jrn 572 - lecture one

JRN 572 - Researching & Writing

the News Documentary

Rich Hanley, Associate Professor

Lecture One

JRN 572 - News Documentary

Lecture Topics:

• Documentary Film, Defined.

• Documentary Film History.

.


Documentary Film, Defined

• “An advanced form of social

education.” Edgar Antsey (d. 1987)

• Antsey produced several classic

documentary films on the working

class of the U.K., including Granton

Trawler about a fishing vessel in

1934.



• “The use of the film medium to

interpret creatively and in social

terms the life of the people as it

exists in reality.” Paul Rotha (d.

1984)

JRN 572 - The News Documentary


• Antsey’s and Rotha’s definitions distill the definition to

the following:

1. Factual

2. Not staged

3. Socially relevant



• Over the past 90 years, the definition has broadened as

new generations approach the genre from the

perspective of entertainment in the form of reality

programming.

• But for our purposes, we will maintain the original

definition as factual work expressed in a creative way.



• It is as this point the definition and history converge, in

the person of John Grierson.

• Grierson was born in Scotland in 1898. He received a

graduate degree in moral philosophy at the University of

Glasgow, focusing on propaganda and later on film

which he first approached as a critic.


Documentary Film History

• Grierson was the first to use the

word “documentary” to describe films

based on an objective, factual

observation of a piece of the world

as it exists.

• He first deployed the term in a 1926

New York Sun newspaper review of

Moana by Robert Flaherty.



• Moana followed Flaherty’s ground-

breaking film Nanook of the North in

1922 that stood as the first of its

kind.



• Robert J. Flaherty spent a year with

Inuit hunter Nanook and his family in

northern Quebec region as they

struggled to survive harsh conditions.



• The silent film Nanook of the North

was released in 1922 to great

acclaim and wide interest.

• The film showed it was possible to

create an entire feature-length film

from observation for the first time.



• Flaherty certainly staged some of the

activities.

• Yet his work launched a genre.



• Flaherty’s influence on Grierson

cannot be understated.

• Grierson saw Nanook of the North as

an essential exercise in revealing the

world as it is to an audience.

• It wasn’t, Grierson said, a “synthetic

story.”



• Instead, it was a story about “an

Eskimo fighting for food.”

• That led to his argument that the

documentary could not deploy

filmmaking conventions of the time

and hence his invention of the word

“documentary” just four years after

Nanook’s release in theaters.



• Grierson said, “idyllic and the idyllic

form won’t comprehend the unidyllic

work” that represents the lives of

most people.



• Grierson’s work and that of his early

colleagues in the United Kingdom

illustrate his point.

• It focused on ordinary people

engaged in work, such as the

fishermen aboard the Granton

Trawler in Antsey’s work.



• Beginning in the late 1920s and

continuing for decades, working

class people were no longer

projected as the “comic figures” that

populated fictional works.



• His point was clear: documentary

makers could present factual

information and experiences in

dramatic form as a “way of

illuminating the modern world.”



• The next slide is a 45-minute tribute

to Grierson by Alfred Hitchcock.

• It includes clips from seven films,

directed by Grierson (Drifters) or

produced or inspired by him.

• Please watch it to learn more about

Grierson before continuing.



• Grierson’s philosophy toward

documentary filmmaking is central to

the biographical film that is assigned

for this week (see the module link).

• Make sure to watch that film and pay

close attention to his views as these

serve as foundational elements of

the craft of documentary filmmaking.



• Grierson founded the National Film

Board of Canada in 1939 as his

influence spread globally and

documentaries took root as a critical

media genre for information.



• In the United States, Franklin Delano

Roosevelt’s New Deal helped to

make documentaries an important

element in the information

ecosystem.



• The Resettlement Administration,

established to provide aid to farmers,

moved to sponsor documentaries to

transmit its message to a wider

audience.

• It worked.



• Classic American documentaries

such as The Plow That Broke the

Plains, The City, and The River all

were made by filmmakers working

for the Resettlement Administration

and released commercially and to

schools.



• The importance of documentary

filmmaking became clear at the

onset of hostilities in World War II.

• In Germany, Triumph of the Will

(1935) was made to promote the

Nazi Party’s standing through

stunning shots of large crowds.



• In the United States, Frank Capra’s

Why We Fight (1942-45) was

produced to show U.S. soldiers the

reason why they were at war over

seven episodes.



• After the war, the documentary genre

held firm as newly emerging

television networks in the U.S.

produced both series and specials

such as Victory at Sea, which

recounted the U.S. Navy experience

during the conflict.



• CBS showed a particular interest in

producing documentaries within a

series format.

• CBS Reports was broadcast from

1959 through the 1990s, featuring

investigative reports that illuminated

the condition of Americans otherwise

ignored on nightly television news.



• In 1960, CBS broadcast Harvest of

Shame, which exposed deplorable

conditions in migrant camps during

harvests.



• CBS also produced The Twentieth

Century, a series that ran from 1959

to 1970 and was known for inserting

interpretation of events within its

documentaries.

• The series was changed to The

Twenty First Century in 1967.



• PBS became the focus of

documentary films in the 1980s and

later, as commercial networks moved

away from the genre.

• Films such as The Civil War (1990)

by Ken Burns resuscitated the genre

and led to a surge of new works.



• By the first decade of the 21st

century, filmmakers Errol Morris

(Thin Blue Line), Michael Moore

(Bowling for Columbine), Laura

Poitras (Citizenfour) and many

others produced work of the highest

order and found significant

audiences for the genre on HBO and

in theaters.



• Meanwhile, sports documentaries

ascended on the strength of ESPN’s

30 For 30 series, which featured

work by top writers and film directors.



• Among the best? Ghosts of

Mississippi, written by Wright

Thompson about Mississippi football

in the 1960s, and The U by Billy

Corben.



• As the second decade of the 21st

century deepened and the 100th

anniversary of Nanook of the North

approached, it was clear the genre

had achieved John Grierson’s goal of

illuminating modern life.

jrn 572 - lecture one

Education