1. The Civil War
(Ken Burns, 1990)
2. Know Your Enemy: Japan
(Frank Capra, Joris Ivens, 1945)
3. Are You Popular? (1950?)
4. What Happened on 23rd Street
(Edison, 1901)
5. Mechanical Universe and Beyond
(PBS, 1987)
6. Faces
(John Casavetes, 1968)
7. Battle of Algiers
(Gillo Pontecorvo, 1966)
8. Grey Gardens
(Albert and David Maysles, 1976)
9. North Sea
(Harry Watt, 1938)
10. Koyaanisqatsi
(Godfrey Reggio, 1983)
11. March of Time (1945)
12. Shark Callers of Kontu
(Dennis O'Rourke, 1987)
13. Sink or Swim
(Su Friedrich, 1990)
14. Family Gathering
(Lise Yasui, 1990)
15. Fear of a Black Hat
(Rusty Cundieff, 1992)
16. All the President’s Men
(Alan J. Pakula, 1976)
17. Surname Viet, Given Name
Nam (Trinh T. Minh-ha,
1989)
18. Deadly Deception
(Debra Chasnoff, 1991)
19. Casablanca
(Michael Curtiz, 1942)
Docu…what?: Class Definitions
Docu…what?
“An information program that is not designed to be purely
entertainment and which may include drama or variety
techniques in achieving its information goal”
– ACTRA
“'Documentary film belongs to a class of social discourses juridical or historical - that seek to account for actual
occurrences in the phenomenal world. They take as their
reference events that are perceptible, have been
observed, and can be specifically located in time and
space. Documentary films are constituted of documents,
in the sense by which this word obtains in the human
science: faithful representations (here, filmed rather
than written) of events that exist outside the
consciousness of the documentarist.'
--William Guynn, A Cinema of Nonfiction
Docu…what?
“Pictoral accounts that would bring to the fore
otherwise hidden aspects of nature”
--Siegfried Kracauer
“Documentary defines not subject or style, but
approach…Documentary differs from that of
story-film not in its disregard for
craftsmanship, but in the purpose to which that
craftsman is put.”
--Paul Rotha, Cinema Quarterly
Docu…what?
“Any film practice that has as its subject persons, events, or
situations that exist outside of the film in the real world.”
--Film Studies Dictionary
“Unlike most fiction films, documentaries deal with facts—
real people, places, and events rather than invented ones.
Documentaries believe that they’re not creating a world so
much as reporting on the one that actually exists.”
--Understanding Movies
Docu…what?
“A documentary film purports to present factual
information about the world outside the film.”
--Film Art: An Introduction
“An incredibly broad category of cinematic
expression, traditionally the only common
characteristic to all documentary films is that they
are meant to be non-fiction films.”
“"All methods of recording on celluloid any aspect of reality
interpreted either by factual shooting or by sincere and
justifiable reconstruction, so as to appeal either to reason
or emotion, for the purpose of stimulating the desire for,
and the widening of human knowledge and understanding, and
of truthfully posing problems and their solutions in the
sphere of economics, culture,and human relations.“
--1948 definition (as quoted in Brian Winston:
“Documentary: I Think We are in Trouble”)
Docu…what?
"Of course Moana, being a visual account of
events in the daily life of a Polynesian youth,
has documentary value. But that, I believe,
is secondary to its value as a soft breath
from a sunlit island, washed by a marvelous
sea, as warm as the balmy air. “
--John Grierson, Review of Robert
Flaherty’s 1926 film, Moana.
New York Sun.
Docu…what?
“The creative
interpretation of reality”
– John Grierson
Docu…what?
"Documentary's essence lies
in the dramatization of
actual materials.”
--Paul Rotha
Documentaries of Wish Fulfillment
Documentaries of Social Representation
Documentaries of Wish Fulfillment
•Deal with imagined realities
•Reflections and shapers of
culture (fantasies, prejudices,
hopes and fears)
•Document images/actions in
front of the camera
•Requires that the viewer
suspend disbelief
•Ultimate Goal: to entertain
•Imaginative representation of historical or
personal reality
•Lay claims to representing the “Truth”
(unlike films of wish fulfillment)
•Make arguments/claims about the world
outside of the theatre
•Use of evidence drawn from the “real”
world
•Goal: to have the viewer believe in what is
being represented; to act on those beliefs
Documentaries of Social Representation
“We don’t like to
use the D word…”
– Errol Morris
How can [all these diverse films] be in one class? I
think they all exhibit a common defining trait:
inherent in their stance toward the audience is the
claim not so much to educate as to edify. So I call
this huge class of films ‘films of edification,’ or
“edifiers. At least the label avoids the classic
truth claims of documentary and acknowledges the
intention to persuade…to raise up the audience to a
more sophisticated or refined notion of what is.”
--Jill Godmillow
Bill Nichols:
A Corpus of Texts
•A body of works characterized by common
conventions and norms, e.g.,
•Voice-of-God narration
•Interviews
(general heavy reliance on spoken word)
•Historical footage
•Location shooting
•Reliance on social actors – people in their
everyday roles
•Certain technological features and cues (e.g.,
handheld camera)
Bill Nichols:
A Corpus of Texts
•Organizational and structural logic in relation to
subject (the historical world), e.g.,
•Problem/solution
•Social activism
•Organizational logic (editing, sound, etc.) that
supports or presents evidence for
claims/arguments being made (often different
from narrative fictional film’s continuity
editing)
Bill Nichols:
A Community of Practitioners
•Shared sense of purpose: a common, self-chosen
mandate to represent the historical rather than
imaginary world.
•Often committed to social action: the use of film
as an agent for social or cultural change.
•Move in the same circles…share common audiences
and exhibitions venues.
