The History of Documentary

The first documentary was made by the Lumiere brothers in 1895. They made and used a camera that could hold only 50 feet of film stock. Their documentaries featured short unedited clips which captured life around them. They were named ‘Actualities’

The most famous documentary made by the Lumiere brothers

was ‘Un Train Arrivee’ made in 1895. This documentary simply

featured a train pulling into a station. However, audiences

were fascinated by seeing moving images for the first

time.

The more familiar documentary format began with ‘Nanook of The North’ made by Robert Flaherty in 1922. The word ‘documentary’ was coined by John Grierson, and it was used to describe this documentary. Nanook was the first feature factual film, and was the first to use what Grierson described as ‘The Creative Interpretation of Reality’. This meant Flaherty planned most of the scenes, so that the documentary was more dramatic and exciting for the audience.

Grierson went on to head the GPO film unit in England during the 1930s and became a major exponent of ‘poetic-realistic’ approaches to documentaries. ‘Nightmail’ (1936) began as an informational film about the mail train from London to Edinburgh. The filming and editing emphasised on the poetic elements of film form: movement, rhythm, light and sound. Critics of Grierson accused him of neglecting the social and political issues in his films in favour of a more modernist approach that celebrated machinery more than human beings.

This backlash led to the next major development of documentaries in the 1950s and 60s. Direct Cinema arose, which was a movement that began in the United States, aimed to present social and political issues in a direct and unmediated way, which gave the impression that events were recorded exactly as the happened without the involvement of the film-maker. The development of smaller lighter film cameras using smaller film stock (16mm as opposed to 35mm film which used was used prior) allowed cameras to be shoulder mounted (or hand held) and be used in a more spontaneous matter.

Key names in this movement are D.A. Pennebaker, The Mayles Brothers and Fred Wiseman. The modern social issue documentary such as Supersize Me has its origins in direct cinema. The film maker usually has apolitical and/or social agenda and seeks to present the events as ‘real’ even though they are in full control of edited process.

Meanwhile, a similar movement called ‘Cinema Verite’ (Cinema

Truth) was arising. Cinema Verite is a minimalist style of film making that

conveys the sense that the viewer is given a direct view of what is

happening in front of the camera without the artifice usually

incorporated in the film-making process. Cinema Verite favours hand-

held cameras, natural lighting, location filming and direct sound.

Jean Rouch was an important documentarian working in this style in the 1960s. However, Cinema Verite techniques have also been used by drama-makers such as Ken Loach, leading to the term ‘drama documentary’ being used to describe films like ‘Cathy Come Home’

The use of Cinema Verite techniques can make a film seem more realistic and honest to an audience. In recent time, film-makers have used documentary codes and conventions to fool audiences into thinking a programmed or film is factual, when it is in fact, non-factual. This form of film-making is known as a ‘Mockumentary’

Mockumentaries demonstrate how easily the code and conventions can be faked, so they often cause the viewers to consider why we place so much faith in documentaries as a form of information.