Documentary styles

on documentary

www.realityfilm.com
A site that grapples with this most difficult of questions: what is documentary?

Many approaches have been made by documentary theorists on how to classify the documentary form by genre. One of the better has been by Michael Rabiger, who references Bill Nichols‘ in Introduction to Documentary, who divided documentary into six categories:

Poetic (1920′s)- lacks specificity and too abstract
eg Joris Ivan’s Rain, 1926
clips
Rain part 1

Expository (1920′s on): the classic “voice of God” commentary; suffers from being too didactic
(i.e. a preachy style), and could be propaganda: see Frank Capra & Anatole Litvak’s Why We Fight (US War Department, 1942-1945) or  Leni Reifenstahl’s Triumph of the Will (1935)
clips
Why We Fight: imdb link
Why We Fight-War Comes to America, Information Film #7
Three Little Pigs(1942): American animation as propoganda
Popeye Bombs France(194?): German animation as propoganda
The Thrills music video (2008) using Why We Fight- War Comes to America
Reifenstahl: scene from Triumph of the Will
Triumph of the Will: first ten minutes

Observational (1960′s) Observes things as they happen, without imposing commentary or re-enactment. Inclined to lack content and historical background. see Fred Wiseman’s  Titicut Follies (USA, 1967)
clips

Titicut Follies

Wiseman bio & review

Model (1980): Wiseman doco pt 1

Model (1980)  pt 2

Participatory (1960′s) Interviews or interacts with  its participants and uses archival film to retrieve history. This genre has deficiencies of intrusiveness, excessive faith in witnesses, and a tendency for a naive view of history.

eg Jean Rouch & Edgar Morin’s Chronicle of a Summer (France, 1960) which deals with the issue of racism seen through the eyes of young black and white students.
articles
Senses of Cinema
clips

Reflexive (1980′s) Questions doco form and conventions- how it represents things, not just what it represents – as an important part of its purview.* Reflexive documentary makes VERY clear to the audience the fact that all media is constructed . It makes the viewer aware that it is only a representation and a construction of reality. RD can be inclined to become abstract and lose sight of the actual issue. e.g. Chris Marker’s Sans Soleil.      * purview = horizon: the range of interest or activity that can be anticipated

clips
review of San Soleil
Sans Soleil (Sunless) (1982)
Rememberance of Things to Come
On Chris Marker
Chris Marker’s back-catalogue
clip from A Grin Without a Cat (1977)

Errol Morris: The Thin Blue Line (Reflexive)
Plot Outline: explores how  Randall Adams was wrongfully convicted for murdering a policeman in Dallas, Texas, 1976. It shows that the circumstantial evidence collected by police was very weak.
Errol Morris On The Thin Blue Line 

Performative (1980′s) Describes human issues, not in the abstract way of  Western philosophic tradition, but gives them weight in presenting them subjectively, based on specifics of personal experience, in the tradition of poetry, literature and rhetoric. May be sidelined as avante-garde. eg Marlon Rigg’s Tongues Untied (USA, 1989)

clips
Tongues Untied Trailer
Wim Wenders: Lightning Over Water :
About the last days of director Nicholas Ray (Rebel without a Cause , 1955)
Wim Wenders: Buena Vista Social Club , (1998)

 

 

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