006). tive of the “powers of the false” (Deleuze 126–155). The overall effect of Dark Side of the Moon on viewers is therefore less likely to reenforce existing beliefs in the moon hoax as such, but rather of self-reflexively questioning the reliability of factual discourses, especially those on television. Just imagine if all news programs were fabricated in this way (and to some extent, they are)? Particularly the convention of the trustworthy anonymous voice-over commentary, the main source of unreliability in Karel’s film, is subverted here, alerting viewers to film’s powers of manipulation. This also extends, of course, to the use of images, the meaning of which always depends on their context and narrative embedding. Karel’s film suggests a certain playfulness, not only of the filmmakers with stock and interview footage, but also of the film with its viewers: depending on their knowledge of politics, history, and, finally, of film history, will they be able to verify just claims and ferret out the bogus ones? Will they recognize the various allusions to other movies and filmmakers? And will they be intrigued enough to do some extratextual research on events and personalities featured in this mockumentary? Will there be some questions— already hinted at—that remain partly unanswered? It is in this fashion that Dark Side of the Moon extends the game it is playing into our reality. Works Cited Agel, Jerome, ed. The Making of Kubrick’s 2001. New York: New American Library, 1970. “Apollo moon landing hoax accusations.” Wikipedia. Jan. 16, 2006 <http://en. wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_moon_ landing_hoax_accusations>. Barkun, Michael. A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America. Berkeley: U California P, 2003. Baudrillard, Jean. Selected Writings. Edited, with an Introduction, by Mark Poster. Stanford, California: Stanford UP, 1988. Boorstin, Daniel J. The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America. New York: Vintage Books, 1992. Booth, Wayne C. The Rhetoric of Fiction. 2nd ed. Chicago: U Chicago P, 1983. Carroll, Noël. Theorizing the Moving Image. Notes 1 Thanks to Georg Janett (Zurich) for alerting me to Dark Side of the Moon, and for our lively discussions of unreliable narration. 2 Winning Germany’s Adolf Grimme Award and an Award for Excellence in TV or Film at the “Go Figure!” festival in Montreal, Canada, both in 2003. See the website of the production company Point du Jour: http://www.pointdujour-inter national.fr (11/24/2005). 3 Point du Jour website. Volume 26, No. 3 102 Post Script DARK SIDE OF THE MOON (OPÉRATION LUNE) Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1996. 224– 252. Deleuze, Gilles. Cinema 2: The Time-Image. Trans. by Hugh Tomlinson and Robert Galeta. London: Athlone Press, 1989, 126–155. Originally published as L’imagetemps. Cinéma 2. Paris: Minuit, 1985. Fiske, John. Understanding Popular Culture. London: Routledge, 2001. Goldberg, Robert Alan. Enemies Within: The Culture of Conspiracy in Modern America. New Haven: Yale UP, 2001. Hofstadter, Richard. The Paranoid Style in American Politics and Other Essays. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard UP, 1996. Jameson, Fredric. The Geopolitical Aesthetic: Cinema and Space in the World System. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1995. Karel, William. “Interview.” ARTE-TV. Nov. 24, 2005 <http://www.arte-tv.com/fr/ histoire-societe/archives/operationlune/William-Karel/385476. html>. Knight, Peter. Conspiracy Culture:From the Kennedy Assassination to the “X-Files”. London: Routledge, 2000. Point du Jour. Nov. 24, 2005 <http://www. pointdujour-international.fr>. Roscoe, Jane and Craig Hight. Faking It: Mock-Documentary and the Subversion of Factuality. Manchester: Manchester UP, 2001. Vail, John and Jane Wheelock and Michael Hill, eds. Insecure Times: Living with Insecurity in Contemporary Society. London: Routledge, 1999. Wheen, Francis. How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World: A Short History of Modern Delusions. London: Harper Perennial, 2004. ZÈizËek, Slavoj. “The Big Other Doesn’t Exist.” Journal of European Psychoanalysis, 5, Spring/Fall 1997. Nov. 24, 2005 <http://www.psycho media.it/jep/ number5/zizek.htm.>. ZÈizËek, Slavoj. The Ticklish Subject: The Absent Centre of Political Ontology. London: Verso, 1999. Volume 26, No. 3 France 2002, 52 minutes, color and b/w In French and English, French voice-over spoken by Philippe Faure US distributor: Filmakers Library, New York (2004) Produced by: Luc-Martin Gousset for Point du Jour, Thierry Garrel and Pierre Merle for Arte France (broadcast in October 2002 and April 2004) Directed by William Karel Cinematography: Stéphane Saporito Editing: Tal Zana Cast: as themselves: Stanley Kubrick (archive footage), Richard Nixon (archive footage), Buzz Aldrin, Lois Aldrin, Lawrence Eagleburger, Farouk Elbaz, Alexander Haig, Jan Harlan, Richard Helms, Jeffrey Hoffman, Henry Kissinger, Christiane Kubrick, Donald Rumsfeld, David Scott, Vernon Walters; Actors: Tad Brown (David Bowman), Bernard Kirschoff (Dimitri Muffley), Binem Oreg (W. A. Koenigsberg), Barbara Rogers (Eve Kendall), John Rogers (Ambrose Chapel), Jacquelyn Toman (Maria Vargas), David Winger (Jack Torrance). Films Cited The Barefoot Contessa. Joseph L. Mankiewicz. United Artists, 1954. Barry Lyndon. Stanley Kubrick. Warner Brothers, 1975. The Blair Witch Project. Daniel Myrick/ Eduardo Sanchez. Haxon Films, 1999. Blow-Up. Michelangelo Antonioni. MGM, 1966. Bob Roberts. Tim Robbins. Paramount, 1992. Capricorn One. Peter Hyams. Warner Brothers, 1978. Citizen Kane. Orson Welles. RKO, 1941. David Holzman’s Diary. Jim McBride. Paradigm, 1967. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Stanley Kubrick. Columbia, 1964. 103 Post Script F for Fake (Vérités et mensonges). Orson Welles. Janus Films, 1975. The Godfather. Francis Ford Coppola. Paramount, 1972. Gone with the Wind.Victor Fleming. MGM, 1939. Les hommes de la Maison-Blanche. William Karel. France, 2000. JFK. Oliver Stone. Warner Brothers, 1991. Man Bites Dog (C’est arrivé prez de chez vous), Rémy Belvaux/André Bonzel/Benoît Poelvoorde. Les Artistes Anonymes, 1992. The Man Who Knew Too Much. Alfred Hitchcock. Paramount, 1956. Nixon. Oliver Stone. Buena Vista Pictures, 1995. North by Northwest. Alfred Hitchcock. MGM, 1959. Secret Honor. Robert Altman. Cinemcom, 1984. The Shining. Stanley Kubrick. Warner Brothers, 1980. This Is Spinal Tap. Rob Reiner. Spinal Tap Productions, 1984. 2001—A Space Odyssey. Stanley Kubrick. MGM, 1968. Wag the Dog. Barry Levinson. New Line Cinema, 1997. Zelig. Woody Allen. Warner Brothers, 1983. HENRY M. TAYLOR is Research Fellow in Film Studies at the University of Zurich. He is the author of a book on biographical films (Rolle des Lebens. Die Filmbiographie als narratives System, Marburg: Schueren Verlag, 2002), and on Franco-Argentinian filmmaker Edgardo Cozarinsky (Der Krieg eines Einzelnen. Eine filmische Auseinandersetzung mit der Geschichte, Zurich: Chronos Verlag, 1995). His current research deals with conspiracy culture and the history of the paranoid thriller in film and television. Volume 26, No. 3 104 Post Script