Week 5 - Documentary

Introduction

This topic focuses on the non-fiction film form — documentary. In very broad terms, film can be divided into fictional and factual formats, where so far in this unit we have mainly looked at the former. In this topic we are going to investigate the different modes of documentary, or the factual film, initially discussed by scholar Bill Nichols. Generally, we may think that documentaries aim to instruct, inform or educate its viewers in some way. However, through these modes we can identify the multitude of techniques used in making documentaries, some of which we could argue are similar to techniques used in fictional filmmaking, which we will see through some of the examples. As a result, we can question how objective, factual or truthful a documentary can be in its presentation of a real world subject, and how difficult it is to define concretely.

By the end of this topic, you should be able to:

• Describe the different modes of documentary film

• Understand the complications in defining documentary as a form

• Discuss some of the issues and questions around documentary as a factual form of filmmaking (objectivity versus subjectivity)

Defining documentary

It has been stated by film scholars such as John Izod and Richard Kilborn (1998, pg. 426) that the term ‘documentary’ was first used in 1926 by John Grierson, the man considered to be the founder of British documentary filmmaking. Grierson defined the features and purpose for documentary as:

• Bound to present evidence and information about the socio­-historical world; it must be more than a quasi-scientific reconstruction of reality

• The documentary filmmaker needs to employ a number of creative skills to construct the fragments of reality (fragments due to the nature of filmmaking itself as a manipulation of time and space through editing)

Further, Grierson summarised his position by stating that documentaries are a ‘creative treatment of reality’ where they are at once entertaining, aesthetically satisfying and fulfilling a clear social purpose. The documentary, therefore, functions as a film text that has a social impact through being educationally instructive and to some degree, culturally enriching.

What do you think of Grierson’s definition? Do you think it encompasses the essence of what documentary is in your opinion? Would you change this definition in any way? You may want to discuss this in your tutorials.

Other scholars find Grierson’s definition useful as a starting point, but have trouble with the phrase ‘creative treatment’, as it opens up some problems with the documentary form. It is difficult to reconcile how we understand something as factual and having an educational purpose with something that is treated ‘creatively’, lending itself to a more subjective or fictional notion of film production. For instance, the fact that editing is used at all in documentary filmmaking can be seen as a manipulation of observable reality, and observable reality is traditionally thought of as a central tenant to the documentary.

The other aspect that influences the creative treatment of documentaries is the industrial and commercial imperatives that may dictate that the film entertains as well as educates in order to be seen, generate television ratings or box office, and make money. This is particularly so with the rise of theatrical documentaries, such as those by Michael Moore, that are released in cinemas and therefore are subsequently held to similar box office standards.

Before moving onto the different modes of documentary, let’s take a brief look at the beginning of documentary production, it’s history and tradition.

First documentaries

In early film history, we can see the distinction between fictional and factual filmmaking with people like George Méliès and the Lumière brothers. Méliès’ work is very much within the realms of fiction due to his incorporation of stage/art design, fantastical narratives and use of visual effects. This is in contrast to the Lumière brothers first films that have been labelled “actualities” — a kind of precursor to the documentary proper. Take a look at these two clips and note down the difference. Is the distinction between fiction and factual clear?

The India Rubber Head (Méliès, 1901)

Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat (Lumière brothers, 1896)

While Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat is not a documentary in a traditional sense, it certainly contains elements and techniques that align with a documentary style. In particular, the notion of observing reality, natural locations and lighting, and real people rather than characters.

We can then look at the period where cinema viewing contained shorts called ‘gazettes’ or ‘newsreels’. In the early 1900s right up to the Golden Age of Hollywood in the 1930s and 1940s (pre-television era), these films usually played at the beginning of a cinema screening as a way to inform people on global and local events and places. One early newsreel filmmaker who has had an important impact on the formation of documentary film is Soviet montage director, Dziga Vertov.

