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A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional
motion-picture A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere ...
intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a
historical record Recorded history or written history describes the historical events that have been recorded in a written form or other documented communication which are subsequently evaluated by historians using the historical method. For broader world hist ...
". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in terms of "a filmmaking practice, a cinematic tradition, and mode of audience reception
hat remains A hat is a head covering which is worn for various reasons, including protection against weather conditions, ceremonial reasons such as university graduation, religious reasons, safety, or as a fashion accessory. Hats which incorporate mecha ...
a practice without clear boundaries". Early documentary films, originally called "
actuality film The actuality film is a non-fiction film genre that, like the documentary film, uses footage of real events, places, and things. Unlike the documentaries, actuality films are not structured into a larger argument, picture of the phenomenon or coh ...
s", lasted one minute or less. Over time, documentaries have evolved to become longer in length, and to include more categories. Some examples are educational,
observation Observation is the active acquisition of information from a primary source. In living beings, observation employs the senses. In science, observation can also involve the perception and recording of data via the use of scientific instruments. Th ...
al and docufiction. Documentaries are very
informative Information is an abstract concept that refers to that which has the power to inform. At the most fundamental level information pertains to the interpretation of that which may be sensed. Any natural process that is not completely random, ...
, and are often used within schools as a resource to teach various principles. Documentary filmmakers have a responsibility to be truthful to their vision of the world without intentionally misrepresenting a topic. Social-media platforms (such as YouTube) have provided an avenue for the growth of the documentary- film genre. These platforms have increased the distribution area and ease-of-accessibility.


Definition

Polish writer and filmmaker
Bolesław Matuszewski Bolesław Matuszewski (August 19, 1856 Pińczów, – c.1943 or 1944; in French texts Boleslas Matuszewski) - Polish businessman, photographer and cameraman, pioneer of cinematography and documentary film. Biography He was born in 1856 in Piń ...
was among those who identified the mode of documentary film. He wrote two of the earliest texts on cinema ''Une nouvelle source de l'histoire'' (eng. A New Source of History) and ''La photographie animée'' (eng. Animated photography). Both were published in 1898 in French and among the early written works to consider the historical and documentary value of the film. Matuszewski is also among the first filmmakers to propose the creation of a Film Archive to collect and keep safe visual materials. The word "documentary" was coined by Scottish documentary filmmaker
John Grierson John Grierson (26 April 1898 – 19 February 1972) was a pioneering Scottish documentary maker, often considered the father of British and Canadian documentary film. In 1926, Grierson coined the term "documentary" in a review of Robert J. Fla ...
in his review of Robert Flaherty's film '' Moana'' (1926), published in the '' New York Sun'' on 8 February 1926, written by "The Moviegoer" (a pen name for Grierson).
Ann Curthoys Ann Curthoys, (born 5 September 1945) is an Australian historian and academic. Early life and education Curthoys was born in Sydney, New South Wales, on 5 September 1945, and completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Sydney. In 1 ...
, Marilyn Lakebr>Connected worlds: history in transnational perspective, Volume 2004
p.151. Australian National University Press
Grierson's principles of documentary were that cinema's potential for observing life could be exploited in a new art form; that the "original" actor and "original" scene are better guides than their fiction counterparts to interpreting the modern world; and that materials "thus taken from the raw" can be more real than the acted article. In this regard, Grierson's definition of documentary as "creative treatment of actuality" has gained some acceptance, with this position at variance with Soviet film-maker Dziga Vertov's provocation to present "life as it is" (that is, life filmed surreptitiously) and "life caught unawares" (life provoked or surprised by the camera). The American film critic Pare Lorentz defines a documentary film as "a factual film which is dramatic." Others further state that a documentary stands out from the other types of non-fiction films for providing an opinion, and a specific message, along with the facts it presents. Scholar Betsy McLane asserted that documentaries are for filmmakers to convey their views about historical events, people, and places which they find significant. Therefore, the advantage of documentaries lies in introducing new perspectives which may not be prevalent in traditional medias such as written publications and school curriculum. Documentary practice is the complex process of creating documentary projects. It refers to what people do with media devices, content, form, and production strategies to address the creative, ethical, and conceptual problems and choices that arise as they make documentaries. Documentary filmmaking can be used as a form of journalism, advocacy, or personal expression.


