01: Shared Resources
On Jordan Lord's Shared Resources (2021), and on the process of making a film about the family.
“There’s a lot I want to show you that I won’t, because of the risks involved.”
A finger covers the frame, coating the image in a warm, pinkish glow. An on-screen caption seen near the start of Jordan Lord’s Shared Resources (2021) reads that “some things are too close to be shown,” referring both to the blurred flesh which blocks the image and the scene concealed behind it. This image and its caption raise a question: what exactly has been obscured here, and what considerations informed this omission? In the film that follows, lots of things feel too close to be shown. Shared Resources is a film about a family, but also a film about the process of making a film about the family; in it, the ethics of using one’s own family members as the raw materials from which to construct a film are probed at every turn.
The film’s primary subject is debt. Filming over a period of five years, Lord details their family’s attempts to deal with a debt crisis that resulted in the loss of the family home, then later, a declaration of bankruptcy. Already painful, this is compounded by two ironies that further complicate the situation. The first is that Lord’s father is a debt collector by trade: his life’s work has been dedicated to “managing risk” and he has found himself unable to manage his own. The second is that a major contributing factor to the family’s financial problems is the costs of Lord’s college degree, a fee that their father voluntarily took on but evidently could not afford to shoulder. As much as Lord’s father assures them that they are not to blame for the situation, an awareness that the costs of a creative education contributed to the family’s financial difficulties makes for a difficult place from which to begin making a film. Further, the stress of dealing with the family’s finances has affected Lord’s father’s health, already compromised by an eye condition he received whilst serving in the Vietnam War. Filming one’s own family can sometimes seem like a frivolity, but there is little that is superficial here: it is a situation with real stakes, and in which multiple sensitivities are at play. Instead of seeing this as an obstacle, Lord identifies an opportunity. Talking about the disability benefits that their father receives, Lord notes that “insurance companies frame a person’s life by certain risk factors that determine when and how they’ll die, assigning their life value accordingly.” Under this logic, Lord explains, “disability is a kind of debt.” From this, Lord extrapolates, using the specificities of their family’s financial crisis to weave a cinematic essay that links these two things: debt and disability, before comparing them with another - filmmaking. Working through the idea of “risk” as it pertains to both the structures of debt in society and in the practice of filmmaking, Lord observes that they are both systems built upon multiple interdependencies.
In an attempt to reduce the risk involved in this venture, Lord opts to make the film collaboratively with their parents. By bringing their parents into the process, Lord hopes to identify where their individual understandings of their collective experience differ, and work out—as Lord puts it in the film’s description—“what it means to owe each other everything.” Many documentary filmmakers would describe their process as collaborative, but when pressed would likely admit that the extent of this collaboration only goes so far: ultimately, it is the filmmaker who has the final say regarding what makes it into the film and how that material is presented. In Lord’s film, this is not exactly the case. A pivotal scene shows Lord outlining to their parents how their creative collaboration could work, and suggesting that they ratify their agreement with a contract that is a deliberate subversion of the standard release form that documentary participants are usually required to sign. Anything filmed that they object to, Lord explains, will be omitted. In addition, they are free to comment on anything that is included. Their verbal interpretation will be included alongside Lord’s own, so that a viewer may make up their mind about how the events have been represented and how those involved come across on screen. In this model, consent is not something that is extracted and then exploited, nor even something that is fixed once it has been consolidated; consent is instead a continual process of negotiation and adaptation. Lord’s father is not impressed. “No filmmaker would agree to that,” he says, barely glancing over the contract that Lord has slid over the dining table to him in a shot that is framed to fit all three family members in at once so their expressions can be observed simultaneously. “You are giving away your right to show your truth,” Lord’s father says, refusing to sign. Lord’s father is as right as he is wrong. Instead of surrendering their autonomy by refusing to have total creative control or adopt a single, neutral-seeming form of authorial expression, Lord is instead creating a space in which multiple subjective truths can be allowed to exist simultaneously. However, Lord is the one who ultimately still maintains control of the final cut.
The form through which these multiple subjectivities are voiced is unusual, though perhaps shouldn’t be. Every image in the film is described, both out loud and with an on-screen text-caption. Lord generally notes the age, race, and appearance of the individuals on-screen, alongside other supplementary details regarding clothing, gesture, and posture, before then detailing any action that is taking place in the scene. Speech comes in two forms: as diegetic dialogue, or as commentary delivered retrospectively. This extensive captioning and audio description serves multiple purposes. As well as making the film accessible for viewers with visual or aural impairments, it also creates a space in which Lord’s parents can reflect on the footage that the filmmaker has assembled. In an early scene, whilst watching back some footage, Lord’s father makes clear his views on how he has been represented. “I hate it.” he says, before elaborating in less uncertain terms. “I felt very vulnerable in the footage you shared,” he adds, “because it showed me as weak.” It is oddly rare to see this sort of after-the-fact assessment on the part of a documentary film participant. Lord colour-codes all of this text so that a reader can determine who is speaking and whether this is speech that occurred “on” or “off-screen.” As comprehensive as these captions may seem, every time a detail is included a viewer is encouraged to think about how accurately it has been described and notice what may have passed without mention. An able-sighted and able-hearing viewer will be receiving sound, text, and image simultaneously, whilst also attempting to process all three. When presented with so much information, it is difficult to watch the film without unconsciously remaining alert and attentive. Equally, a viewer is forcefully made aware of the fallacy of neutrality: a viewer is encouraged to continually scrutinise the film and identify the layers that contribute to each scene’s construction.
These passages make the film sound more convoluted than it is. In reality, it is quite easy to follow. Ideas around “risk” are covered through the content: as in the explorations of the risk of causing harm by making a film about the family, or the theoretical discussions of risk as it appears within the work of debt collection and how this relates to other structures in society that are made to control. The same ideas are also explored through the form: as in when the act of filmmaking itself is deconstructed to expose the various risks involved in the practice. Overall, Shared Resources functions in two ways. On one level, it is a discursive documentary essay that talks through the issues of non-fiction filmmaking in general, showing some of the perils and pitfalls through practical, personal examples. On a second level, it acts as a demonstration of a different way of doing things: using various tools that provide access for the viewers of the film whilst also offering agency to its participants through the use of inventive creative devices. Detailed like this, these decisions may make the film seem like a theoretical exercise that dehumanises its participants by using them as models or examples. This is misleading. When these ideas are threaded together with such generosity and attention, the effect is unexpectedly moving. Lord turns the camera inward without it feeling indulgent or exploitative, and each creative decision is treated with the seriousness that it deserves. Deconstruction is commonplace within contemporary non-fiction filmmaking, so much so that some kind of self-conscious, surface-level gesture towards authenticity seems to be included in almost every film—often as a distraction in place of any genuine self-examination. The kind of care seen in this film is something altogether rarer. Shared Resources does not just reject the fundamental inequities that are inherent to many modes of documentary filmmaking, it provides a framework for something different. Lord shows how a non-fiction film can be made that is as accessible and generous as it is intelligent and searching.
Jordan Lord’s Shared Resources (2021) screened recently at MoMA Doc Fortnight and The DocYard, and was recommended to me by Abby Sun. More information about Jordan Lord and their work can be found here. To receive more articles like this, do subscribe to nonlinearities. The writing in this newsletter will always be free-to-read, but donations are very welcome.