Film and Digital Media @ Messiah

Well, what of James Cameron and his collaborators, Simcha Jacobovici and Charles Pellegrino? Jacobovici is a producer of “para-archaeologistic” documentaries whose earlier documentary on the tomb of James ended in scandal and accusations of fraud by the Israeli Antiquities Authority. That their most recent documentary “The Lost Tomb of Jesus” has also ended in being completely discredited is no surprise. The noted archaeologist William Dever stated (on Ted Koppel’s television interview show, ‘The Lost Tomb of Jesus - A Critical Look’) that Jacobovici’s and Cameron’s “conclusions were already drawn in the beginning” of the inquiry and that their “argument goes far beyond any reasonable interpretation.”

So how do documentary filmmakers become deceivers? In two ways, both equally culpable with respect to their subject and their audience. First, they may begin with foregone conclusions due to anticipation of generating a revenue stream. Jacobovici, et al., seem to have taken this route to falsification and manipulation of the facts. He knew that claims to have found the tomb of Jesus would sell many advertisements for the Discovery Channel and consequently earn him (and his collaborators) a big payday. Money corrupts you if you are ready to be corrupted.

The second way is worse. A documentary filmmaker may be in such thrall to a particular ideology or nationalistic emotion that they cannot allow themselves an independence of mind. They then manufacture and manipulate the facts in order to deceive their audience for the pursuit of power. Nazi and Communist documentaries were replete with this sort of activity. But they were not alone. Documentaries from any and all points of view can become sucked into this, massaging and filtering the material to fit what Dever called “conclusions [that] were already drawn in the beginning.” And there is no magic methodology which can guarantee that this second way of going bad will not happen.

What can address both of these issues is the acquired habitus of virtue in the particular area of telling the truth. A habitus is an acquirement that goes beneath ideology or greed and becomes part of who a person is, and so shapes their desires. Although all of us may have an affinity for some ideology or another, and we may all feel some amount of greed, a person who has a habitus of virtue, will be able to practice φρóνησις. The virtue of φρóνησις, or prudentia in Latin, means much more than the English word prudence. According to the noted Aristotle scholar, Hippocrates Apostle, it is a “a habit by means of which one can deliberate truly concerning one’s conduct for a good life.” It is this habit (not duty, theory or ideology; these can all be compromised by internal desire or external pressure), which will see the virtuous person through the temptation to deceive for evil gain.

That Cameron, Jacobvici, and Pellegrino had little of the virtue of φρóνησις is entirely manifest. Greed overrode any respect for truth in their case. But for documentarians willing to sacrifice truth for power, the evil is far worse.