History


Pre-1900

Early film (pre-1900) was dominated by the novelty of showing an event. They were single-shot moments captured on film: a train entering a station, a boat docking, or factory workers leaving work. These short films were called "actuality" films; the term "documentary" was not coined until 1926. Many of the first films, such as those made by
Auguste and Louis Lumière The Lumière brothers (, ; ), Auguste Marie Louis Nicolas Lumière (19 October 1862 – 10 April 1954) and Louis Jean Lumière (5 October 1864 – 6 June 1948), were French manufacturers of photography equipment, best known for their ''Ciném ...
, were a minute or less in length, due to technological limitations (example on YouTube). Films showing many people (for example, leaving a factory) were often made for commercial reasons: the people being filmed were eager to see, for payment, the film showing them. One notable film clocked in at over an hour and a half, ''
The Corbett-Fitzsimmons Fight ''The Corbett-Fitzsimmons Fight'' is an 1897 documentary film directed by Enoch J. Rector depicting the 1897 boxing match between James J. Corbett and Bob Fitzsimmons in Carson City, Nevada on St. Patrick's Day. Originally running for more than ...
''. Using pioneering film-looping technology,
Enoch J. Rector Enoch J. Rector (October 9, 1863 – January 26, 1957) was an American boxing film promoter and early cinema technician. He was a partner in Woodville Latham's Kinetoscope Exhibition Company (later the Lambda Company) during the mid-1890s, w ...
presented the entirety of a famous 1897 prize-fight on cinema screens across the United States. In May 1896,
Bolesław Matuszewski Bolesław Matuszewski (August 19, 1856 Pińczów, – c.1943 or 1944; in French texts Boleslas Matuszewski) - Polish businessman, photographer and cameraman, pioneer of cinematography and documentary film. Biography He was born in 1856 in Piń ...
recorded on film a few surgical operations in Warsaw and Saint Petersburg hospitals. In 1898, French surgeon
Eugène-Louis Doyen Eugène-Louis Doyen (16 December 1859 – 21 November 1916) was a French surgeon born in Reims. He was the son of Octave Doyen (1831–1895), who served as mayor of Reims. Eugène Doyen studied medicine in Reims and Paris, and later opened a priv ...
invited Bolesław Matuszewski and Clément Maurice and proposed them to recorded his surgical operations. They started in Paris a series of surgical films sometime before July 1898. Until 1906, the year of his last film, Doyen recorded more than 60 operations. Doyen said that his first films taught him how to correct professional errors he had been unaware of. For scientific purposes, after 1906, Doyen combined 15 of his films into three compilations, two of which survive, the six-film series ''Extirpation des tumeurs encapsulées'' (1906), and the four-film ''Les Opérations sur la cavité crânienne'' (1911). These and five other of Doyen's films survive. Between July 1898 and 1901, the Romanian professor
Gheorghe Marinescu Gheorghe Marinescu (; 28 February 1863 – 15 May 1938) was a Romanian neurologist, founder of the Romanian School of Neurology. History After attending the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Bucharest, Marinescu received most of his med ...
made several science films in his neurology clinic in
Bucharest Bucharest ( , ; ro, București ) is the capital and largest city of Romania, as well as its cultural, industrial, and financial centre. It is located in the southeast of the country, on the banks of the Dâmbovița River, less than north of ...
:
Mircea Dumitrescu Mircea Dumitrescu (September 3, 1926 – March 11, 2005) was a film critic, professor and essayist. He was known especially for his cinematography course accompanied by screenings in the main university cities in Romania. Biography Mircea Dumitre ...
, ''O privire critică asupra filmului românesc'',
Brașov Brașov (, , ; german: Kronstadt; hu, Brassó; la, Corona; Transylvanian Saxon: ''Kruhnen'') is a city in Transylvania, Romania and the administrative centre of Brașov County. According to the latest Romanian census (2011), Brașov has a pop ...
, 2005,
''
Walking Troubles of Organic Hemiplegy ''Walking Troubles of Organic Hemiplegy'' (1898) is the first documentary film in the world, created by Romanian neurologist Gheorghe Marinescu. The film depicts several patients walking in four directions against a black background before and af ...
'' (1898), ''The Walking Troubles of Organic Paraplegies'' (1899), ''A Case of Hysteric Hemiplegy Healed Through Hypnosis'' (1899), ''The Walking Troubles of Progressive Locomotion Ataxy'' (1900), and ''Illnesses of the Muscles'' (1901). All these short films have been preserved. The professor called his works "studies with the help of the cinematograph," and published the results, along with several consecutive frames, in issues of ''La Semaine Médicale'' magazine from Paris, between 1899 and 1902.Rîpeanu, Bujor T. ''Filmul documentar 1897–1948'', Bucharest, 2008, In 1924, Auguste Lumiere recognized the merits of Marinescu's science films: "I've seen your scientific reports about the usage of the cinematograph in studies of nervous illnesses, when I was still receiving ''La Semaine Médicale'', but back then I had other concerns, which left me no spare time to begin biological studies. I must say I forgot those works and I am thankful to you that you reminded them to me. Unfortunately, not many scientists have followed your way."Ţuţui, Marian,
A short history of the Romanian films
' at the Romanian National Cinematographic Center.
The Works of Gheorghe Marinescu
, 1967 report.
Excerpts of prof. dr. Marinescu's science films


