Documentary is a term that stresses a broad category of expression that is based on the attempt to ‘document’ reality. The classification of documentary includes formally structured or seemingly unstructured films that are either non-fictional or entirely fictional. From around 1921, early films captured real people with everyday situations and filmmakers edited these footages to create a structure with either a story or an argument. By 1932, John Grierson had formulated a definition that distinguished between documentary and other factual forms of cinematic journalism, travelogue and scientific or nature films. Grierson found documentary beyond arrangement and description because it used a ‘creative treatment of actuality’. This shaping offered …show more content…
For example, the documentary ‘The Snake Wrangler’ shows the use of these techniques to appeal and engage the audience. The Snake Wrangler wasn’t constructed to entertain the audience but to rather convey a certain message to them. Philip Rosen shows what happens when we don’t use this method, using the earliest actuality films to make this point. In their making, the camera was simply set down and pointed in such a way as to film whatever was in front of it, at the moment when it was operated. It recorded fragments selected from the space and time continuum of the real world, such as the onrush of workers from the Lumière Factory. The projector then presented what the camera had registered and the significance of those shots lay in their photographic credibility: they seemed to show fragments of reality to the audience. This however didn’t allow the filmmaker with the opportunity to fill the text with meaning: in the instance, we found very little about the Lumière workers, other than that they are leaving the factory. Therefore, to give greater depth to these silent actuality films cinematic art is significant. The definition has stood the test of time because it allows for all manner of producer intervention. Yet it is also constantly challenged and always surrounded by controversies, for it prompts questions such as how much and what sort of actuality might remain after the creative …show more content…
For example, the sound, camera angles, emotional influences and ways of grabbing audience’s attention. The director expresses moments by using sad soundtracks, dialogues and actions. Dialogues between the journalists and others related to the war within the film are portrayed crucially and important in order to follow the story and identify its key message. Those conversations give the viewer a brief explanation about where the narrative is leading and who probably is the victim. The director of the film knew how to properly convey the message by finishing it with a clever and proactive angle of editing in the film. The camera movements and angels of vision in relation to the object and its speed in which it reproduces actions and the appearance of the person are controlled in many ways in which editing is applied. (Rotha, 1966:79). There is one scene in the film in which the director shows us the archive footage of ordinary, unarmed and innocent citizens being tortured and attacked by the U.S. military in their houses. Later in the second scene, when the statue of Saddam Hussein is being removed on the square, citizens are cheerful about it. This gives a strong evidence of what director was trying to convey in his documentary. The director furthermore added scenes of journalists giving their views about the same event to intensify his message.
This report aims to make light of certain elements of documentary making that are perhaps more susceptible to influence on the director’s part, and once again explore the effect of these decisions on the audience’s reaction to the information presented.
According to Ruby’s book, film can be used a research tool. Visually experiencing something gives us a greater understanding of it, rather than just reading or hearing about it. Ruby expresses the idea that film makers looking to make a visual ethnography have a lot of responsibility to the culture they are sharing so as to give them fair and accurate representation, free from artistic molding or outside influences. They should not highlight the differences in culture, but merely document it in true form. We have studied many people that have made contributions to ethnography such as Robert Flaherty, Timothy Asch and Jean Rouch. An anthropologist that is currently still making major a contribution to this field is Robert Lemelson.
Black Snake Killaz is a documentary film about the resistance to the construction of Dakota Access Pipeline, which was called Black Snake according to an indigenous prophecy. The movie shows the actions of water protectors to prevent the construction of the oil pipeline and emphasizes the actions of government forces, such as military, law enforcement, and corporate mercenaries in order to stop the protest of the local people that lasted for months. Following the timeline of historical events happened in Standing Rock during 2016, the film displays the genuine experience of protecting water from many frontline people in the protest. After the Black Snake was completed erected, the oil was leaked in different places in both North and South Dakota that
Filmmakers engage the past as a historian but not specifically in a way actual historians are doing. Historians use archived facts ranging from documents, photos, or objects from a specific time era to understand history. Contrastingly filmmakers as a historian can only bring to life a certain part of history without altering the past by focusing specifically on an aspect of the subject at hand. Scholars Marita Sturken and Barbie Zelizer argue how well-known filmmakers use film techniques or credibility in order to portray what happened in the past. Filmmakers as a historian is limited to only details they can use based on documents and archived history to re-tell a history through mise-en-scene to become a faux “historian”. Sturken and Zelizer would argue that filmmakers are not real historians; specifically how film can be made to manipulate the past towards the vision to get a narrative through that appeals to the film viewer and director. Filmmakers are not real historians since they can be biased to specific details of what occurred in the past.
