Enjeux esthétiques et éthiques d’une représentation des vies précaires aux États-Unis : l’exemple des documentaires Vacancy et The Other Side

This paper analyzes the aesthetic and ethical issues raised by documentaries about people living in poverty and insecurity through the example of two films shot in the United States: Vacancy (2018) by Alexandra Kandy Longuet and The Other Side (2015) by Roberto Minervini. Despite their formal differences, these films share similar approaches to documentation: while cultivating intimacy with their subjects, the filmmakers remain behind the camera and conceal their interactions with the protagonists. Moreover, they find a style that allows their viewers to experience the sensations of the precarious lives of their protagonists by using the tactile possibilities of the film. Films like those of Longuet and Minervini seek to render visible people that the processes and conditions of poverty relentlessly erase. This project is laudable, but what ethical problems are raised by such aesthetic approaches, and how do these documentaries face them? I will show that precariousness is a productive framing concept in that it is a fundamental characteristic of the life of the films’ subjects, as well as marking the production and reception of the two works.