The Documentary’s “Surrogate Protagonist”

I’m teaching a webinar today about how to craft a great climax for your documentary. In preparing, I identified five criteria for an excellent climax scene. One of them is that the climax must show your protagonist in struggle.

In this context, I was thinking about my favorite documentary, “The Times of Harvey Milk,” and how the climax scene cannot possibly show the protagonist in struggle, because he has already been assassinated earlier in the film. What we see instead is the so-called White Night Riots in which the San Francisco gay community storms on City Hall to protest against the verdict handed to accused murder Dan White, who got off easy.

In this instance, the gay community serves as a “surrogate protagonist”, carrying on the struggle that Milk initiated. As the film’s title indicates, this is the story of the times of Harvey Milk, not a standard biopic about an individual. Milk as protagonist represents the gay community in the 1970s. After his death, the gay community carried on with his goal, to further advance gay rights. So the film really does serve the final criteria as we see the gay community in struggle at the climax.

If you’d like to learn more about crafting a great documentary climax scene, please check out my online course, “Editing the Character Driven Documentary”. Go to https://newdocediting.com/products/