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TRUE DOCUMENTARIES

DO NOT EXIST

SE: American Film, Media and Culture: Documentary Cinema


Summer term 2015
PD Mag. Dr. Christian Quendler

Franz Burgmann
9617155
C190 406 344

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................... 1

'CAMERA-INDUCED' BEHAVIOR ................................................................................................. 3

FILMMAKERS' COVERT INTERFERENCE ................................................................................ 12

CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................................... 14

WORKS CITED ................................................................................................................................ 17

Introduction

Documentaries make the claim that they are a "faithful portrayal of the real" (Kilborn

18). Bill Nichols dismisses this estimation, as he states that "[c]inema presents us with

the images of things. Images are mimetic distractions and counterfeitings; they cannot

engage our reason nor nourish our hunger for Truth" (Nichols 3). The French movie

critic Serge Daney, along similar lines, points out "c'est que le cinema a rapport au rel

et que le rel n'est pas le reprsent-et basta" ("that the cinema has a fundamental

rapport with reality and that the real is not what is represented - and that's final")

(qtd. in Andrew 5). However, even though, according to Nichols and Daney, no

documentary will ever be capable of creating an exact representation of reality

(Kilborn 18), the question remains whether documentaries have the potential of being

true 'projections' of reality, i.e., whether the relationship between a documentary and

the reality it is trying to capture can be similar to the one between the two-

dimensional blueprint of a building and the three-dimensional building itself.

Most people have seen a variety of documentaries, and it should be a valid assumption

that they would not find it difficult to define characteristic features to distinguish them

from their fictional counterparts. If one dives deeper into the topic of documentaries,

however, not all of these popular definitions and notions of documentaries turn out to

be sustainable, as the boundaries between these so-called documentaries and fiction

films are beginning to dissolve.

For Bill Nichols, "every film is a documentary" (1). Nichols goes on to say that "[e]ven

the most whimsical of fictions gives evidence of the culture that produced it and

reproduces the likenesses of the people who perform within it" (1). Nichols' definition

of documentary raises further questions, though, such as to what degree a certain

documentary represents the producers, the social actors, or even something else, and

what exactly 'it' is that is represented.

Trinh T. Minh-Ha takes a radically different approach to documentaries when

compared to Nichols; she claims that "[t]here is no such thing as documentary" (76).

What Minh-Ha means with the above statement is that regardless of whether or not a

'documentary' presents facts, it is never neutral and therefore does not deserve to

bear this label (Minh-Ha 76).

The present paper supports Minh-Ha's claim that documentaries are inaccurately

labeled (Minh-Ha 76). However, this paper follows a different line of argumentation; it

shows that, as far as people are involved as social actors in what filmmakers claim to

be a "cinematic representation of reality" (Venkatasawmy 74), there is no such thing as

a documentary because all of the alleged documentaries do not passively document,

but rather actively create their social actors. This means that a truly uncorrupted

observational mode of representation (Nichols iv), in which the filmmakers use a "fly-

on-the-wall" approach (Nichols 92), is impossible to achieve and therefore does not

exist. The first and foremost reason for this is that the process of filming cannot help

but influence the social actors' behavior in one way or another due to the latter's

awareness of the camera, which is videotaping their every action and non-action.

Moreover, in some situations the social actors are not just passively videotaped but

are requested to enact the instructions of the directors a fact that documentary

filmmakers conceal from the audience for obvious reasons.

'Camera-induced' behavior

People act differently when they know that they are being filmed. Even when

supposedly everyday situations are filmed, the social actors' awareness of the

presence of the camera leads them to consciously or subconsciously alter their

'normal' behavior. The apparent result of this is that their behavior on film does not

match the one that they would demonstrate in a comparable real life situation if no

camera was pointed at them. A study by van Bommel, which will be discussed later on

in this paper, corroborates this observation.

