Documentary - spectatorship - Revision Cards in A Level and IB Film Studies

What is Documentary?

A film that attempts to document reality
focus on real life and include footage of events as they happened
scenes are carefully chosen and arranged, usually through editing after filming
not scripted and the people in the movie are not typically actors
Sometimes, a documentary film may rely on voice-over narration to describe what is happening in the footage; in other films, the images speak for themselves without commentary
often includes interviews with people in the film for additional context or information
focus on documenting reality above drama or a fictional narrative

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first appeared in the 1920’s
reaction against both the content and the rapidly crystallizing grammar of the early fiction film
moved away from continuity editing
lack of well-rounded characters
people appeared in these films just like any other that are found in the material world
element of the modernist counter-model of cinematic narrative
‘real world’ was broken up into fragments and aesthetically reconstituted using film form

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speak directly to the viewer, often in the form of an authoritative commentary employing voiceover
a strong argument and point of view
Rhetorical, and try to persuade the viewer
commentary often sounds ‘objective’ and omniscient
presses upon us to read the images in a certain fashion
Images exist to advance the argument

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attempt to observe lived life with a minimum of intervention
Filmmakers who worked in this sub-genre often saw the poetic mode as too abstract and the expository mode as too didactic.
First observational docs date back to the 1960’s; the technological developments -mobile lighweight cameras and portable sound recording equipment for synchronized sound.
films aimed for immediacy, intimacy, and revelation of individual human character in ordinary life situations.

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believe that it is impossible for the act of filmmaking to not influence or alter the events being filmed.
emulate the approach of the anthropologist: participant-observation (the filmmaker part of the film)
Situations in the film are affected or altered by their presence.
encounter between filmmaker and subject becomes a critical element of the film
Also known as 'cinéma vérité'

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draw attention to their own constructedness, and the fact that they are representations
How does the world get represented by documentary films? This question is central to this sub-genre of films.
prompt us to “question the authenticity of documentary in general.”
the most self-conscious of all the modes, and is highly skeptical of ‘realism.’

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stress subjective experience and emotional response to the world.
strongly personal, unconventional, perhaps poetic and/or experimental
might include hypothetical enactments of events designed to make us experience what it might be like for us to possess a certain specific perspective on the world that is not our own

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