Documentary - Week 1

Documentary: a factual film or television programme about an event, person, etc, presenting the facts with little or no fiction.

Documentaries are divided in four categories by social function: - to record, reveal or preserve (Blackfish, The Propaganda Game) - to promote or persuade - to analyze or integrate (The Imposter, Making a Murderer) - to express

Different forms of documentary:

- poetic: instead of using traditional linear continuity to create story structure, the poetic documentary filmmaker arrives at its point by arranging footage in an order to evoke an audience association through tone, rhythm, or spatial juxtaposition. eg. Chris Marker's Sans Soleil (Sunless)

- expository: this type of documentaries is heavily researched and are sometimes referred to as essay films because they aim to educate and explain things — events, issues, ways of life, worlds. Typical production elements include interviews, illustrative visuals, some actuality, perhaps some graphics and photos and a ‘voice of God’ narration track. Scripted narration connects the story elements and often unpacks a thesis or an argument. eg. Gabriela Cowperthwaite's Blackfish

- participatory: this mode mode aims for immediacy and often presents the filmmaker’s point of view. eg. Nick Broomfield's Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer

- observational: this form is often referred to as cinema verité, direct cinema or fly-on-the-wall documentary. This type of documentary strives for cinematic realism. eg. Janus Metz Pedersen's Armadillo

- reflexive: documentaries made in reflexive mode provoke audiences to “question the authenticity of documentary in general". Reflexive documentaries challenge assumptions and expectations about the form itself. eg. Dziga Vertov's Man with a Movie Camera

- performative: emphasizes the subjective or expressive aspect of the filmmaker's own engagement with the subject and an audience's responsiveness to this engagement. Rejects notions of objectivity in favor of evocation and affect. eg. Agnès Verda’s The Gleaners and I

- Man of Aran (1934) - 'shark fishing sequence' Dir. Robert J. Flaherty

Man of Aran is an observational documentary, aiming to show the viewers what life on the Aran Islands is. It does not feature any type of narration or interviews, instead the filmmaker just records the happenings in the daily life of the subjects of his film. The editing is purposely confusing, cutting between the fishermen and the woman and the child. The lack of narration leaves the audience to make the assumption that the woman and the child are watching the fishermen but that is solely based on a guess as the filmmaker does not make it clear if they are even at the same place.

- A Day in the Life of a Coal Miner (1911) Dir. Charles Urban

A Day in the Life of a Coal Miner is an

- Night Mail (1937) Dir. Basil Wright, Harry Watt

Nanook of the North (1922) Directed by Robert J. Flaherty In this silent predecessor to the modern documentary, film-maker Robert J. Flaherty spends one year following the lives of Nanook and his family, Inuits living in the Arctic Circle. (IMDB)

The purpose of the film is to record and reveal the way of life of the indigenous Inuit people of Canada's northern Quebec region.

The movie mainly uses observation. After reading more extensively about the movie thought, I learned that it's hardly a documentary, but more of a docudrama and many of the events were manipulated:

"Nanook was a character invented by Flaherty, and the actor’s real name was Allakariallak. His ‘wife’ was anything but, and the legend goes the woman who plays Nanook’s wife was actually Flaherty’s mistress with whom he had a child and later abandoned. [...] Flaherty also convinced Nanook to appear more primitive – hunting was done with spears, instead of the rifles they would have used, and scenes were manipulated so that Flaherty could get better shots. Flaherty also structured his film around a narrative – everyday life was made to fit in exciting blizzards and hunts."

- Milestone Movies : Nanook of the North by Brannavan Gnanalingam [1]

The extremely long shots give the scene a deeper sense of realism, you cannot fake real life. [2] (Side Note: You can, Flaherty did it extensively in all his films.)

Triumph of the Will (1935) Directed by Leni Riefenstahl The infamous propaganda film of the 1934 Nazi Party rally in Nuremberg, Germany. (IMDB)

Historical Context