So You Want to Be In Pictures? Tips from a Talking Head

Berkin

I am writing in my dual role as an academic and a talking head in television documentaries. It is not often that I get the chance to engage these roles simultaneously, for rather like Clark Kent and Superman, they are intimately related but decidedly distinct. Over the years, I have learned to be comfortable in both identities. The trick is to acknowledge their differences&emdash;in matters of values and procedures, of style and personal inclination, of standards and goals, and of opportunities and constraints&emdash;and relish their synergy.

The first, and perhaps the most unsettling difference is that documentary filmmaking, like many professional activities, is collaborative, cooperative, but hierarchical. The participants in the project are not equally involved in decision making, yet all are necessary if the project is to succeed. Tasks are parceled out: there are writers, researchers, directors, camera people, editors, set designers, gofers, people who do casting and those who book space and set shooting schedules. Every member of this organization is dependent upon the others; there are no solo acts, no independent agendas are possible. What could be more alien to historians?

Historians are neither natural nor trained collaborators. Unlike many social scientists, we rarely write joint papers. Unlike lab scientists, we do not participate in large cooperative grants. We are not team players: if we were athletes, we would be golfers or long distance runners, never point guards or quarterbacks. We pick our own topics, we decide on our own methodologies, we choose the organization of our project, and usually, unless under the pressure of a bid for tenure, we set the timetable for its completion. We work alone, often in quite solitary circumstances, buried in archives or sitting at our desk surrounded by printouts or note cards. I would not be the first to say that we historians are often socially inept, more comfortable with the dead than the living, but whether this is the result of our work or a predisposition that leads us to our chosen profession, I cannot say. It is, of course, true that if we are wise, we submit our work to colleagues and friends for advice and criticism, but when and to what degree we do so&emdash;and whether we take the advice we receive to heart&emdash;is, after all, our judgment call. When scholars declare in their preface that “all the errors and shortcomings of this book are mine,” their modesty and humility are to a great degree only an affirmation of their independence. In short, perhaps no profession in the world, except poetry writing and lighthouse keeping, allows such independence, such control over the process of creating and completing a project.

The dramatic difference between our mode of operation and that of the filmmakers cannot be ignored. A first foray into their world is a shock, I believe, to many historians. Given our training and inclinations, we do not take directions easily or accept someone else’s authority well. We find it difficult to compromise our views of how something should be interpreted, what should be included and what excluded in telling the story, and even what questions we are to answer on screen. We have to learn to fit into this large and complex collaborative enterprise called making a film&emdash;to be dependent and interdependent after a lifetime as independent artisans. Filmmakers have been known to call many in our profession “uncooperative,” “haughty,” “snobbish.” But I suspect we appear more arrogant than we really are. We are simply thrust into a world whose modus operandi is not our own.

A second great difference lies in the fact that the stakes in doing academic work and documentary filmmaking are not the same. Although we historians may not advance as quickly or as far if we do not publish a second monograph or write a steady stream of research articles, only we suffer the consequences of a slower pace up the professorial ladder. But only independently wealthy documentary makers can continue to function if their documentary is never aired. They have a payroll to meet, staff to hire, office space and equipment to pay for.

Perhaps as a corollary, documentary makers, even those who operate in the rarified atmosphere of foundation funding, are market driven. The documentary makers I worked with, no matter how good their reputations, no matter how well regarded their previous work, had to consider how their topic and approach fit the viewer profile of the network, the agenda of the foundation funding them, or the image conveyed or desired by the corporation sponsoring them. Their bottom line is not how good the show was in some absolute, or aesthetic sense, but how many viewers it attracted&emdash;and how much they liked it. These are the realities of a world of Nielsen ratings, commercials, and viewer donation drives. Consider how far these criteria are from the realities of the academic historians’ world. Although it is true that there are hot topics that will win a more prestigious publisher or an invitation to a more prestigious conference, we are not market driven. The standards by which we, our publishers, and our funding agencies measure our work is not its ranking on Amazon.com. This is fortunate, for, as a group, we demonstrate very little evangelical impulse. Like the Old Light ministers of the 1740s, we believe it is our obligation to put the message out, but whether all, many or even a few read it or accept it is their problem not ours. We wind up talking to that small band of scholars who inhabit our field. This is less a commitment to elitism than an acceptance of the rarified nature of our enterprise, the complexity of the issues we wrestle with, and the degree of ambiguity we are willing to accept in our interpretations. As we seem to enjoy the intimate conversations that result, we have little impetus to alter the way we communicate our discoveries or our ideas. We suspect no one else cares and we are generally content not to test this suspicion.

Because documentary makers have “bottom lines” they also have deadlines&emdash;real ones. They cannot wait for the Muse to strike them; they cannot have a bad case of writer’s block. And, there are limits to how often they can change course, for if they abandon a project, there is a price to pay that is material as well as psychological. Academic historians may occasionally have deadlines but they are usually, as Geoffrey Rush so aptly put it in Pirates of the Caribbean, “just guidelines.” Documentary makers have other time constraints: they can only lay claim to so much air time. They cannot contract for an hour film and turn in one that runs for three. “It just expanded,” is a perfectly reasonable comment to an editor but it is not acceptable to a television channel. This is why so much of what we say as talking heads in those long three- or four-hour taping sessions&emdash;brilliant, incisive, witty though every word might be&emdash;lands on the cutting room floor. And, this is why documentary makers plead with us to keep our answers short and to the point. Many of us simply cannot adjust.

