Documentary Film:Some Observations

General Comments

documentary vs. fictional film emphasis on the “real” and “authenticity”

“All aspects of documentary filmmaking involve choice and are therefore manipulative”—Frederick Wiseman

“[My films are] based on un-staged, un-manipulated actions... The editing is highly manipulative and the shooting is highly manipulative... What you choose to shoot, the way you shoot it, the way you edit it and the way you structure it... all of those things... represent subjective choices that you have to make... In [Belfast, Maine] I had 110 hours of material ... I only used 4 hours – near nothing. The compression within a sequence represents choice and then the way the sequences are arranged in relationship to the other represents choice.” —Frederick Wiseman

Documentary conventions

medium: film, video, digital video sound: diegetic vs. non-diegetic filmed on location frequent use of archival footage or photographs to illustrate or give historical evidence or make a point interviews B/W or color: use of the former creates a sense of gritty realism text on screen Little need for “continuity editing” (e.g., a documentary will cut from present interview to past archival footage); Bill Nichols calls the kind of editing used in documentary “evidentiary editing,” which “organizes cuts within a scene to present the impression of a single, convincing argument supported by a logic” rather than the “continuity editing,” presents a sense of a single, unified time and space in which we follow the actions of central characters”

Narrative

is there a narrative line, or does the filmmaker self-consciously disrupt it? are there characters who recur in the film; is there a narrative line drawn through these characters’ lives? do events follow each other in a logical, causal manner? are events narrated in chronological order or not?

Style

Bill Nichols gives the following modes of documentary:

Poetic (emphasizes visual associations, tonal or rhythmic qualities, descriptive passages and formal organization; e.g. Sally’s Beauty Spot); Expository (verbal commentary and an argumentative logic); Observational (direct engagement with the everyday life of subjects as observed by an unobtrusive camera); Participatory (interaction between filmmaker and subject; e.g., Whose Donuts?); Reflexive (calls attention to the assumptions and conventions that govern documentary filmmaking); Performative (emphasizes the subjective aspect of the filmmaker’s own engagement with the subject; e.g., History and Memory)

Style

“objective documentary” with god-like voiceover that speaks with authority on a particular subject personalized: the voice(s) is not the god-like objective voice of a disembodied narrator, but attached to real people and their real experience [perhaps the films of Frederick Wiseman (High School (1968], State Legislature [2006]) are representative] auto-ethnography: “I” or “we” speak about ourselves postmodern: draws attention to the film medium itself and to questions of representation mockumentaries: This is Spinal Tap, Blair Witch Project; purport to be real, but are in fact fabricated

Industry/Funding

almost exclusively “independent” and made outside the studio/star system rarely made made for profit or commercial motivations (although some, like Michael Moore’s Farenheit 9/11 or Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth probably do turn a profit) sometimes funded by private funds, but also frequently supported by various endowments and public granting agencies (NEH, NEA, NAATA, National Film Board of Canada), and public television stations

Audience

generally not shown in commercial theaters film festivals and special documentary festivals (e.g., Hot Docs in Toronto, Yamagata Documentary Film Festival, International Documentary Film Festival-Amsterdam) many go to TV (PBS, HBO, cable channels)

Motivations

made to edify, to teach, to change society, and generally not for entertainment documentaries often have a “rhetorical” quality, that is, they seek to influence and convince (think of Michael Moore’s films) probing questions of personal and cultural identity subverting “official” history