Perhaps I haven't seen an only archival footage documentary in a long time, or one as exclusively based in archival footage, but the power of the creators thesis was clear, merely by the juxtapositioning of images. After spending a considerable time thinking about how to make documentaries and ethnographies, I was unprepared to think so much about post-production, rather than the production aspect. I've spent so much time thinking about how to respectfully approach subjects without making them objects, how to frame scenes, what questions to ask, etc., that I've spent little time thinking about editing. In Atomic Cafe, the footage remaining the same, could have been edited together to make almost a whole new thesis, if one wanted too. Obviously when much of the footage was originally used, it was propaganda supporting the bomb, and one could have edited that together to continue that point of view. However, It was very clear from the placement of "duck and cover" drill videos with images of some of the measurements of the damage at Hiroshima, that this not only advocated peace and anti-nuclear action, but implicated America as victimizer.
Besides the increased attention I will be doing to documentary and ethnography editing, I also feel like I need to reexamine the casual way in which atomic was used following the bombing. Within and incredibly brief time, the term atomic began to be used for everything from music, to drinks, and to movie stars. But that's another project.