Finally, the possibilities of the genres of written scholarship and documentary film are quite different. No matter how talented we as historians are at recreating a moment in the past with words, no matter how smoothly our language flows, no matter how vivid our descriptions may be, our works lack animation, they lack the dimensionality of the visual arts of the documentary maker. Their capacity for dramatization and reenactment remain latent. At the same time, documentaries are the victims of the very capacity for motion that defines them. Every documentary maker I have worked with tells me that the film must have an overarching theme, must have a “point” it is driving toward, and it must move toward it at a tempo and pace that allows few digressions. This means it cannot exhaust the topic. Thus, to an historian, documentary scripts often seem like “Highlights from” or “excerpts of” a long, complex, broad, and deep story. Like my colleagues, I have often found myself pining for what is left out, regretting what is condensed, even as I am impressed by how powerfully certain key ideas or events are portrayed and how vividly historical characters come to life. Critics condemn this process of selectivity as oversimplification but I have come to see it as a focus on what the camera can see and what it can show.

Having said all this, the question does arise: should historians participate in documentaries? Or, put more dramatically: what is a nice scholar like you doing in a television show? Not getting rich, that is certain. My career as a talking head has not swelled my investment portfolio. The level of fame is equally modest: occasionally I do get a mash note from a stranger, proposing marriage or something a bit shadier. And, recently, while shopping in a discount shoe store, I was recognized by an earnest young woman who actually asked for my autograph. I do not expect this to occur again for a dozen years.

In truth, there seems to me to be two central reasons why one says yes when invited to be a talking head. The first is a fascination with the possibilities and limitations of a different genre, coupled with a conviction that each genre can inform the other in some significant way. The second is an awakened proselytizing impulse, a desire to convey&emdash;especially to those who slept through high school history class or have ‘history is bunk’ tattooed on their biceps&emdash;how wonderfully interesting and important the study of history can be. In short, the spur is a compelling pride and delight in my chosen profession.

Can I offer any advice to potential talking heads? First, you must abandon the rescue fantasy that no doubt lurks in all of us who teach and mentor. I learned quickly not to imagine that I had magically transformed every viewer into the next Edward Gibbon. I learned almost as quickly that in the brief moments I had, I could not and should not attempt to convey everything I knew on a subject. What could be conveyed, by my tone and the intensity or vivacity of my comments, was how interesting and important the subject in question was. I become, in short, a living advertisement for the library or the bookstore section marked “History.” If I have learned not to overestimate my impact I have also discovered that I do not want to miss any small chance of increasing the historical curiosity of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people.

Secondly, you must not make demands that documentary making cannot meet&emdash;and should not meet. Instead, try to master the opportunities it provides. You cannot expect to take twenty minutes to convey your point if the script can only allow you forty-five seconds. You cannot insist that a major portion of that script be devoted to background or context. Historians who make these demands may see themselves as standard bearers and standard keepers; but they might simply be prima donnas. Learn what is possible. Our role on the screen requires many of the same skills our research and writing require: selecting, organizing, and articulating ideas&emdash;the challenge is to do it in under a minute rather than under four-hundred pages.

Third, do not be arrogant. Despite all the pressures of time and all the practical considerations under which documentary makers labor, they invariably immerse themselves in the literature of the field. They are more able to articulate the current historiographical debates on the subject than you might imagine. They have engaged primary source materials as well as secondary sources and they usually have a far better understanding of the nature of our academic discipline than we have of the nature of their profession. What distinguishes the scholar from the documentary maker is that, for the filmmaker, the scholarship is not an end in itself, but a tool, a resource. This does not mean that their grasp of the historical material is any less deserving of respect.

Fourth, remember that in this collaborative project you are a very small part of a very large whole. Your role may be important, but your control over the enterprise is small or nonexistent. If you are not able to adjust to this reality, then you will be a burden rather than an asset to the film.

Finally, it is important to understand the role that a talking head plays in a documentary. It is not simply to place the scholarly stamp of approval on the film. Nor is it simply to interject pedestrian background information on what is about to be seen or a few insights and judgments on what was just shown. Your role is far more important: you serve as a bridge between the two worlds of text and film. You represent your profession to the public. And, you affirm the value of understanding the past by appearing before the camera as a person who has devoted her or his life to studying and reconstructing that past. You are, in effect, an ambassador for our profession, and if you are engaging rather than arrogant, provocative rather than pedantic, you serve it well. 

Carol Berkin is professor of History at Baruch College and The Graduate Center, City University of New York . She is the author of several books including Jonathan Sewall: Odyssey of an American Conservative, First Generations: Women in Colonial America, A Brilliant Solution: Inventing the American Constitution, and Revolutionary Mothers: Women in the Struggle for America’s Independence (out this month from Knopf). She has also been involved with projects for PBS, MSNBC, Fox, and the History Channel.