Some scenes of the highly acclaimed 1975 documentary Grey Gardens by Albert and

David Maysles will now be discussed in order to illustrate how the behavior of the

social actors of a documentary is altered by the presence of the camera. Grey Gardens

is considered to belong to the genre of direct cinema (Vogels 7) a documentary genre

that is related to the 'cinma vrit' movement (Barnouw 254 55), which originated

in the 1960s in France. Both genres aim to interfere as little as possible with the

naturally-occurring stories that unfold in their documentaries, and the resulting works

are characterized by the avoidance of "narration, voice-over, crosscutting, music,

'artistic' photography, nonsynchronized sound, and interviews" (Vogels 8). In an

interview conducted by James Blue in the 1960s, David Maysles defined the approach

of filmmakers devoted to direct cinema as follows:

Things as they come in real life are much more exciting than anything that you can
invent on stage. Writers try to emulate life. They feel they have to have it under their
control. We feel just the opposite. We observe and shoot things just as they happen.
We are after an emotional response. [We] don't want people to say: 'It's a
documentary, isn't it?' If we can achieve that, something will have been accomplished
(qtd. In Notaras).

According to Vogels, the Maysles brothers used direct cinema techniques with the

main aim of "reassert[ing] the sanctity of the individual in a world increasingly prone to

identify people as parts of large, often opposing groups" (7). However, even in Grey

Gardens, which, as discussed above, belongs to a documentary genre that has the

primary aim "to minimize the mediating work of film-maker and camera on the

'real'" (Marshall 21), the influence of the camera on its social actors is conspicuous.

There is a scene at the beginning of the documentary in which Little Edie has an

altercation with her mother over some pictures that directly illustrates the social

actors' awareness of the camera. The daughter wants to show a picture to the Maysles

brothers, and the resulting argument escalates until they physically play tug-of-war

with the photo and it is partially torn. Part of the accompanying dialog between

mother and daughter is quoted here:

BIG EDIE. No! Give me those pictures. I don't want to ask sixty-seven times.
LITTLE EDIE. Come on. I want to show that to Al.
BIG EDIE. No, I want
LITTLE EDIE. I wanna show it to Al! (Grey Gardens)

With 'Al', Little Edie is referring to Albert Maysles, one of the two filmmakers. As can

be concluded from the above dialog, the verbal as well as physical fight between

mother and daughter only comes into being because Little Edie wants to show the

pictures to one of the filmmakers, a situation that would obviously not have taken

place in the social actors' lives had the filmmakers not been present and thus shows

the camera-induced, altered behavior of the social actors. The two women seem like

children vying for the attention of their visitors, and one cannot help but wonder what

their interactions would be like without an audience.

A scene similarly suited for demonstrating the social actors' awareness of being filmed

is when Little Edie reminds her mother not to get undressed in front of the camera.

LITTLE EDIE. Mother, you don't have enough clothes on.


BIG EDIE. Well, I hope. I'm gonna get naked in just a minute, so you better
watch out.
LITTLE EDIE. That's what I'm afraid of.
BIG EDIE. Yeah, for what? Now, why? I haven't got any warts on me.
LITTLE EDIE. But the movie, the movie! (Grey Gardens)

Little Edie's exclamation "But the movie, the movie!" obviously serves to remind her

mother to adhere to socially appropriate behavior in the film that is being shot about

them. This reveals that the social actors are not behaving the way they otherwise

would. According to the way the two carry on before the camera, it seems rather

unlikely that Big Edie's threat to get naked would have even occurred without an

audience. What is even more important than the answer to this unanswerable

question, though, is that the scene demonstrates the social actors' awareness of the

camera and their modified behavior because of it.

Even though Little Edie's cautionary exclamation "But the movie, the movie!" could

easily have been eliminated from the film's final cut, the filmmakers evidently decided

to keep this scene. This could have happened in order to accentuate the fact that the

viewers are getting a direct window into the mother's and daughter's lives as well as

serving as further proof of the raw and untouched way in which the film adheres to

the principles of direct cinema. Nevertheless, this scene unintentionally exemplifies

the influence that the camera has on the documentary's social actors and shows the

intricate, innate discrepancy between the idealized fly-on-the-wall approach (Nichols

92) that followers of the direct cinema movement claim to pursue and what actually

happens during the process of shooting a documentary.

