1. Defining the Documentary History of the Genre
Documentary – Lecture 1
Defining the Documentary
History of the Genre

2. Develop a working definition of “Documentary”
Understand the history of the genre.
Develop a deeper understanding of different genres and styles present within the documentary production industry.

3. Remember that
1895 First Public Film Screening by the Lumiere brothers in Paris.
Compilation of Early Lumiere films (

4. “Documentary” a 19C term.
The “artistic representation of actuality” said John Grierson.
“A movie about real life” (Aufderhide, 4).
One perspective on real life, at least.

5. Claiming to be “Real” Same limitations as “news”
Choice of narration
Editing
Style
Are all stylistic choices – make what you are watching “not real” though it claims to tell a real story
Charlie Brooker on Reality TV editing (

6. “Reality is a scarce resource – not what is out there but what we know, understand and share with each other of what is out there.” (Aufderheide 5).

7. History of Documentary Film

8. Early 1920s – City Symphony
Interested in life in the city, and in new perspectives moving pictures could offer.
“Visual Poems” of City Life
Berlin:Symphony of a Great City

9. Three Pioneers of Documentary

10. Founders of Documentary Genre
Robert Flaherty
John Grierson
Dziga Vertov
All claimed to tell artistic versions of the truth.
Tension between realism and formalism:

11. Realism Championed by Grierson and Flaherty
(1) Elision Editing –made to seem seamless, not obvious
(2) “Looking over the shoulder” cinematography
(3) Pacing, story structure that falls into narrative expectations.
(4) Doesn’t draw attention to the fact that the film is “constructed”

12. Flaherty and Grierson were both realists, but with different ends.
Flaherty interested in documentary as emotional storytelling.
Grierson was interested in the power of film as propaganda, to spur people to action.

13. Robert Flaherty Nanook of the North (1921)
Popular worldwide, inspired many filmmakers.
Romantic style
Films focused on “man vs nature”
Took liberties to tell the story he wanted to:
“Nanook” shown as ignorant of modern technology. Shown doing things his tribe no longer did.
Family fake.
Staged hunts.

14. “His lie is greater because he can make the romance seem real”

15. John Grierson Scottish, came to America in 1930s
Coined the term “documentary” in a review of Flaherty’s film Moana: “the film has documentary value”
Influenced by Walter Lipmann – masses needed to be educated through mass media.
Griersens films were largely for the BBC and were promotional for the governments: “for public education” as he said, not art.

16. Distrust of Entertainment Film
"In an age when the faiths, the loyalties, and the purposes have been more than usually undermined, mental fatigue--or is it spiritual fatigue?--represents a large factor in everyday experience. Our cinema magnate does no more than exploit the occasion. He also, more or less frankly, is a dope peddler."

17. Grierson became head of GPO (General Post Office) publicity department.
Demonstrate how the Post Office facilitates modern communication, helps the country.
Used innovative techniques that would influence documentary filmmakers for years- Night Mail (1936)

18. “You can be totalitarian for evil, or you can be totalitarian for good

19. Documentary – Realist Conventions
Stereotypically:
1. Voice of God Narration
2. B- Roll (Stock footage)
3. Expert interviews and testimonies
4. Re-enactments
Innovated by Flaherty and Grierson
Of course, Documentary has more than these forms at its disposal.

20. Dziga Vertov (1929) “Man With a Movie Camera”
Like Grierson, declared fiction cinema was bad, and that documentary was the future.
Unlike Grierson, he was interested in visual experimentation and using formalistic techniques.

21. Formalism (1) Calls attention to the constructedness of the film.
(2) Obvious edits – create rhythm and pacing.
(3) Unnatural colors and distortions
(4) Special effects or extras that take you out of the “reality” presented
Example: Dziga Vertov’s Man With A Movie Camera (1929)

22. Three strands of documentary:
Flaherty – Romanticized storytelling
Grierson – Socially useful storytelling
Vertov – visually experimental storytelling

23. 1930s “The Worker’s Film and Photo League” founded in USA.
Griersonian in aim – but working outside the government rather than inside
– New Deal Films in United States, Government sponsored

24. “March of Time” newsreel born, produced for showing before feature films:

25. 1950s-on– Cinema Verite
Smaller Cameras: Change in camera technology – from 35mm to 16mm
Synchronous Sound: Record sound at same time as film
Allowed filmmakers to move more freely.
Less scripting, more “seeing what happened”

26. Characteristics of Cinema Verite
naturalistic techniques with
stylized cinematic devices of editing and camerawork,
staged set-ups,
and the use of the camera to provoke subjects.
Interaction between filmmaker and subject
No more “voice of god”

27. To Observe – or to Provoke?
Cinema Verite genre did more than document, it sometimes provoked action.
1960 Frenchman Jean Rouche, releases Chronicle of a Summer.
Places characters in certain situations and lets them act out (director is managing the conversation)
Many contemporary documentaries follow this:
Farenheit 9/11
Meat Industry one [clip]

28. Cinema verite went from being revolutionary in the 1960s to the “default” documentary style now.
It is not original, but sill makes us think “that they are present, watching something unconstructed and uncontrovertibly real” (Aufderheide 55)
Britney which of course we are not.

29. Experiments with Form Stan Brakhage: Mothlight (1963)
moth wings, flower petals, and blades of grass,
Pressed between film and copied

30. Reality TV
1973 PBS (America) series on the Loud family “The American Family;
Clips
Interview with directors
Is reality TV documentary?
Shares many features.
Verite style
“Provocation of Psychodrama” as described by Jean Rouche: The Hills – Heidi goes home after surgery -
Fora TV
Last 10 minutes of The Hills

31. Economics of Documentary Production
Different from feature films
Less expensive – but also less popular.
Direct Sale: subscription based through HBO, or video on demand like Netflix or LoveFilm.
Patrons or Sponsors
Private Sector: A Corporate underwriter,
Government: In the UK, BBC and Film 4 both fund documentaries.
Can be part of Nationalist project.

32. Breaky break

33. Making fun of formal conventions
Clip from 4 Wheel Dreaming documentary on Australian aborigines:
compare with
Mocumentary Babakiueria (1986):
Australian film that makes fun of anthropology style documentaries.

34. Hoop Dreams (1994)
Verite aspects: interviews with the subject,
But also “straight documentary” aspects: voice of god narration
Controversy:
Highschool sued the filmmakers
Filmmakers paid the families for their time – felt it was a fair token