Introduction to Documentary

MCOM410: Documentary Making

What is a documentary?

Defining Documentary

Non-fiction? Non-narrative? Instructive or educational? Truthful? Objective?

Every media-object can be understood as a document.

Documentary can be understood as a set of practices of media-making, distribution, and viewing/reception.

Defining Documentary

Documentaries are the creative treatment of actuality” - John Grierson, Critic and Filmmaker

“Documentaries are representations of reality” - Bill Nichols, Historian and Theorist

“Documentaries are performed reality” - Stella Bruzzi, Historian and Theorist

What is a documentary?

• Even though documentary has evolved continuously from its inception, its methods remain ambiguous, and its parameters keep enlarging. • Uncontested, however, is what remains central to documentary’s spirit – the notion that documentaries explore the mysteries of actual people in actual situations.”

– Michael Rabinger “Directing The Documentary”

What does a documentary do?

PreservePersuadeAnalyzeExpress

DiscussExploreInterveneEnlighten

Four Tendencies of Documentary

• Documentary historian and theorist, Michael Renov:

• To record, reveal or preserve• To persuade or promote • To analyze or interrogate• To express• Out of what (public) contexts and for

what reasons do these tendencies develop?

• What means do filmmakers use to achieve these ends?

Documentary’s “Contract”

Agreement between filmmaker and

Audience Do one’s best to tell the ‘truth’ Authenticity, Truth claim

“None of this is made up”It’s okay to have an opinion

When watching documentaries, remember…

• Everything in a documentary is intentional– Who/what/when/where/why/how are all decided by

filmmaker: camera movements, framing, editing, music, etc

– What are possible biases?

• Relationship between filmmaker and subject– What’s the claim to truth/ authenticity?

• Relationship between documentary and reality– Is subject being represented in a way that won’t

harm his/her integrity?

Emergence of Documentary

Film emerged in the context of the late European colonialism and US expansion.

Early documentary practice intersects with practices of ethnography and anthropology.

At the same time it is seen as a tool in the service of modern national-building and war (propaganda).

Envisioned as addressing the difficulty of social and political participation in a complex world.

Conceived in contrast to entertainment cinema; and as an extension of popular press.

“The importance of Documentaries is linked to a notion of the public as a social phenomenon”- Aufterheide