Assignment 1 : Critical Overview

The documentary genre of film is a woven part of cinematic history. We explore the different types and share characteristics and examples of each.

 

CHRONOLOGY OF DOCUMENTARY HISTORY

Now I’d like to talk about famous documentary films and important breaks that have influenced the documentary style and all the history.

1877: Eadweard Muybridge develops sequential photographs of horses in motion. Muybridge subsequently invents the zoöpraxiscope in 1879, a device for projecting and “animating” his photographic images.

1883: Etienne Jules Marey experiments with chronophotography, the photography of people in movement.

Louis and Auguste Lumiere

1895: Auguste and Louis Lumière stage the world’s first public film screening on December 28, 1895 in the basement lounge of the Grand Cafe on the Boulevard des Capucines in Paris.

Lumière’s films

• • The Movies Begin: The European Pioneers.
  • The Lumière Brothers’ First Films.

Lumiere Camera

Let’s look at some of their films: “Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory (“La Sortie de l’Usine Lumière à Lyon” Lumière Brothers 1895) and “The Kiss” (Thomas Edison 1896).

These films are what we might now call raw footage. They are single shots, no edits. The films by the Lumière brothers are more like what we now call documentary — real things that were happening in the world. Edison’s films are more like what we call drama — actors performing on a stage.

1895: Felix-Louis Regnault films a Senegalese woman during Paris Exposition Ethnographique de l’Afrique Occidentale–the beginning of the use of the camera for ethnographic research footage

1914: Photographer Edward Curtis films In The Land Of The War Canoes, a narrative dramatization using Kwakiutl actors (originally entitled In The Land Of The Head Hunters)

1919: Russian filmmaker Dziga Vertov issues a manifesto (Kinoks-Revolution Manifesto) calling for a new style of cinéma tic reportage that documents real life. Vertov criticizes the Soviet film industry for relying on the same fictional techniques employed by literature and theater. In his manifesto, Vertov equates contemporary Russian “film drama” with religion, both of which he considers “opium of the masses.” Rather than relying on fanciful scripts and artificial acting, Vertov insists that the future of cinéma depends on reporting the truth. In 1922, he begins to produce Kino Pravda (literally “Film Truth”), a series of news reportage films that foreshadows both later newsreels and later documentary styles, including cinéma vérité .

1920’s: Various European experimental filmmakers begin to work in styles that incorporate avant-garde cinéma tic filming and editing techniques (such as fluid camera work and montage) and abstract narratives to create impressionistic, highly poetic quasi-documentary works (or “visual poems”). These works include various “city films,” such as Walther Ruttmann’s Berlin: A Symphony of a Great City (Berlin, die Symphonie der Grosstadt) (1927) and Alberto Cavalcanti’s Rien que les heures (1926).

An example can be

• • Berlin: A Symphony of a Great City
  • Rien que les heures.

Nanook

1922: Robert Flaherty films Nanook Of The North, generally cited as the first feature-length documentary. The film employs many of the conventions of later documentary and ethnographic filmmaking, including use of third-person narration and subjective tone, and a focus on an indigenous person as the film’s hero.

• • Nanook of the North (1922)
  • Moana (1926)
  • Tabu: A Story of the South Seas (1931) (with F.W. Murnau)
  • Man of Aran (1934)
  • The Land (1941)
  • Louisiana Story (1948)
  • Nanook Revisited (1994)

 

1925: Sergei Eisenstein films Battleship Potemkin, a fictional recounting of an abortive uprising again the Czar that combines documentary elements with experimental editing and narrative techniques.

1926: John Grierson (1898-1972), a young Scottish academic pursuing an interest in mass communications in the US, writes a review of Robert Flaherty’s ethnographic film Moana for the New York Sun (February 8, 1926). In the review he coins the term “documentary.”

1928: Dziga Vertov films The Man With The Movie Camera (Chelovek s kinoapparatom). The film uses experimental editing techniques and cinéma tic innovations to portray a typical day in Moscow from dawn to dusk. Vertov’s stated aim is to capture “life caught unawares.” Rather than simply recording reality, however, Vertov attempts to transform and enlighten it through the power of the camera’s “kino-glaz” (cinéma eye).

Videos by Vertov

• • Kino-Pravda (1922)
  • Kino Eye (Kinoglaz) (1924)
  • Forward, Soviet! (Shagai, Soviet!) (1926)
  • Man With The Movie Camera (Chelovek s kinoapparatom) (1928)
  • Entuziazm (Enthusiasm) (1931)
  • Three Songs About Lenin (Tri pesni o Lenine) (1934)

1930-37: The Worker’s Film and Photo League is formed in the US (subsequently transformed into Nykino in 1934, and finally into Frontier Films in 1937) with the purpose of making independent documentaries with a politically and socially progressive viewpoint. Members include Paul Strand, Ralph Steiner, Leo Hurwitz, Willard Van Dyke, and Joris Ivens.