There are more scenes in Grey Gardens illustrating the camera-induced and thus

modified behavior of the social actors. During a short dialogue about food, Big Edie

talks to her daughter about her own self-conscious feelings while she was having lunch

the previous day. Big Edie mentions that she was eating in front of the camera, and

she tells her daughter that she "was very embarrassed". Even though the scene to

which the mother is referring eventually did not make it into the final version of Grey

Gardens, her mention of it nonetheless emphasizes the fact that it was the presence of

the camera that induced her uncomfortable feelings and thus affected her, in the

present case, unfavorably. Another distinct example of the social actors' awareness of

the camera is the scene in which Little Edie asks her mother whether she should "tell

them about Gould". With 'them', Little Edie is referring to the filmmakers, which again

suggests a strong awareness of the presence of the camera and a desire to explain

aspects of their lives that would obviously not need any clarification in a conversation

between the daughter and mother alone.

Grey Gardens contains many scenes in which the social actors directly address either

the filmmakers or the camera. In one such scene, mother and daughter are listening to

an inspirational speaker on the radio, in the middle of which Little Edie turns around,

directly addresses either the filmmakers or the camera it is hard to distinguish since

it is not a close-up, but for the purposes of this paper the distinction is not relevant

and asks, "Isn't he terrific?". In another scene, before she starts dancing, Little Edie

asks the filmmakers whether she will "look funny dancing", which they both answer

with "no!". There is also a scene where mother and daughter are looking at pictures

that show Little Edie as a child, and Big Edie directly asks the two filmmakers for

confirmation that she had been a good mother, which the Maysles brothers again

answer affirmatively.

Grey Gardens also contains scenes in which the social actors directly address the

filmmakers for the purpose of getting instructions. At the very beginning of the

documentary, Little Edie asks a series of questions with the aim of finding out how

they should proceed with the day: "What do you want to do now? Where do you want

to go? Upstairs? Do you want to go up and photograph it from the top porch?" This

scene distinctly illustrates the fact that Little Edie was not going on with her ordinary

life at that time and possibly also for the whole time in which the shooting of the

documentary was taking place. In this scene, Little Edie's actions seem to be

dependent on the filmmakers' wishes or, at the very least, she is hoping for some

guidance from them which strongly contradicts one of the main objectives of direct

cinema that the camera is supposed to be merely a 'silent' witness.

Camera-induced behavior is also apparent in scenes in which the social actors of Grey

Gardens are performing for the camera and the filmmakers rather than going on with

their normal lives. At the beginning of the documentary, Little Edie models her outfit in

front of the Maysles brothers, describing it as follows: "And you can always take off

the skirt and use it as a cape. So I think this is the best costume for the day." Apart

from the fact that she is apparently not proceeding with her daily routine as she

usually would without visitors which is illustrated through her interactions with the

filmmakers the fact that she calls her outfit a "costume" is also a strong indicator

that she perceives herself to be playing a 'role' in a performance rather than behaving

the way she would if no camera was pointed at her.

Little Edie's concern about her physical appearance in front of the camera further

demonstrates the fact that she perceives the filming process to be a special, out-of-

the-ordinary event, and that her behavior is consequently modified because of it. At

one point she apologetically remarks that she "[hasn't] got [her] makeup on",

indicating that she may have a ritual of primping herself before the Maysles arrive.

Most women would agree that they dress differently and may apply makeup for the

benefit of outside company, and viewers are left to wonder what Little Edie's physical

appearance might look on a normal day without the presence of the directors and

their recording equipment. If such external, cosmetic factors are so obviously

influenced by the presence of the camera, it can only be surmised how much the

internal 'behavior' of the social actors may be consciously or subconsciously affected

by the filming process.

There are many scenes in which the performance element is present to a high degree

in Grey Gardens. A striking example is the scene in which Little Edie reads the

horoscope out loud while she is apparently trying hard to look her best, which

becomes evident because she is constantly adjusting her headdress. Another scene

that illustrates the fact that the social actors are performing for the camera is when Big

Edie sings "Tea for Two". By the way the scene unfolds, it is obvious that she is singing

for the benefit of the filmmakers and the camera, i.e., her future audience. In another

scene, Little Edie gives a short dancing performance in front of the camera. Her view

of it as a show for the film is demonstrated when she directly addresses the camera

and admits that she was exhausted because she had been practicing the performance

for eight hours the night before.

