Vérité in our times

By Haskell Wexler

Have you heard the term vérité lately? If you have, has it occurred to you that it is more than a filmmaking style—that vérité translates as truth? Truth is something we seem to be running short of these days. I tried to make Who Needs Sleep? my personal search for truth. In one scene, multiple images of authorities are shown with their speaking lips. Over these clips I paraphrased Orwell: In these times of deceit, telling the truth can be a challenging act.

How do we recognize, let alone challenge, deceit when our daily vérité is shaded, conditioned and controlled by the storytellers in power—who are invested in the status quo. This is especially difficult when the stories they make create fear in the people who consume them—making us more easily manipulated.

To distance ourselves from the lies, too many of us storytellers not embedded in the current system have taken refuge in an uncomfortable cynicism¬—or worse, apathy. But we cannot allow ourselves to wallow in our disillusion, because in that we abdicate our power. As my teacher, George Gerbner said, "who tells the stories of our culture really governs human behavior."

But how do we challenge the stories of what Harold Pinter calls “the greatest show on earth?”

We have to define the real truth, the vérité of our lives, with concern for all our brothers and sisters around the planet. A 60's bumper sticker read “Question Authority.” In these deceitful times we need to develop artful ways to confront authority. To ask what has happened to our moral sensibilities. Hopefully we, as privileged communicators, bring forth a fierce determination to define the real truth of our lives. Now is the time to accept our crucial obligation to restore the truth that is so nearly lost to us.