Pare Lorenz

1935: During the second half of the 1930’s, the United States Government embarked on an ambitious public relations campaign to keep the American people informed about the New Deal and the necessity of its programs. In 1935, the Resettlement Administration, an agency established to provide aid to farmers and other rural populations, decided to produce films as a method of getting its message to a wider segment of the public. The films produced under the auspices of the Resettlement Administration represent the only peacetime production by the United States Government of films intended for commercial release and public viewing. They also heralded a new direction for American documentary filmmaking in terms of cinéma tic style and technical sophistication.

Videos by New Deal filmmakers

• • The Plow That Broke the Plains (1934) (Pare Lorenz)
  • Native Land (1942) (Paul Strand)
  • The City (1939) (Willard Van Dyke)
  • The River (1939) (Willard Van Dyke)
  • Power and the Land (1940) (Joris Ivens)

Leni Riefenstahl

1935: German filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl is commissioned by Adolph Hitler to film the annual Nazi Party rally of 1934. The resulting film, Triumph of the Will, is a landmark both in documentary technique and in the use of film as an astonishingly powerful propaganda medium.

Videos by/about Leni Riefenstahl

• • Triumph of the Will (1934)
  • Olympiad (1936-38)
  • The Wonderful Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl.

1942-1945: Hollywood film director Frank Capra, enlists as a major in the US Army Signal Corps. During this commission, he oversees the production of the documentary/propaganda series Why We Fight, intended to explain the Government’s policy and wartime goals to America’s hastily assembled armed troops. Capra enlists notables from the film industry on the project, including Robert Flaherty, Carl Foreman, James Hilton, John and Walter Huston, Lloyd Nolan, George Stevens and William Wyler; composers Alfred Newman and Dmitri Tiomkin. Walt Disney and his staff were responsible for animated map sequences

Frank Capra films:

• • Prelude to War (1942)
  • The Nazis Strike (1943)
  • Divide and Conquer (1943)
  • The Battle of Britain (1943)
  • The Battle of Russia (1944)
  • The Battle of China (1944)
  • War comes to America (1945)
  • The World at War (194-?)
  • Appointment in Tokyo (194-?)

1959: Filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker, along with Richard Leacock, and brothers Al and David Maysles, joins Drew Associates, a group of filmmakers organized by Robert Drew and Time Inc. dedicated to furthering the use of film in journalism. Drew Associates developed the first fully portable 16mm synchronized camera and sound system.

1960: In 1960 Drew Associates produces Primary, the first film in which the sync-sound motion picture camera is able to move freely with characters throughout a breaking story (John F. Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey in the 1960 Wisconsin Democratic presidential primary). Primary is widely regarded as the earliest example of American “Direct Cinéma .”

Selected Videos by Robert Drew

• • Primary (1960)
  • Letters from Vietnam (1965)

1967: D.A. Pennebaker shoots Don’t Look Back, an early portrait of a contentious, arrogant, but always intriguing Bob Dylan. This film, together with Pennebaker’s concert film Monterey Pop (1967), were two of the earliest films using real life drama to have a successful theatrical distribution.

Selected Videos by D.A. Pennebaker

• • Don’t Look Back (1967)
  • Monterey Pop (1967)
  • Kennedy vs. Wallace (1988)
  • The War Room (1993)
  • Moon Over Broadway (1997)

Frederick Wiseman

1967: Frederick Wiseman, a lawyer turned filmmaker, makes Titicut Follies, the first in a long series of documentaries made by him casting a critical, socially-alert eye on social and governmental institutions. Titicut Follies offers an unflinching look at the harsh life and treatment of the criminally insane inmates at Bridgewater Correctional Institution in Massachusetts. The film was banned for 25 years by the State of Massachusetts, on the charge that it violates the privacy of the subjects.

Selected Videos by Frederick Wiseman

• • Titicut Follies (1967)
  • High School (1968)
  • Hospital (1969)
  • Welfare (1975)
  • Meat (1976)
  • Near Death (1989)
  • Domestic Violence (2001)

1960’s and 1970’s: In the late 1960’s, many filmmakers turn away from the coolly distanced approach of earlier cinéma vérité filmmakers and embrace a more passionately partisan and openly polemic approach to filmmaking. Civil rights, anti-war movements, and the women’s movement provide the impetus for much of this cinéma tic activism. The socially and politically charged atmosphere of the 1960’s and 1970’s and the rise of political, social, and sexual activism also provide historically marginalized communities—among them, women, people of color, gays and lesbians–with unprecedented opportunities for presenting their views of themselves and the world to larger and more receptive audiences.

