Documentaries, Motion Picture

Definitions

Documentary filmmaking is primarily an act of reporting rather than invention: real people and real events are its subject matter, rather than the imaginary characters and stories of fiction. The word documentary is derived from the Latin docere, which means to teach. Documentary [Page 450]entered the English language even before film to describe a lesson, an admonition, or a warning. The first nonfiction films were given many titles, including actualités, topicals, interest films, educationals, travelogues, and documentaires. The earliest filmmakers, such as Auguste Lumière (1862–1954) and Louis Lumière (1864–1948) in the 1890s, sought to document scientific and cultural phenomena. However, it was primarily through the work of John Grierson (1898–1972) in Britain that documentary came to define a specific genre of nonfiction film.

Grierson was the driving force behind the emerging British documentary movement of the 1930s; he saw documentary film as an important means of informing citizenry of social issues that demanded social change. Grierson defined documentary as the “creative treatment of actuality” (Rotha 1968, 70), emphasizing that interpretation of events shapes the story told in a documentary and distinguishes it from newsreels and other nonfiction productions, such as those created by the experimental avant-garde. As a filmmaker and a theorist, Grierson had a profound influence on generations of filmmakers around the world. “Classic documentary” refers to Griersonian style, in which the film tells the viewer about social, political, and economic conditions that need improvement, utilizing the (usually) disembodied perspective of a commentator, referred to in filmmaking as “voice of God” narration.

Documentary filmmakers have always used a variety of styles and modes of technique and address within a single film. Film scholar Bill Nichols (1991) offers four modes or organizational structures of documentary—expository, observational, interactive, and reflexive—to help viewers appreciate the variations of form and content that abound, keeping in mind that these categorizations are understood to be flexible rather than rigid.

Expository documentary style addresses the viewer directly, emphasizes objectivity and logical narration. Observational documentary, or direct cinema, attempts to make the camera invisible and treats the filmmakers and viewers like the proverbial “fly on the wall.” Generally, little or no commentary is provided, and the film's story is told by actions of and interviews with the subjects of the film, leaving to the viewer the responsibility of determining the meaning of the events observed.

Interactive or participatory documentary stresses verbal exchanges both as monologues and dialogues between the subjects and the filmmaker, who may appear visually and is a prominent player in the film. In the reflexive documentary, the filmmaker engages in meta-commentary and addresses the question about how we represent the historic world and how we talk about knowledge of it. These films, then, render the practice of filmmaking and the filmmaker visible in an attempt to lead viewers to question notions of objectivity and authenticity in representational practices.

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