Modes of Documentary's

Within documentaries there are many different elements to consider. Media Theorists try to see if there are any patterns or simulators, so that they can narrow them down and put them into groups. Nichols (2001) found a pattern and put them into six different modes. Bill Nichols, born in 1945, is American film critic and theoretician, he is an author producing books such as “Engaging Cinema” (2010) and “Introduction to Documentary” (2010). *(1)

Bill Nichols

However he is best know as the founder of contemporary study of documentary films. He tock documentary's and made six different modes that represent six different types of styles of documentary's. These six modes include, Poetic (Artistic), Expositional (Fully Narrated), Observational (Fly-on-the-wall), Participatory (Mixed), Reflexive (Reflexive), Performative. *(1)

Bill Nichols

Poetic Mode (Artistic)

Expiation A poetic mode moves away from

the ‘objective’ reality of a given situation or people to grasp at an inner ‘truth’ that can only be grasped by poetical manipulation codes,- emphasizes visual associations, tonal or rhythmic qualities, descriptive passage, formal favours mood, and tone and texture.

Examples Robert Flaherty’s Man of

Aran (1934)- dramatic framing of man in harmony with nature.

Leni Riefenstahl’s Olympia (1934)- shows (Aryan) athletes during the 1936 Olympia games (power, beauty)

Expositional Mode (Fully Narrated)

Expiation Most identify with the

documentary- ‘emphasizes verbal commentary and argumentative logic’ often use a narrator. Assumes a logic argument and a ‘right’ and ‘proper’ by using a direct address. Often using a preferred reading.

Examples Work of John Grierson-

nature documentaries. David Attenborough-

Nature documentaries e.g. The Living Planet

Observational Mode (Fly-on-the-wall)

Expiation This is most exemplified by the

cinema verite or direct cinema, this emerged in late 1950s/early 60s. They attempted to catch the objective reality with filmmaker as neutral observer. Filmmaker you cannot see and they don’t influence or changes the actions and events that are happening. Nothing is stage, meaning the camera could be rough, and shaky compared to other programmes.

Examples Frederick Wiseman-

Hospital (1970)- American Hospital.

Richard Pennebacker’s- Don’t Look Back (1967)- Bob Dylan’s 1965 tour of Britain.

Soho Stories (1996) Geri (1999)

Participatory Mode (Mixed)

Expiation This is were there is direct

engagement between the filmmaker and the subject(s). The engagement between the filmmaker is because of the events that are being recorded. The impact with this on the events that are being recorded is acknowledge and celebrated.

Examples Films of Michael Moore-

Filmmaker is directly engages with the material being addressed, becomes a character.

Nick Broomsfield’s- Kurt and Courtney (1998)

Living with Michael Jackson (2004)

Reflexive Mode (Reflexive)

Expiation This mode acknowledges

the constructed nature of documentary and flaunts it. Artifice is exposed, audiences were made aware of the editing, sound recording and many more.

Examples Dziga Vertov’s- Man with

a Movie Camera (1929)- documents the mechanization of soviet life in late twenties.

Performative Mode

Expiation This emphasizes the

subjective nature of the documentary and emotional and social impact, also acknowledging the subjective reading of the audience.

Examples Supersize me.

The modes that he has created might not be definitive but can be used as a categories that reflect the film genre and alternative approaches within it. Highly likely that for a particular film their will be at least two or more modes, one being more dominant than the others.

Nichols modes aren't the only theory and is not definitive. Such as Bruzzi who has her own theory on Documentary's. As well as Geierson’s Theories and Bazin’s.

Criticisms of Nichols

Stella Bruzzi (2000) Criticsed Nichols for suggesting that Doc. makers have aimed for the 'perfect representation of the real’ and would fail in this impossible aim, thus undermining the documentary form.Quotes She said that ‘all types of documentary have existed at different times’And have often, mixed styles. ‘What is the point of worrying about authenticity’She sees documentary as helping us to understand real life events. **(2)

Bruzzi Criticism to Nichols

Overall Bills Nichols modes helps to separate and show the different types of documentary's that we have today, and also helps us to understand each of them in their own way.

However he has created the modes to link to the real world as they are perfect. Meaning he has not consider that films/programs could have more than one of the modes in them. This then states that the modes are not accurate as they could be.

Conclusion

We have learnt that there are many different types of documentaries and its hard to make set groups that all the documentaries can fit into. Learnt about Bill Nichols theory which would help us to choose what type of mode that we want to do to produce our documentary, so that our target audience gets interested and pulled into our documentary. By knowing our target audience we have to know what the best mode is that would fit in with them because of their age. The mode that we are thinking of doing is performative mode, to make everybody feel involved. However their might be the issue of who might be in front of camera, and how we are going to produce the rest of the documentary.

What have we learnt?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Nichols*(1)http://www.godnose.co.uk/downloads/alevel/documentary/Doc%20Modes%20nichols.pdf **(2)

Websites used