Vertov experimented heavily with the documentary style during the 1910s and 1920s and established a group called ‘Kino-Eye’. The group’s mission statement was “life caught unawares”, suggesting the capturing and recording of life outside the restrictions of staging or direction. Vertov argued that the only creative control a filmmaker has is in the editing of the footage, while the creation and intervention with the film’s subject were to be kept at a minimum. Some of Vertov’s most innovative work came in the form of Soviet newsreels called Kino-Pravda (“Film Truth”), of which he produced around 23 issues during the 1920s. In these newsreels, Vertov juxtaposed images of wealth and images of the bourgeoisie with images of the working class and those living in poverty, which you can see some of in the first issue:

Vertov’s kino-pravda films, along with arguably his most famous film, The Man With a Movie Camera (1929) that we will look at later, have greatly influenced some documentary film styles, such as cinéma vérité (French documentary movement beginning in the 1960s) and observational or direct documentary (discussed further below).

Arguably the first documentary (at least in a kind of form that we understand today) was Nanook of the North (Robert Flaherty, 1926), an ethnographic documentary that followed the everyday life of an Inuit man, Nanook, and his family. Below is a clip from the film that depicts an everyday occurrence for Nanook and his family — how they travel.

What has been noted after this documentary was released has placed a question mark over the film’s actuality. It has been discovered that Flaherty portrayed a less than truthful portrayal of Nanook and his family’s life in the most northern parts of Canada. As William Rothman (1997, pg. 2) notes, Flaherty’s friendly relationship with Nanook and his family translated the film into a romanticised portrayal of Inuit life as unthreatened, natural and timeless, only showing certain aspects of the culture and leaving other, more complex and negative aspects, out.

This example highlights how the choices made on the part of the documentary filmmaker, such as what makes it to the final cut of the film, can call into question the factual nature of documentary. As we will see in the next section on the different modes of documentary, filmmakers utilise various techniques to interrogate the world we live in. One thing to remember is that all documentaries present a narrative or argument, some perhaps more obvious than others. This will be something that arises as we work through each one.

Modes of documentary

How do we recognise a documentary? What signs, codes or conventions do we expect when we sit down to watch a documentary? Make a list of these elements and techniques and keep this next to you as you work through the following modes. See which mode they fit into and then add other techniques to the list that you haven’t thought of. You may also want to bring this list to your tutorials for discussion.

Bill Nichols’ key text, Introduction to Documentary, discusses various modes of documentary that have been partly identified through the debates concerning the degree to which the filmmaker interacts with their subject in the production process. These modes make it helpful to discuss issues like filmmaker interaction and the impact this has on a factual treatment of the documentary subject, if this is at all possible. The distinguishing of modes also helps classify or categorise different documentaries. This doesn’t mean, however, that these modes are easily delineated and completely distinct from one another, much like what we saw with genres and sub-genres in topic 4. The modes may overlap in terms of the techniques used, for instance.

The different modes we are going to look out are:

• Expository

• Observational or direct

• Interactive

• Reflexive

• Poetic

• Performative

Each description is adapted from your required readings for this topic from Nichols’ text and accompanied by one or two examples. Further information and explanation of these modes can be found in your required readings via the link in Campus Online.

Expository

The expository mode addresses an audience in a direct way, usually through a narrator who interprets what we see, informing us and telling us about the images we are viewing. This mode utilises the “voice-of-God” style narration, which implies that the narrator speaks with a sense of authority. Images are used to illustrate the narration (and perhaps sometimes used as a counterpoint to the narration). These documentaries also use different techniques and imagery to put forward their information such as archive materials, footage, interviews (the ‘talking heads’), stills, etc. Editing is used for continuity and linking of images together to work with the narration/voice over. There still tends to be an argument presented most of the time, appealing to the viewer’s logic and common sense, and supported by evidence.

The expository mode may be the one that we are most familiar with when it comes to documentaries. For example, most science, nature and social science documentaries will be made in this mode. The example below is from one of the most famous science and nature documentary filmmakers, David Attenborough, and is specifically from his series called Blue Planet (2001). We will hear Attenborough’s voiceover, describing the images that we are seeing to us, and adding in further information. His voice adds an air of authority to the images, so we are more likely to believe what he is telling as fact.

Observational or direct cinema

This mode uses the observations of an unobtrusive camera to create direct engagement with the everyday life of subjects. This kind of documentary developed through changes in camera technologies around the 1950s that became more lightweight had the ability to record longer with larger film magazines and innovations in audio recording equipment for on location synchronous sound.

