Delivery
Layout
The documentary is presented in sections. First, it shows the living situations of a number of homeless people who sleep in their cars in a free parking lot. Next, it explains the eviction process that landlords can carry out on tenets who are late on payments, and illustrates how harsh some policies can be. The viewer sees why homeless people end up homeless and how strict the "system" can be against those who are short on cash. Mixed into the eviction scenes are short interviews with homeless people who confirm that the system can be cruel and that most others that they have met are hardworking individuals who by no means deserve to be without a home. After showing where the people live and how they got there, the documentary begins to show how those in this situation actually survive. The main ways that the film accomplishes this is through demonstration of government-funded food stamps and free pop-up medical facilities that are offered to people who meet a certain level of need.
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The layout is very important to the documentary. It is important that they establish that most homeless people are not "bad" (drug addicts, lazy, etc.) in order to convince the viewer to empathize with the victims of the system. By doing this, all of the images and voices of suffering and pain are more relatable to the viewer.
Rhetoric
Strong rhetoric is found throughout the documentary, primarily through image and first-person accounts of homeless life. Viewers are shown video of homeless people living in tents or boxes on sidewalks, being evicted from their homes, and celebrating the site of the same free box of pizza that they ate the night before. People are shown waiting in extremely long lines for basic medical care. Interviewees discuss eating one meal per day and working long hours just to come home and sleep in a car, box or tent. These emotional images draw the viewer to feel bad for the subjects and realize how difficult it is to survive in poverty. Many of us could not imagine losing the comforts we live with and living in such conditions.
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This media is most definitely rhetorical. It was quite clearly created with the intention of persuading the viewer that homelessness is a problem and that no decent, hardworking individual should face it. The use of pathos is there, though it is not presented in a way that overwhelms the viewer into feeling like they are being manipulated or forced into a certain viewpoint.
Flim Style
The film style of this documentary contributed well to the overall influence that the film had. They used framing to show the viewer what was important. Movement was kept to minimum to keep energy levels low and convey a sense of despair in the subjects.
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Other aspects, such as setting and lighting were not changed much by the filmmakers in order to maintain the realism of the situations.
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Being a documentary, editing contributes highly to the persuasiveness of the film. It uses many quick cuts, likely to contribute to the sense of chaos that the homeless population faces. This is the same for the overall pace of the film, which packs in many different scenes and interviews while still diving adequately deep into each feature, again to create perspective on how widespread and chaotic the problem is.