Documentary Film
What is documentary filmmaking? In early 20th century a lot of operators started featuring nonfiction items – calling them documentaries, expedition films, interest films, after 1907 – travelogues. (Barnouw, 1993) The first documentary films in the United states and France were either short news reports, records of important meetings and events, or travelogues that didn’t have any original story-telling, script or staging. Grierson, one of the first documentary filmmakers, defines it as "creative treatment of actuality".
Documentary is one of fundamental genres of filmmaking. Filmmakers are trying to explain or show really important social problems and dilemmas that are important for nowadays society, to open people minds for something new and interesting besides their everyday’s routine life. The main goal is to change our attitude to this topic or to incline people to start doing something about it. By the end of the 20th century documentary began to be a profitable business; the average income was more than four billion dollars every year.
The basic rule of the documentary film is no actors, no scripts and no set ups. You can not shoot at any equipped studious or set up places, the shooting has to be only on certain origin location which connects with the filming thematic. Usually the only light that is used is natural one; there is not a lot of technical equipment used while shooting. The main goal is to get a picturesque view and clear sound; post editing is also nothing complicated since the picture has to be realistic and not idealized. The reason is that the audience has to feel itself as a part of the story.
New filmmakers were using new inventions and development, upgraded shooting equipment to shoot the new type of films. The new level of realism was reached by shooting with cameras you could carry around the location. This type of filmmaking was named the French Cinéma vérité it is similar in name to Kino Pravda that can be translated from Russian as truth movie. No more setup battle scenes in studious. Cinema vérité showed you the reality of what can be
DOCUMENTARY FILM 3
done. The movies like this can make the spectator feel themselves as a part of community in different hospitals, schools, bars, common places where we can become a witness of the people daily life.
In the same decade on the other part of Earth in the USA another documentary genre appeared; it was called Direct Cinema. It has a lot in common with the cinéma vérité genre. The hand-held style of camera work is the same since both of genres appeared at the same time when heavy equipment was replaced with updated one. The filmmakers tried to make as real as it was just possible. They were unable to take interviews right from the location since good recording systems were not portable or appropriate for this. So they recorded the interview in a special sound isolated car and then edited it and add some sounds from the location what made it even more realistic. But these two genres are actually really different. Direct cinema shows us the truth by the detailed outside observation of everything; when the cinema verité seeks any means possible to explore ideas of truth and is naturally an inward individual process gradually being exposed.
There is another classification of documentary films types according to Bill Nichols. There are six different types. The first one is Poetic documentaries. The poetic mode switched from integrity redaction and instead showed the material world by associative meanings. In the poetic mode you usually can see documentaries about artistic people who found their life in painting, dancing or acting. The narrator focuses on people and their personalities.
The second type is Expository documentaries. They try to contact directly with the viewer, usually in the form of a competent comment that is explaining a certain point of view. It is usually represented and voiced by a male with really strong and mighty voice. Pictures that are
DOCUMENTARY FILM 4
used are just to prove the main point. Observational documentaries simply show lived life without interposal. The observational documentaries became popular around 1960’s; the era of technology inventions which made it real to carry lighting and sound recorders with them for shooting in different areas. This film mode can have synchronizing comments with video or music.
Participatory documentaries believe that it isn’t possible to simply shoot without affecting the surrounding. The main point of this type is to make filmmaker a participant of the action, event and people lifestyle and to connect and explain everything from the inside. Reflexive documentaries are representations of something. How can it be represented by documentaries? This is the main question to this type of documentary films. The filmmaker is standing in front of the camera and telling a story or advices to develop the viewer’s critical attitude. And the last one: performative documentaries are really personal. They show us the other life that we have never experienced before and also try to make us feel ourselves in someone’s shoes.
References
Aufderheide, P. (2007). Documentary film. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Barnouw, E. (1993). Documentary. New York: Oxford University Press.
Ellis, J., and Mclane, B. (2005). A new history of documentary film. New York: Continuum.
