Week 20

Question 1

What is a “Documentary” Film?

Answer 1

-Root: “document”
-“every documentary aims to present factual information about the world”

Question 2

Types and Strategies

Answer 2

-Types Include…
-compilation film
-nature documentary
-portrait documentary

-Strategies include…
-voice-over narration
-interviews
-observational/ direct cinema

Question 3

The Documentary vs. the Fiction Film

Answer 3

Documentary: “the creative treatment of actuality” (John Grierson)
– Tensionbetween“creative”and “actuality”
– Referential meaning in fiction films
– Distorted views of the world in
documentaries
* e.g., Nanook of the North
– Formal structures & stylistic techniques common to both fiction films and docs

Question 4

A brief history

Answer 4

• 1895: Lumière brothers’ short films
  (“actualités”)
• 1910: newsreels
• 1922: Nanook of the North
• 1930s: John Grierson & “Classical Documentary”
  – Grierson coined term “documentary” in 1926
  – Also founded Canada’s National Film Board (NFB) in 1939

Question 5

The Classical Documentary

Answer 5

• Rhetorical form – films with social purpose
• Aim: education, social change * Characteristics:
  – Voice-over as structuring device
• Authoritative“voiceof God”
• Filmedsubjectsare spoken for by the filmmakers
  – Staged events and reconstructions common

Question 6

1960s: “Observational” or “Direct” Cinema

Answer 6

• Technological developments:
  – Portable, quiet, lightweight
  cameras
  – Zoom lenses
  – Fast film stocks (for shooting in available light)
  – Portable tape recorder synched with camera

Question 7

Characteristics of Direct Cinema

Answer 7

Filmmaker as “fly on the wall”
Film as “a window someone peeps through” (D.A. Pennebaker)
– No argument
– No direction of subjects –
filmmaker doesn’t intervene
– No voice-over
– Long takes with relatively little editing
– Events unfold in real time

Question 8

Types of Form in Documentary Cinema: Categorical & Rhetorical/ Categorical

Answer 8

Aim is to show
– Simple patterns
(categories) structure film
– Film as portrait
– e.g., Gap-Toothed Women

Question 9

Types of form in Documentary Cinema: Rhetorical

Answer 9

Aim is to persuade
– Film as argument

Question 10

Attributes of Rhetorical Form

Answer 10

i. addresses viewer openly
ii. subject usually a matter of debate (rather than generally accepted fact)
iii. film will often attempt to persuade viewer to make a choice that will affect his/her everyday life
iv. filmmaker will often appeal to our emotions

Question 11

How do Rhetorical documentaries seek to persuade us? Types of Arguments: Arguments from the source

Answer 11

present filmmaker as trustworthy authority

Question 12

How do Rhetorical documentaries seek to persuade us? Types of Arguments: Subject-centred arguments

Answer 12

-Filmmaker as lawyer, presenting verifiable evidence
– But may also appeal to contemporary assumptions, prejudices

Question 13

How do Rhetorical documentaries seek to persuade us? Types of Arguments: Viewer-centred arguments

Answer 13

– Filmmaker as sermonizer
– Appeals to viewers’ emotions (e.g., patriotism, sentimentality)

Question 14

The Trouble with “Truth”

Answer 14

• Documentary’s implicit truth claims – Voice-of-God narration: implicit
  claim of authority
  – Direct Cinema: implicit claim of non-interference
• Can any filmmaker know/show “Truth”?
• Can any filmmaker be purely objective?