Two just-released documentaries, My Kid Could Paint That and Lake of Fire, continue the interminable argument about how close a non-fiction film can get to objectivity.

The films take very different approaches. Lake of Fire, directed by Tony Kaye (American History X), is an exploration of the abortion debate in America. During the 15 years it took Kaye to shoot and edit the 152-minute black and white film, abortion providers were killed, the Supreme Court tilted right, and few people on either side of the contentious issue gave much ground.

In an interview with Ray Pride at "Movie City News," Kaye said, "My plan and concept was to make an unbiased, non-propagandistic film...It wasn't to present my own point of view or my own take."

But is it possible to investigate such a controversial topic in a truly balanced way? Doesn't everyone have an opinion that shows up on screen, even just a little?

Amir Bar-Lev's My Kid Could Paint That is smaller in scope and less divisive, but it certainly raises questions about the nature of art and celebrity – and truth. Mark Olmstead gave his two-year-old daughter Marla some paint and paper, a friend hung the colorful results on his coffee shop wall, and people bought them. By the time Marla was four, she was showing at galleries and had earned $300,000 from her abstract expressionist-style work. Then "60 Minutes II" showed a segment that suggested Marla's father was the primary author of her creations.

Bar-Lev is not only the director of My Kid Could Paint That, he's intentionally an active participant in the narrative. He was interviewed by Eric Kohn in "The New York Press" and said, "(W)e can’t be flies on the wall...we affect the things we’re trying to capture. That doesn’t make our responsibility any less substantial."

Even a director making every effort to tell "the truth" (Frederick Wiseman, say, as opposed to Michael Moore) makes choices that influence the viewer: which way to point the camera, what to leave in and what to cut, how to arrange the scenes.

"There is no story without a storyteller," Bar-Lev writes on his film's website.

Is he right? Let us know in a comment.