The aim, much like Vertov, is to capture reality with no filmmaker interaction with the subject, therefore making it the closest mode to capturing an observable reality. However, it still uses editing techniques and there is still the influence of what is known as the ‘observer effect’ (the presence of the camera and filmmaker in the space with the subject) that can change the situation and reactions of the subject even slightly.

The following examples illustrate this mode well, particularly the use of a handheld camera to invite the audience into the film as if we are ‘flies on the wall’ observing what is going on. The first example is the classic documentary, Don’t Look Back (1967), where filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker follows folk singer Bob Dylan on his 1965 tour of England. In this clip Dylan is interviewed by a student journalist. It gets very awkward.

Here is a more recent example from Metallica: Some Kind of Monster (2004). This documentary focuses on the band’s recuperation after losing their bass player, Jason Newsted, recording the album St. Anger and trying to reestablish their relationships with one another and their identity as a band after such a long time. The use of cinematography is similar to Don’t Look Back, and the tension is clearly felt between the band members and, by extension, the audience.

Interactive or participatory

Predominantly, this form of documentary sees the filmmaker interacting to varying degrees with the subject. The interview method is employed throughout, although instead of the “talking head” style of interviews, they are generally set up as if they are more spontaneous and conversational, normally with the filmmaker in the shot with the interviewee. Other images and materials may include stills, news footage, or letters. Generally shot with a handheld camera, giving a kind of observational cinematographic style to them, accompanied by on location sound recording and/or the filmmaker’s voice-over narration. Once again, an argument or point of view drives the documentary, usually that of the filmmaker.

The example below is from the Louis Theroux BBC documentary Law and Disorder in Philadelphia (2008). Here we see Theroux on the streets, recording a spontaneous and informal interview with a local "business man". Here we have a certain level of interaction between Theroux as the filmmaker and his interviewees. This interactivity is taken a step further with Theroux becoming part of the world that he is documenting.

A number of contemporary feature documentaries are interactive. For example, Man on Wire (2008) and Exit through the gift shop (2010).

Reflexive

This mode, which can include the ‘mockumentary’ format to a degree, refers to the assumptions and conventions of documentary filmmaking. It calls attention to the techniques and construction of documentaries and emphasises the communication between the filmmaker and their audience. In other words, filmmakers who produce reflexive documentaries aim to uncover the fact that documentaries are representations and reconstructions of a truth (through the use of certain techniques), rather than purporting to present the ultimate truth or fact. It can present multiple truths and is therefore quite subjective.

The techniques that may be included in a reflexive documentary includes those that are typical, such as interviews, but also aspects that appear to draw from other forms of filmmaking, such as:

• musical numbers

• clips from other media (e.g. other films)

• animated sequences

• experimental visual styles

Sarah Polley's Stories we Tell (2012) can be considered a reflexive documentary in that it is documentary that is about making a documentary; a story that is about storytelling. Polley's film seeks to shed light on the life of her mother, who died when she Polley a girl, by comparing different friends' and family members' recollections and impressions. The film explicitly deals with the problems of subjectivity, bias, and ownership in storytelling and uses various formal techniques to remind you that you are watching a documentary representing certain points of view, rather than "the objective truth".

Poetic

This abstract approach to documentary filmmaking emphasises visual associations, tonal or rhythmic qualities, description, and form. These films often bear a close resemblance to experimental and avant-garde film, something we will look at in a few topics time. Meanings, themes and representations are depicted through montage-style sequences of images, where the audience is invited to draw on associations made between them. Instead of a more traditional use of documentary techniques like those used in the expository mode, poetic documentaries aim to create a mood or atmosphere that is particularly emphasised through the relationship between the images and the music. Music plays a major role in these documentaries, so much so that it is sometimes the soundtrack and composer who is identified from these documentaries, rather than the director. Below is an excerpt from Koyaanisqatsi (1982) where composer Phillip Glass’ soundtrack performs an important function in creating the film’s mood.

Like all documentaries, the poetic mode still intends to investigate the social and natural world in which we live. For example, the more recent film, Samsara (2011), is a poetic look at humanity all over the world in various contexts and situations. Once again, themes and meanings are constructed through the sequencing of shots and emphasised through the use of music.

