Peter Remmers

The role of the »real« marks the difference between non-fiction and fiction. A non-fictional depiction refers to actual persons, events, objects and states of affairs. Furthermore, photography enables special modes of non-fictional depiction, realized in its use as evidence or in documentary. Based on this setting I want to ask two questions:

What is the epistemological surplus of film’s non-fictional mode of reference to the real? The fact that we see something real in a film begs the question, because usually the audience does not learn that something is real just by watching. Thus, a documentary shows something real, but it does not show that something is real. The latter might be the case in surveillance or in the use of film as evidence; but in documentary, the audience knows about the mode of nonfictional reference beforehand. So the question arises: What is the object of our epistemological interest if we already know that the depicted is real?

What is the epistemological value of non-fictional reenactments? Since reenactments (for example in biopics) refer to the real in a less direct way – by acting and staging – it might seem like a substitute to documentary proper. But both non-fictional forms obviously show very different aspects of the depicted. How can we account (epistemologically) for this difference?

My investigation of these issues is based on a comparison of Frederick Wiseman’s documentary »Public Housing« (1997) and David Simon’s dramatic reenactment »Show Me a Hero« (2015).

Peter Remmers has a M.A. in Philosophy, Communication Science and Musicology from Technische Universität Berlin (TU Berlin). Since 2009 he is a Research & Teaching Assistant at TU Berlin, teaching and researching in Epistemology, Philosophy of Film, Aesthetics, Philosophy of Technology and Classical German Philosophy. He is just finishing his PhD on film’s form of knowledge.