Many of the scenes in Grey Gardens feel more like a talk show or an interview rather

than samples of real life. This becomes obvious in scenes where the social actors talk

about each other in the third person even when in close proximity to each other. One

of these scenes is when Little Edie explains her current situation of looking after her

mother: "I suppose I won't get out of here till she dies or I die". Another example is

when mother and daughter discuss various clothing items and, in the middle of their

conversation, Little Edie suddenly turns towards the camera and explains: "She likes

everything without girdles". The daughter repeatedly appears to treat the whole

filming process as a sort of in-depth interview about her life, but genuine evidence of

the actual living of it seems to be absent.

Further evidence of the interview-like nature of the film is produced in the many

scenes where the social actors explain and share details about their lives with the

filmmakers and the audience. One overt example is when Little Edie complains to the

Maysles about her spoilt life: "I missed out on everything. I missed out on the reunion

of my graduating class in Farmington. Because that was the fall that Jack Kennedy

campaigned to get in, and I was stuck here with Mother, the cats, the house and T.

Logan, and I couldn't go". The narrating element is obviously a product of the filming

circumstances.

There are a great number of scenes in which the Maysles brothers did not even

attempt to be 'flies on the wall' (Nichols 92). In one scene, one of the filmmakers

directly asks Little Edie: "Was your mother divorced or not?". In another scene, David

Maysles, this time addressing the mother, asks: "Didn't you expect that Edie might get

married someday?". In a scene where Little Edie talks about her difficult experiences

during World War I, David Maysles interrupts her and comments on what she had said

beforehand: "It must've been tough on people. I remember as a kid, so many loved

ones being killed. But you were the dating age". In another scene, David Maysles even

steps into the picture to help Big Edie get up from her chair. Furthermore, there is a

scene at the beginning of the documentary where the filmmakers even go as far as

flirting with one of their social actors, jokingly referring to themselves as "the

gentleman callers" and complementing Little Edie on her looks: "Edie, you look

fantastic".

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As an additional aspect, it should also be taken into consideration that the social actors

of Grey Gardens could have deliberately exaggerated their supposedly 'everyday'

behavior for their audience. Given the extraordinary circumstances in which Big Edie

and her Little Edie were embedded, it would not be surprising if the reclusive pair

the mother who was a retired singer and the daughter who was an aspiring dancer

would have relished the opportunity to perform for their company and the camera and

would therefore have consciously chosen to behave in an out-of-the-ordinary or at

least amplified way. An additional indicator for this assumption could be that Little

Edie is suspected to have had a "major crush on David Maysles" (Erickson).

Overall, the mother and daughter do not seem to be actually living their every-day

lives as they normally would in the absence of the camera. The documentary as a

whole leaves the viewer with the impression that it provides a big 'show and tell' for

the benefit of the social actors rather than a 'secret window' into the daily routine of

the documentary's social actors for the benefit of the audience.

The 'camera-induced' behavior discussed in the above examples has also been

addressed by van Bommel in a recent study about public self-awareness. The study

comes to the conclusion that people behave in a different manner when a camera is

focused on them due to their reputation concerns (van Bommel 1). Van Bommel goes

on to say that "[t]he presence of a camera is an established and well validated

manipulation of public self-awareness" (van Bommel 3).

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Filmmakers' covert interference



As noted earlier, filmmakers often interfere to a larger or lesser degree in their

documentaries. However, the extent of the directors' involvement in their films goes

beyond what meets the eye when watching the final product.

In the documentary Little Dieter Needs to Fly, director Werner Herzog instructed his

social actor Dieter to fabricate a scene that did not actually occur in real life; this

happened in order to achieve a dramatic effect. Herzog 'invented' a scene in which the

social actor Dieter, who had escaped from a Cambodian prison camp, is "opening and

closing the door obsessively from both sides, over and over, to make certain he isn't

locked in" (Blake). The viewer naturally concludes that this is something Dieter does

habitually, but Blake reveals that this is not at all the case and that Herzog requested

Dieter to act this way (Blake). Additionally, Blake quotes an undisclosed director who

referred to such an approach as "[l]ying the truth" (Blake). Blake herself interprets the

unnamed director's assertion, stating that "there is a greater truth to which you must

remain loyal, but the means by which you express this truth are a bit looser" (Blake).

