MovieChat Forums > Overnight (2005) Discussion > How selective was the material we saw in...

How selective was the material we saw in this?

posted 18 years ago by Balibari
20 replies | jump to latest

Does anyone know how selective the (documentary) filmmakers were with the material they used? Obviously they fell out with Duffy, and it's fair to say focusing on his more unpleasant qualities would help sell the film (and be sweet vengeance).

I guess my question is: Is this documentary subjective or objective?

As viewers we are not able to form our own opinions because Duffy appears so outrageous - it would be similar to watching Fahrenheit 911 without any prior knowledge or opinion of Bush. Whilst this kind of documentary can be interesting and enjoyable, I don't think it's good filmmaking. Did the filmmakers want to present him like this or was he just so universally obnoxious they had no option?

Or to put it another way, did they screw him?

[–] Super_Fu_Manchu 18 years ago

Thing is, no matter HOW selective the footage is, he still did the things we see him doing. Now he could be a sweet as pie the whole rest of the time, but while I very much doubt that, the way he DOES behave is enough reason to thorougly discredit the guy and rightly so. If someone followed me around with a camera for half a year, I hope they wouldn't have so much as 90 minutes of footage of me being THAT much of an as*hole.

Kind of similar to how no matter how Moore edited Fahrenheit 911, Bush still tricked his way into office and proceeded to engage in an illegal war. No side stepping the facts.

* IMMA STREET WALKIN CHEETAH WITH A HEART FULLA NAPALM! *

[–] 18 years ago

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[–] 18 years ago

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[–] Super_Fu_Manchu 18 years ago

"You can take a nun and turn her into a devil worshiper by the power of editing to what you want people to see"

No you can't. That's ridiculous. A nun wouldn't say/do a single thing to make her look like a devil worshipper, let alone enough for a feature film. Are you comparing Duffy to a freaking nun!?

All I'm saying is, even if only 20% of the footage was used (which is below normal ration even for a documentary), Duffy acting this way for 20% of the time is damning enough. It doesn't need to be consistent - a man who can say or do those things AT ALL deserves everything he gets, nevermind if he's always like that. You can't deny there's evidence of Duffy badmouthing a lot of hollywood people, telling his friends they can't have any money, saying "you deserve it, but you aren't getting it", and last of all - you can't deny from the documentary that he shows himself as pretty talentless and unintelligent (and if the documentary isn't enough proof of that, then watch his movie.)

Now consider that Duffy was behaving this way IN FRONT of the camera. Most of us would do/say some stupid things occasionally but in front of the camera, we're on our guard, especially if the footage might end up being seen by people (as a documentary on the making of a film you were shooting would be). If this is Duffy in front of the lens, imagine what he's like when the camera aint rolling!

And it's spelt 'disgusting', not 'discusting'. They didn't sell out 'a friend' - Duffy severed that friendship a long time ago, and he was the one that sold them all out.

_-_-YOU'VE GIVEN ME A MOUTHFULLA GREEK SALAD!!!_-_-

[–] 18 years ago

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[–] Super_Fu_Manchu 18 years ago

Grammar. And Santa doesn't exist for you to make him "look like the biggest evil" anyway.

I watched Duffy's movie and the documentary on him, I can make a judgement on his talent and to a certain extent on his character as a result.

_-_-YOU'VE GIVEN ME A MOUTHFULLA GREEK SALAD!!!_-_-

[–] 18 years ago

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[–] Super_Fu_Manchu 18 years ago

From what I can understand from your last post (not much), is that you're friends/in a relationship with/psycho fan of Duffy (thus explaining your outrageous, unjustified arguments - "You are biased. But, that's your problem, and fortunately for me, it's not mine" is a stroke of genius by the way), that you think Santa Claus or my mother for that fact, if filmed for long enough (say, three months or something), would behave badly enough to have their worst moments compiled into a film that would make him seem like the devil (just a tad assumptious of you, and not to mention utterly false), and that you wont budge on your unhinged position.

"You can take home footage of Santa Claus and if you edit it the right way you can make him look like the devil. That's all i'm saying, and there is no way you can deny that."

You seem to think that, if filmed for say three months, by the power of editing alone, Old Saint Nick would be seen binge drinking, bad mouthing everyone in town using a wide range of imaginative swearwords, betraying all of his little elves and telling them they aint getting paid for that years toy-making, and then finally never really delivering the goods. There's only one problem with that: edit it however you like, cut whatever footage you want, but there's no way Santa is even doing any of those fu*king things in the first place, right! Think about it. So Duffy did do everything we saw him do in the documentary, even if it was carefully and deliberately chosen footage - right! So how can you say Duffy's a kitten? Even if he did everything we see him do in the film over a [l]long[/i] period of time, and everything he did/said between when the camera was rolling was kind, generous, intelligent and loving to those around him (which I doubt), he still did/said/acted that way in the documentary, and that's not the behaviour of a kitten - or Santa Claus... that's the behaviour of an arrogant, deranged egomaniac with no value on friends or family, and nothing but an oversized head, a drought in talent and a hugely irresponsible and ultimately fatal temprament. Whether his enemies edited it or not, they couldn't have made that stuff up, and they weren't enemies until Duffy betrayed them and made them enemies.

Now you didn't address what I said about how his behaviour on camera would be better than off-camera, so I suppose typing that was a waste of time since I'm clearly talking to someone who doesn't care to listen to reason.

Not sure why you're talking about Saw III - I enjoyed the first in a trashy sort of way, but found the second completely unwatchable.

"Good luck with your biased life! You really do need it, because it's obvious you need it."

Wow, with punchy dialogue like that you could have written the Boondock Saints!