Performative

Like the interactive mode, the performative mode sees the filmmaker interacting with the subject, but there is also a focus on the creation of the documentary itself in the process (the filmmaker will comment on this process at various points throughout the documentary). Running through this kind of documentary is an investigatory narrative where the filmmaker is on a search for something (information and/or answer to a question), but there may not be a satisfactory conclusion to this investigation. What differentiates this mode to the interactive is that the subject matter will normally focus on issues of identity and subjectivity, rather than more ‘factual’ kinds of subjects. Also, and in conjunction with this subject matter, the tone of these documentaries is emotive, inviting the audience directly to identify or feel for the subject matter.

Therefore, the purpose of this mode is to emphasise the subjective and expressive elements of the filmmaker’s involvement with their subject. This is done to heighten the audience’s emotional or cognitive response to the subject and perhaps the filmmaker’s cause. In other words, these films tend to reject objectivity in favour of emotion. In the clip below from Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine (2002), we see Moore take some of the victims of the Columbine high school massacre to the headquarters of K-mart, where the perpetrators bought their bullets. Consider the techniques Moore uses here to evoke a more emotional identification with these boys and what they are trying to achieve.

Documentary aesthetics and claims of truth

As we have already briefly acknowledged, the documentary form is generally understood to have a purpose of informing or educating, but in a creative way. As part of the documentary production, however, the filmmaker must make choices on what to shoot and, further, what to include in the edit. This automatically means that there are events that are not filmed or not included in the final cut. If this is the case, how objective can a documentary be in its presentation of a subject? Technically, it can’t. For a documentary to be a complete example of observable reality, the filmmaker would need to shoot and show everything. However, this is not practical.

We can also take this step further and look at how some of the above modes incorporate techniques that draw from the world of fiction films, such as dramatisations and re-enactments. The use of re-enactments and dramatic reconstructions goes back to early documentaries, although they were shot for different reasons, such as shooting in a studio being easier than carrying cumbersome film equipment around on locations. Later reasons for the use of event reconstruction are that it was impossible to shoot the ‘real’ event as they were not accessible at the time or to add drama for commercial appeal.

However, the use of reconstruction these days also begs the question of how real a documentary film is using these techniques? Does the blurring of fact and fiction mislead the documentary audience? If a sequence is marked as a reconstruction, does it matter? This also leads to the use of fictional film techniques and aesthetics in the documentary, particularly in modes such as expository and performative to persuade the audience or punctuate the narrative investigation. Take a look at a clip from the Netflix documentary Casting JonBenet (2017), which utilises many techniques that we would more readily associate with fiction drama than with documentary. Do you think a film can still be considered a documentary when it utilises such techniques?

To conclude this topic, watch the below interview with Australian documentary filmmaker, Anna Broinowski. This interview focuses on her documentary Forbidden Lie$ (2007). This film is about Norma Khouri, the author of book Forbidden Love, which was a global bestseller that claimed to be based on the true story — an honour killing of Norma’s best friend in Jordan. In the documentary, it is discovered that Norma has lied about the true nature of her story and who she is, and we follow Broinowski as she tries to untangle the web of lies Norma has created. It is an intriguing documentary that is also an excellent example of the reflexive mode, which also calls into question the nature of documentary filmmaking itself. In the interview below, however, Broinowski discusses the role of the filmmaker as similar to the role of the con artist. She states that both are in the business of making “illusions real” and that filmmakers, like con artists, manipulate the audience into thinking and feeling certain things through “tricks of the trade”. For fiction filmmaking, this makes sense, but what implications does this have for the documentary filmmaker and the purpose of the documentary? Watch the clip and note down the ideas that relate to questions of objectivity and the creative treatment Broinowski has taken with her documentary. This may form the basis of your discussion for tutorials.

References

Izod, J. and Kilborn, R. (1998). “The documentary”. The Oxford Guide to Film Studies. eds. John Hill and Pamela Church Gibson. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Pgs. 426–433.

Nichols, B. (2010). Introduction to Documentary. (2nd ed.). Bloomington, IN, USA: Indiana University Press.

Rothman, W. (1997). “Nanook of the North”. Documentary Film Classics. Cambridge; New York; Melbourne: Cambridge University Press. Pgs. 1–20.