Cheating in documentaries goes as far back as the very beginning of the genre. Ronald

Bergan claims that cheating started as early as 1895 with the first documentary ever

shown to the public, Workers Leaving the Lumire Factory, directed and produced by

the Brothers Lumire in France. The main evidence for Bergan's assertion is the fact

that none of the workers looks at the camera or walks towards it according to Bergan

a clear indicator that the social actors had been instructed beforehand.

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Later milestones in documentary filmmaking have also been identified as having been

subject to deliberate interference by their directors. Bergan references one of the

most important landmarks of documentary filmmaking, Robert Flaherty's Nanook of

the North, which, according to Bergan, bears obvious signs of "an Inuit family [re-

enacting] their lives for the camera" (Bergan). For instance, as Bergan points out, the

hunting of a walrus with harpoons was something the family had not done in years and

just picked up because Flaherty asked them to. Additionally, for the scene in which the

Inuit family sleeps inside of an igloo, Flaherty had instructed his social actors to build

an igloo "twice the average size, with half of it cut away to allow in sunlight" (Bergan).

Another example of manipulation of social actors by their directors is demonstrated in

an interview with the filmmaker Sam Pollard. As Patricia Aufderheide reveals in her

report about the ethical challenges in documentary filmmaking, Pollard expressed his

regrets for having pushed a social actor in one of his documentaries so far that the

latter broke down. Pollard asked "a subject to redo an interview in order to get a more

emotionally rich version of a painful moment when he had been abused by police in

prison" (Aufderheide 7). Pollard stated that he felt he manipulated the social actor

(Aufderheide). In the interview, the filmmaker admitted: "I felt like a real shit for the

rest of the day, felt like I manipulated him for my personal gain" (Pollard qtd. in

Aufderheide 7). Aufderheide's report as a whole is based on 41 interviews with

different filmmakers, and one of the overall findings is that "[g]etting to 'higher truth'

sometimes involved fudging facts or adding effects" (Aufderheide 16).

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Compared to other documentaries, the involvement of the filmmakers in Grey Gardens

is still minimal. Marianne Schaefer Trench, a documentary filmmaker, said the

following about how the Maysles approached the making of Grey Gardens: "I admire

the Maysles for refusing to help the viewers understand what they're seeing. They did

something I don't have the guts to do. They just let it roll" (Trench). If a documentary

such as Grey Gardens, which is everything but devoid of directorial manipulation, is

lauded for the Maysles brothers' minimal intervention, one can only imagine the

extent of filmmakers' interference in the 'average' documentary.

Conclusion

In the scope of this paper, it has been demonstrated that documentaries are not an

accurate representation of reality (Kilborn 18), but that they rather, as Bill Nichols

aptly puts it, "[present] us with the images of things" (Nichols 3) and that they

therefore cannot satisfy our quest for veracity (Nichols 3). It has also been discussed

that, even though most people have a rather clear conception of what a documentary

is, further investigations reveal that the boundaries between documentaries and

fiction films are beginning to weaken. Moreover, there is no consensus between

scholars about the definition of documentaries; Trinh T. Minh-H, for instance, opposes

Bill Nichols' argument that all films are documentaries (Nichols 1) with her contention

that the documentary genre does not exist (Minh-H 76).

Using Albert and David Maysles' Grey Gardens as an example, this paper has shown

that people start to behave differently the moment a camera is pointed at them. It has

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been illustrated that, as far as people are involved as social actors, so-called

documentaries are not capable of simply documenting people's lives because the

camera, which is inextricably linked to documentaries, will alter people's behavior and,

as a result, depict them inaccurately. Consequently, social actors are created rather

than documented. As has been pointed out, these findings are corroborated by the

results of van Bommel's study about the relationship between public self-awareness

and the manipulative influence of the camera (van Bommel 3).