In this essay, I will aim to discuss and analyse my chosen documentary ‘The Short Life of Anne Frank’ by Gerrit Netten, with cinema dramatization of real events ‘The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas’ by Mark Herman. I will be focusing on how each director uses techniques to show true aspects of real life, and how this persuades the audience into believing that they are witnessing something accurate, and true to the directors intention.
This paper will explore documentaries and storytelling as an important part of culture, what a documentary is compared to a story, and how storytelling is abandoned for this modern media.
The definition of documentary given by the Oxford dictionary is ‘A film or television or radio programme that provides a factual report on a particular subject.’ (Oxford, Online) Documentaries are carefully constructed to present the reality of a variety of situations. The aim of the documentary
A documentary is a film that makes a claim based on empirical evidence. There are four main ways of making films or documentaries. The modes changed and developed due to technological advancements. Filmmakers also wanted the youth to associate with films instead of books.
...successful collaboration of sound, colour, camera positioning and lighting are instrumental in portraying these themes. The techniques used heighten the suspense, drama and mood of each scene and enhance the film in order to convey to the spectator the intended messages.
Oscar Wild once said, “The truth is rarely pure and never simple” and he is right. But no matter what the outcome is, or how complex the truth is, we will always strive for the truth. The concept of truth is no stranger to film documentaries, and one filmmaker that certainty was aware of that was Dziga Vertov. During the 1920’s Vertov created a newsreel series to promote the concept of ‘Kinopravda” which translated to English mean “Film truth.” Unfortunately, Vertov was ahead of his time, and this concept disappeared along the filmmakers’ path. It wasn’t until the 1960’s that other filmmakers around the world once again recognized the importance of the truth. Two movements with the purpose of revealing the truth of life, emerge in different parts of the world, Direct Cinema in North America and Cinema Vérité in France. Although, both had the same purpose, their approaches towards getting the truth make them completely different. Cinema Vérité’s approach gave the filmmakers a chance to manipulate and distort reality by participating and observing at the same time, while Direct Cinemas approach was strictly observational, and there is no better way to find out the truth than observing without interfering.
Since the beginning of Documentary Filmmaking, films have shown the eternal search for truth. Exposing reality as it is to the world through Film became a goal to Documentary Filmmakers. For a period of time Filmmakers lost their path along the way and became promoters who manipulated the audience around the world into believing what they wanted. During the 1960’s two special movements began to emerge in different parts of the world. Direct Cinema in North America and Cinema Vérité in Fance. These two movements brought back the notion of revealing the true through their Films. The new movements encourage Filmmakers to take the position of observers. Direct Cinema and Cinema Vérité are often confused and classify as one movement. This is not a surprise since their principle is to capture the authenticity of life as it is lived, and to break through the veneer between the audience and the subject. But in reality Direct Cinema and Cinema Vérité are different and should not be classified as one since their practitians take different approaches in the filmmaking process, Direct Cinema takes an objective aproach, while Cinema Vérité takes a reflective aproach.
Traditional ideations of film and documentaries have been to create scripts that are structures to fulfill a set idea. The challenge with scripting an idea is that the script writer(s) have a subjective view of the documentary. The vastness of documenting a situation is restricted by the script making it impossible for a documentary film to capture objective realism in their work.
Art critic Robert Hughes once said, “People inscribe their histories, beliefs, attitudes, desires and dreams in the images they make.” When discussing the mediums of photography and cinema, this belief of Hughes is not very hard to process and understand. Images, whether they be still or moving, can transform their audiences to places they have either never been before or which they long to return to. Images have been transporting audiences for centuries thanks to both the mediums of photography and cinema and together they gone through many changes and developments. When careful consideration is given to these two mediums, it is acceptable to say that they will forever be intertwined, and that they have been interrelated forms of art, communication and entertainment ever since Thomas Edison successfully invented the first Kinetoscope in 1894. Photography itself, as well as the photographical aspects of cinema (cinematography), have influenced our society for decades and have literally shaped the pacing of our lives, changed what we think about and even what we think with.
2. Nichols, Bill. ‘Documentary Modes of Representation (The Observational Mode).’ Representing Reality: Issues and Concepts in Documentary. Bloomington & Indianapolis; Indiana University Press. 1991. 38-44
Films and videos are rarely a simple record of what the camera sees. The reaction of audiences may vary according to what part of the world they are from, together with their customs and beliefs, when and where the film was made and set, and the ability of the film makers to lead the audience to a “willing suspension of disbelief” (Films in our lives, 1953) so that when the audience watch the film they are to think that what they are watching is actually happening rather than being played out by actors. Films tell stories about people – the way they live, behave, think, feel and interact. They show us in pictures, actions, words and sound what the world is like, was like, or might be like – or what the director’s particular view of the world might be. The film and video cameras provide us with a lens to look more closely at ourselves and our world (Films in our lives, 1953).