Between Personal & Autobiographical Films

I know it's strange to start off a post without a concrete idea of where you got a quote, but I once read somewhere that, it it might of been for either comics or film, it is always a bad idea for your first project to be autobiographical or personal. I found that idea kind of strange, as most people who make films or comics always do that first. Why? Because you do something you know about. Yet, at the same time, it seems too easy to do that. And it's even easier to do something that is directly about yourself. But does it make it bad? I think yes and no. But that's where the line is drawn.

In a personal film, you do a film about something that affects you or has something to do with you. It's usually an experience, point of view, an opinion, an idea, etc. The film can be about an entirely different group of people from you, the protagonist can be someone else, but what you put in is entirely yours. Rainer Werner Fassbinder is a good example as is Francois Truffaut. Both directors made films that dealt with ideas or experiences that were very close to them. For Fassbinder, it was about postwar Germany, his postwar Germany. For Truffaut, it was about his childhood experiences and relationships with women. Woody Allen and Federico Fellini fall into this category as well in that case. What separates these films from autobiographical films is their the directors detachment from the material. And thus, their acceptability is put slightly away from that fine line I mentioned.

Autobiographical films, on the other hand, are problematic because of how close they are to their subject. Granted, directors who these sort of films have the ability to bear themselves to the public, but the other task at hand is how important what they're showing about the audience is. In a fictional film, this would be acceptable as their experiences become accessible to the public in the form of a character that doesn't exist. When it is the director telling us about themselves, then the question is why? Why are we watching this? What do you have to say that is new or different, let alone important? In comics this could be interesting, but on film, I feel it is the amateur's initial idea. Perhaps this is why it is no longer a common occurrence. 

The day of the autobiographical film is over, but remnants of it still show up in spades on the internet in the form of vlogs. But that is a different matter all together. Now, the only situation left to deal with is the safety net that is being created by the personal film. It is becoming the first thing beginning filmmakers are turning to. And as it grows, the amount of personal information put in these films will grow. If this allowed to happen, then I fear that the personal film will become part of the pantheon of amateur work.

-Carlos F. Enriquez