Additionally, using Werner Herzog's Little Dieter Needs to Fly and a few other select

documentaries as examples, it has been demonstrated that it is an erroneous

perception if viewers think that the makers of documentaries are merely shadowing

their social actors. On the contrary, filmmakers often actively interfere by instructing

their social actors to perform according to the formers' own conceptions.

For documentaries that rely on people as their social actors, a truthful representation

of reality is not possible. The only true documentary would be one with a hidden

camera in which the social actors are unaware of the fact that they are being filmed. It

has to be argued, though, that such a documentary would still not be a true

representation of reality, but only a projection of the real. This is true due to various

issues discussed in this paper, such as Nichols' statement that any audiovisual

reproduction is only an image of the real thing (Nichols 3). Additionally, as soon as

footage from such a project is sorted and selected for a feature-length film, it loses

authenticity, as editing already constitutes a contradiction to a documentary's claim of

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being a true representation of reality. This observation is in line with Kochberg's

finding that "[g]iven the editorial nature of the process, a documentary/non-fiction

feature film can only ever represent a truth selected by the film-maker" (14).

Even if the above factors were not taken into consideration, legal concerns in regard to

the infringement of human rights would already prevent such true 'fly-on-the-wall'

documentaries (Nichols 92) in the real meaning of the word to come even close to

fruition. Simply put, true documentaries do not exist. Documentaries, as they have

been produced so far and as they in all probability will be produced in the foreseeable

future, do not deserve to bear the title of 'documentary' perhaps it would be more

fitting to call them 'distortomentaries'.

(4,352 words)

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Works Cited

Aufderheide, Patricia et al. Honest Truths: Documentary Filmmakers on Ethical
Challenges in Their Work. Washington, D.C.: Center for Social Media, 2009. Web. 24
Sept. 2015.

Andrew, Dudley. What Cinema Is! Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2011. Print.

Barnouw, Erik. Documentary: A History of the Non-fiction Film. 2nd Rev. ed. New York:
Oxford UP, 1993. Print.

Bergan, Ronald. "Isn't It Time We Dropped the Term 'documentary' for Good?" Film
Blog. The Guardian, 31 Mar. 2009. Web. 24 Sept. 2015.

Blake, Sally. "Documentary Filmmaking: Truth or Fiction?" Utne. Christian Williams,
Mar. 2012. Web. 24 Sept. 2015.

Erickson, Glenn. "Grey Gardens." Turner Classic Movies. TCM. Web. 24 Sept. 2015.

Grey Gardens. Dir. Albert Maysles. Perf. Edith "Big Edie" Ewing Bouvier Beale
Edith "Little Edie" Bouvier Beale. Portrait Films, 1975. Film.

Kilborn, R. W., and John Izod. An Introduction to Television Documentary: Confronting
Reality. Manchester: Manchester UP, 1997. Print.

Kochberg, Searle. Introduction to Documentary Production. London: Wallflower, 2002.
Print.

Marshall, Bill. Quebec National Cinema. Montreal, Que.: McGill-Queen's UP, 2001.
Print.

Nichols, Bill. Representing Reality: Issues and Concepts in Documentary. Bloomington:
Indiana UP, 1991. Print.

Notaras, Gabriela, and Richard Philips. "World Socialist Web Site." Two Fine Examples
of "direct Cinema" -. World Socialist Web Site, 7 Sept. 2001. Web. 24 Sept. 2015.

Trench, Marianne. "How Grey Gardens Auteurs Made Us Squirm." The Daily Beast.
Newsweek/Daily Beast, 28 Mar. 2015. Web. 24 Sept. 2015.

Trinh T. Minh-ha, "Documentary Is/Not a Name." October 52 (Spring 1990): 76-98.

van Bommel, M., et al., Be aware to care: Public self-awareness leads to a reversal of
the bystander effect, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology (2012),
doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2012.02.011

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Venkatasawmy, Rama. The Digitization of Cinematic Visual Effects: Hollywood's


Coming of Age. Lanham: Lexington, 2013. Print.

Vogels, Jonathan B. The Direct Cinema of David and Albert Maysles. Pbk. ed.
Carbondale, Ill.: Southern Illinois UP, 2010. Print.

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