The 1960’s see the development of a number of independent, radical film collectives—in 1968 in San Francisco, Boston, New York, and other cities–organized to chronicle current political and social events and to produce films as a form of political protest and resistance.

Examples of 1960’s newreel films

• • Columbia Revolt, 1968. 
  • Off the Pigs. 
  • Amerikkka. 

1970s– The late 60’s and 70’s and later decades see shifts in the narrative approach of many documentaries. Although cinéma vérité, third-person narrative and other earlier documentary forms continue, first-person video storytelling, fueled by the flood of camcorders into the marketplace in the 1970’s and after, begins to emerge as something of a unique genre. The genre lies “somewhere in between the essay, general reportage and the well-told tale. It is marked not only by the first person voice in testimonial, but also by the bringing of the viewer into the world of the storyteller’s experience. Often socially engaged, it is rarely polemical. Indeed, it typically does not make a direct argument, but an implicit request for the viewer to recognize the reality of the speaker, and to incorporate that reality into his or her view of the world.” (Aufderheide, Patricia. “Public Intimacy: The Development of First-person Documentary.” Afterimage, July-August 1997 v25 n1)

Examples of notable first-person documentaries

• • Halving the Bones. Writer/producer/director, Ruth Ozeki Lounsbury, 1995.
  • Healthy Baby Girl. Dir. Judith Helfand, 1996.
  • Tongues Untied. Dir. Marlon Riggs, 1989.
  • Time Indefinite. Dir. Ross McElwee, 1993.
  • Dialogues with Madwomen. Dir. Irving Saraf and Allie Light, 1993.
  • Intimate Stranger. Dir. Alan Berliner, 1991.
  • When Billy Broke His Head. Dir. Billy Golfus, David E. Simpson, 1994.
  • Complaints of a Dutiful Daughter. Dir. Deborah Hoffman, 1994.
  • Silverlake Life. Dir. Tom Joslin, Peter Friedman, 1993.
  • First Person Plural. Dir. Deann Borshay Liem, 1999.
  • Great Girl. Dir. Kim Su Theiler, 1994.
  • 1970: French documentarian Marcel Ophuls films Sorrow and the Pity (Le Chagrin et la Pitié), an epic inquiry into the response of ordinary French citizens to the Nazi wartime occupation of their country. For Sorrow and the Pity, Ophuls invented a new cinematic language and a new style of synthesizing archival footage and contemporary interviews to challenge the myth of an undivided and universally resistant France under the Vichy government. Ophuls’ classic was to move from a single engagement at a tiny Left Bank art cinema in 1971 to international success and acclaim, including an Oscar nomination for Best Documentary. An example can be:

• The Sorrow and the Pity.

1971: New Day Films cooperative is formed by feminist filmmakers Liane Brandon and Amalie Rothschild to distribute social issue films by independent filmmakers–the first distributor to be run entirely by and for filmmakers.

 

What is a documentary?

Now I’d like to talk about What is a documentary? Webster’s dictionary defines documentary as “consisting of documents: written down.” After a better Google search, Wikipedia defines a documentary as “a nonfictional motion picture intended to document some aspects of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record.”

It also opens into the history of documentaries while referencing Bill Nichols‘ classic text Introduction to Documentary, where he outlines the six modes (or “sub-genres” or “types”) of documentaries. While there’s a lot of variation within, these are the six main categories of the genre in which all documentary films can be cast.

 

 

Poetic Documentaries

First seen in the 1920s, Poetic Documentaries are very much what they sound like. They focus on experiences, images and showing the audience the world through a different set of eyes. Abstract and loose with narrative, the poetic sub-genre can be very unconventional and experimental in form and content. The ultimate goal is to create a feeling rather than a truth.