•Talk the same language, share common concerns
(…but what about those who straddle the line? (e.g. Werner
Herzog)
An Institutional Framework
•“Documentaries are what organizations and institutions
that produce them make.”
•Production and exhibition context as cue to
documentary status.
•Context establishes audience expectations and
assumptions.
•Institutional framework imposes institutional agendas:
ways of representing the world, filming conventions,
points of view.
•Independent doc distributors – distribute
documentaries
•Institutions that support doc may also support other
types of film
Bill Nichols:
A Constituency of Viewers
•Sense of a films documentary status in the mind of the
viewer.
•Audience assumptions and expectations about the
relationship of the images on the screen to the historical
world:
•The primary assumption: what we see and hear is
grounded, in some way, in the real world. The events
represented possess a historical basis, something we
can point to as actually happening or having had
happened down the street or across the sea.
•Assumption based on fidelity of sound and image to
•These expectations are based on previous experience,
both with life and with other films
Bill Nichols
Documentary Modes
•Poetic
•Images from the real world shaped into subjective
impressions
•Emphasis on texture, rhythm, mood, visual associations
•Less emphasis on time/space continuity
•Expository
•Make arguments/tell history using visual evidence
•Heavy reliance on the spoken word to make arguments
•Address the viewer directly
•Voice-of-God
•Voice-of-authority
•Emphasizes the impression of objectivity or authority
Documentary Modes
Observational (“Fly on the wall“ filmmaking )
 Came of age in the 1960's with movements
known variously as cinema verite or Direct
Cinema.
 Reactio to the earlier expository styles
 Response to new technological developments
(portable cameras and synchronous sound)
 Concentration in this mode is on
Direct engagement with the subject;
Minimum directorial intervention or editorial
manipulation.
Spontaneity...no scripts, voice-over, no
music, no interviews, no second-takes
Documentary Modes
Participatory (Interactive)
Filmmaker as social actor in his/her own film
Direct and obvious engagement/interaction with
film subject
Filmmaker’s voice or physical presence is part of
the subject
Presence of filmmaker may reveal “truths” which
would have not existed otherwise.
Interviews – another, more formal, form of
filmmaker interaction with subject
Documentary Modes
Reflexive
Acknowledge the problems and issues of
representing the historical world on film.
Make the filmmaking process a focus of
attention: self-conscious and self-questioning.
Call into question traditional documentary
evidence.
Attempt to readjust audience assumptions and
expectations about the documentary, about
historical truths and the representation of reality
in general
Documentary Modes
Performative
Recognize that knowledge about the world is
built on more than objective fact & visible
evidence: meaning is subjective.
Stress emotional complexity of experience from
the perspective of the filmmaker
Can include combination of actual and imagined
images and event
Poetic liberty, unconventional narrative structure
(rather than realist representation)
Mix of methods to convey texture and depth of
experience.
The Pre-history of Movies, The Pre-history of
Documentary Film
Etienne-Jules Marey: Photo gun and
sequence photographs
Eadweard Muybridge: sequence photography
The Pre-history of Movies, The Pre-history of
Documentary Film
Auguste and Louis Lumière
The Pre-history of Movies, The Pre-history of
Documentary Film
Thomas A. Edison
Films of Travel and Exploration
Edward S. Curtis
Robert J. Flaherty
Films of Travel and Exploration
Herbert Ponting
Origins of Soviet Documentary
Sergei Eisenstein
Dziga Vertov
1920’s Experimentation: Dada and Surrealism
A Young girl commits suicide. Because of
What? DADA
The spirits are telephoned.
Who invented it? DADA
Someone walks on your feet. It's DADA
If you have serious ideas about life,
If you make artistic discoveries
and if all of a sudden your head begins to
crackle with laughter,
If you find all your ideas useless and
ridiculous, know that
IT IS DADA BEGINNING TO SPEAK TO YOU
1920’s Experimentation
British Documentary Movement
John Grierson
The Great Depression
Dorothea Lange
Dorothea Lange
Walker Evans
Ben Shahn
Documenting the Depression
Pare Lorentz
Paul Strand
Documentaries go to War: Britain
Humphrey Jennings
Documentaries go to War: Spanish Civil War
Ernest Hemingway &
Joris Ivens
Documentaries go to War: Germany
Documentaries go to War: US
1.To foster a firm belief in the right for
which we fight.
2.To foster a realization that we are up
against a tough job.
3.To initiate a determined confidence in our
own ability and the ability of our comrades
and leaders to do the job that has to be
done
4.To instill a feeling of confidence, insofar
as is possible under the circumstances, in the
integrity and fighting ability of our allies
5.To create resentment, based on knowledge
of the facts, against our enemies who have
made it necessary for us to fight
6.To foster a belief that through military
victory, the political achievement of a better
world order is possible.
Frank Capra
Post-War Documentary
Edward R. Murrow
Italian Neo-Realism
British Free Cinema
Cinema Verite / Direct Cinema
Ricky Leacock
Jean Rouch
Al & Dave Maysles
Fred Wiseman
Robert Drew
War in Vietnam
•1965 to 1968 —Escalation of the war; mass protests at home.
•1968 —Tet Offensive; US embassy compound in Saigon seized by
NLF
•1968 —Lyndon Johnson declines to run another term; Nixon
elected. "The greatest honor history can bestow is the tittle of
'peacemaker'. . . after a period of confrontation we are entering
an era of negotiation."
•1969—Draft lottery instituted
•1969-72 —“Vietnamization program: gradual withdrawal of US
troops; military aid to South Vietnam. US invasion of Cambodia
and Laos; renewed bombing of North; mass protests at home.
•23 Jan 73 - President Nixon announced an agreement "to end the
war and bring peace with honor in Vietnam and S.E. Asia."
Feminist Documentary: Reclaiming History