_-_-YOU'VE GIVEN ME A MOUTHFULLA GREEK SALAD!!!_-_-

[–] 18 years ago

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[–] Super_Fu_Manchu 18 years ago

Well what can I say, you didn't respond to any of the points I raised, you got your point across many times but it was absurd - that's what I was trying to show you, and if you're saying that me highlighting what was wrong with what you were saying about 'the power of editing' is comparable to what the filmmakers did with their presentation of Duffy, well then I'm a dutchman. You said something that didn't make any sense (the power of editing apparently being capable of inventing things that didn't actually happen), and I tried to highlight how incoherent that was, in the same way that Duffy acted like an ass, and the filmmakers tried to highlight how much of an ass he was.

_-_-YOU'VE GIVEN ME A MOUTHFULLA GREEK SALAD!!!_-_-

[–] 18 years ago

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[–] speedfreek81 18 years ago

After watching the documentary, I think it's fair to say the best thing taken can be a lesson in self-destruction. I don't think it was intended entirely to show the world Troy Duffy is a jerk, but rather to tell a story of how a person can mishandle great opportunities, in the end burning his bridges with friends, family, and the same people who gave you said opportunities. It seems that Duffy was an idealistic person essentially, but he just let everything topple him by trying too hard to exceed his situation. The saddest thing to me was to see the way it affected everyone else's lives: the closing of the bar, the dissolution of his relationships with both his friends and even his own brother. As a life-long film and music fan, as well as someone who has been at the lowest levels of both "industries," it just hurts to see the irresponsibility with things that involve the lives of people you are supposed to care about. The quote at the end says a lot.

Boondock Saints turned out to be a "cult classic," and Duffy won't see any gain from its sales, can't make a sequel, and can't really work in Hollywood at all, and that's too bad for him. Overnight should be a lesson to anyone hoping to achieve success: treat it with care, or it could be quite fleeting.

Ash to severed hand: "Who's laughing now?!?!" -Evil Dead 2

[–] nomad20 17 years ago

The two filmmakers did an interview (in the special features on the DVD) where they say there was even more damning footage of him disparaging women, minorities, and homosexuals. I know that doesn't necessarily have much to do with his ego or anything, but I find it hard to believe that he was the coolest guy ever except for the 90 minutes of footage they chose.

He did screw himself. Every step of the way. He alienated his brother and bandmates and the managers that were there from the beginning, he alienated Harvey and nearly everyone but his agents.

[–] alextlm 17 years ago

I saw that too. It's hard to imagine that he could be painted even worse. It gives me a headache to think of the opportunity he sqandered. I wish this was a docudrama!

[–] jjstowell-1 17 years ago

Now, I haven't seen this movie yet, so I can't really judge it, but here are a few facts I do know.
1.) Troy Duffy himself made a statement about the creation of Detective Smecker in the Boondock Saints (a cop who is also a homosexual but isn't comfortable with it himelf). Duffy said that he wanted to show with this character that there was nothing wrong with sexual preference. He did this for a close friend of his that was still 'in the closet' because he wanted him to know he would be accepted. Granted, this is from the horse's mouth but if you listen to his commentary on the BDS - he says it plainly. I don't think he'd say that if he were homophobic.

2.) Also, Norman Reedus (the guy who played Murphy MacManus) stated in an interview with SuicideGirls.com that he had refused to be intereviewed on camera by the guys who made this Overnight film. He didn't trust them not to skew his words into something ugly (like they apparently did to everyone else interviewed.) He said that Willem Dafoe commented later on it, saying that they'd gotten like twenty minutes of interview on tape with him and used only the worst parts of it. Apparently these interviews were not just about the bad things, but also about a lot of the good things that probably wouldn't help them destroy Duffy if they were in the film.

Granted, it sounds like Duffy made an ass out of himself quite a few times. But I refuse to judge his work on his actions. BDS is a good movie and the script is well written. If I judged movies and television by the people who played the characters, wrote the scripts or filmed it, I probably wouldn't want to see any of them. Take what you saw with a grain of salt, people. Propaganda works because it's believeable. It doesn't mean it's the whole truth.

[–] JesusPlayingGolf 17 years ago

Propaganda works because it's believeable. It doesn't mean it's the whole truth.

It may not be the whole truth, but you see enough truth to know that Troy Duffy is an undeserving bastard. Also, IMO, Boondock Saints is a mediocre movie at best, with a terrible script.

And, I have seen the documentary.

[–] vincent-27 13 years ago

Reality shows are a good example of making something out of nothing. You can juxtapose reactions from different conversations against each other to make the viewer believe they are seeing something they aren't. That's typically how editing trickery works, when you edit answers/reactions and questions together that could be completely unrelated.

This is probably just the case of selective editing in that they only showed the worst parts, you can't deny that he screamed at some exec on the phone like a lunatic or badmouthed half of hollywood. I think alcohol (and possibly other drugs) probably played a large part in Troy's behavior, which everybody knows that booze is liquid confidence, coke is that times 100. Troy's behaviour at times verged on megalomania and reminded me of what Hitler or Stalin would have been like if they were a fat unshaven grunge guitarist from west hollywood.

--
"Surrender Dorothy!"

[–] 13 years ago

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[–] Marxist_Bros 10 years ago

I'll say this much, poster from 7 years ago, they took 350 hours of footage and boiled it down to an 88 minute movie.

Can't imagine anything being much more selective than that. And you can tell from their interviews that it's personal. And all documentaries are subjective.

"Sorry detective. There was a fish... IN the percolator."

[–] tyrexden 8 years ago

EVERY single documentary on earth is selective. They have a story to tell, and the footage they show is chosen to tell that story.

If a documentarian was not selective, he's not doing his job.