Expository Documentaries

Expository Documentaries are probably closest to what most people consider “documentaries.” A sharp contrast to poetic, expository documentaries aim to inform and/or persuade — often through omnipresent “Voice of God” narration over footage devoid of ambiguous or poetic rhetoric. This mode includes the familiar Ken Burns and television (A&E, History Channel, etc…) styles. An example can be:

 

Observational Documentaries

Observational Documentaries are exactly what they sound like — they aim to simply observe the world around them. Originating in the 1960s with the advances in portable film equipment, the cinéma vérité style is much less pointed than the Expository. The style attempts to give voice to all sides of an issue by giving audiences first hand access to some of the subject’s most important (and often private) moments. An example can be:

Participatory Documentaries

Participatory Documentaries, while having elements of Observational and Expository, include the filmmaker within the narrative. This could be as minor as the filmmaker’s voice being heard behind the camera, prodding subjects with questions or cues — all the way to the filmmaker directly influencing the major actions of the narrative.

 

Reflexive Documentaries

Reflexive Documentaries are similar to Participatory in that they often include the filmmaker within the film — however, unlike Participatory, they make no attempts to explore an outside subject. Rather, they focus solely on themselves and the act of them making the film. An example can be:

Performative Documentaries

Performative Documentaries are an experimental combination of styles used to stress subject experience and share an emotional response to the world. They often connect personal accounts or experience juxtaposed with larger political or historical issues. This has sometimes been called the “Michael Moore” style, as he often uses his own personal stories as a way to construct social truths (without having to argue the validity of their experiences). An example can be:

From there, within each sub-genre springs an endless list of variations and styles unique to each and every film. It’s up to the documentary filmmakers to craft their narrative (or non-narrative) for their desired audience.

Reviewing the documentary “Roger and Me”
Walter Jensen

Film Statistics Date: 1989 Time: 87 minutes Rated: R Producer, Writer, and Director: Michael Moore Editors: Jennifer Beman and Wendy Stanzler Sound Designer: Judy Irving Special Appearances: James Blanchard, Ronald Reagan, Pat Boone, Rhonda Britton, Anita Bryant, Bob Eubanks, Deputy Fred Ross, Janet Rauch, Rev. Robert Schuller, Steve Wilson, Michael Moore, and of course Roger Smith.

The film “Roger and Me,” by Michael Moore, shows how and why our society is critically flawed. Moore uses dialects, through the medium of film, to show the true face of the reality we call capitalism. I am defining dialectics as being the systematic analysis of the tension, inconsistencies, interconnections, and/or contradictions between opposites. The plot of the film revolves around Moore’s quest to confront Roger Smith, the CEO of General Motors (GM) at that time, and to bring him to Flint, Michigan, to see what his actions have done to the people who work and live in the surrounding area. Smith clearly did not want to be interviewed by Moore and the film quickly reveals why. Moore’s film is a composite of stock footage from documentaries about GM, documentaries about Flint, TV news footage, film footage he took recording the plant closings, and his search for Roger Smith. Moore rarely has to use narration to his tell story; his points are made painfully clear from just his film footage.

 

Evaluation:

Our object or goal is to look at different forms of non-fiction stories, the underlying assumption being there’s more than one way to tell the truth, also with the understanding that truth telling is something we do by nature. We can’t help ourselves. As long as there have been human beings there have been stories, and some of those stories have always been about what’s “really” going on around us and why.

In the beginning there’s the tool. We’re alive, we see things happening around us, but in order to tell other people about what we’re seeing we need an instrument for communication. The first instrument was the human voice, then came pen, then camera, followed by sound recorders and movie cameras, the video recorder, and now the smartphone Internet. In each case, with each new invention, we had to figure out how to use the tool to capture real events, assemble them into a narrative arc to be shown or told to other people. People always want to know what’s happening and why, it’s just the way we are.

Creators in each new technology had to discover its narrative techniques and language. Bards like Homer figured out live performance of the epic poem. Herodotus figured out how to write history. Photojournalism began in the Civil War. The Lumière Brothers, original inventors of the movie camera/projector cinemagraph, started by filming real events such as a train coming into a station or workers leaving a factory. Thomas Edison, inventor of the kinetograph, invited actors and athletes to come to his studio and perform.

 

Now, its my time how I create my documentary short film.

 

 

 

 

 

REFERENCE:

Chronology of documentary history, Available at: http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/docexhibit/docuchron.htm

A History of Documentaries, Available at: https://www.desktop-documentaries.com/history-of-documentaries.html

The 6 Types of Documentary Films, Available at: https://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/6-types-of-documentary-film/

Six Primary Styles of Documentary Production, ,Available at:  https://www.videomaker.com/article/c06/18423-six-primary-styles-of-documentary-production

Quinn, J. (2015) Adventures in the Lives of Others, London, UK, I.B. Turis & Co.

Barnouw, E. (1993) Documentary, a history of the non-fiction film, London UK

Dziga Verton, [1929], Man with a Movie Camera