1900–1920

Travelogue films were very popular in the early part of the 20th century. They were often referred to by distributors as "scenics." Scenics were among the most popular sort of films at the time. An important early film to move beyond the concept of the scenic was ''
In the Land of the Head Hunters ''In the Land of the Head Hunters'' (also called ''In the Land of the War Canoes'') is a 1914 silent film fictionalizing the world of the Kwakwaka'wakw peoples of the Queen Charlotte Strait region of the Central Coast of British Columbia, Can ...
'' (1914), which embraced primitivism and exoticism in a staged story presented as truthful re-enactments of the life of Native Americans. Contemplation is a separate area.
Pathé Pathé or Pathé Frères (, styled as PATHÉ!) is the name of various French businesses that were founded and originally run by the Pathé Brothers of France starting in 1896. In the early 1900s, Pathé became the world's largest film equipme ...
is the best-known global manufacturer of such films of the early 20th century. A vivid example is '' Moscow Clad in Snow'' (1909). Biographical documentaries appeared during this time, such as the feature '' Eminescu-Veronica-Creangă'' (1914) on the relationship between the writers
Mihai Eminescu Mihai Eminescu (; born Mihail Eminovici; 15 January 1850 – 15 June 1889) was a Romanian Romantic poet from Moldavia, novelist, and journalist, generally regarded as the most famous and influential Romanian poet. Eminescu was an active ...
,
Veronica Micle Veronica Micle (born Ana Câmpeanu; 22 April 1850 – 3 August 1889) was an Austrian Empire, Imperial Austrian-born Romanian poet, whose work was influenced by Romanticism. She is best known for her love affair with the poet Mihai Eminescu, one ...
and
Ion Creangă Ion Creangă (; also known as Nică al lui Ștefan a Petrei, Ion Torcălău and Ioan Ștefănescu; March 1, 1837 – December 31, 1889) was a Moldavian, later Romanian writer, raconteur and schoolteacher. A main figure in 19th-century Romani ...
(all deceased at the time of the production) released by the
Bucharest Bucharest ( , ; ro, București ) is the capital and largest city of Romania, as well as its cultural, industrial, and financial centre. It is located in the southeast of the country, on the banks of the Dâmbovița River, less than north of ...
chapter of
Pathé Pathé or Pathé Frères (, styled as PATHÉ!) is the name of various French businesses that were founded and originally run by the Pathé Brothers of France starting in 1896. In the early 1900s, Pathé became the world's largest film equipme ...
. Early color motion picture processes such as Kinemacolor—known for the feature '' With Our King and Queen Through India'' (1912)—and Prizmacolor—known for ''Everywhere With Prizma'' (1919) and the five-reel feature ''Bali the Unknown'' (1921)—used travelogues to promote the new color processes. In contrast, Technicolor concentrated primarily on getting their process adopted by Hollywood studios for fictional feature films. Also during this period,
Frank Hurley James Francis "Frank" Hurley (15 October 1885 – 16 January 1962) was an Australian photographer and adventurer. He participated in a number of expeditions to Antarctica and served as an official photographer with Australian forces durin ...
's feature documentary film, ''South'' (1919), about the
Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition The Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914–1917 is considered to be the last major expedition of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. Conceived by Sir Ernest Shackleton, the expedition was an attempt to make the first land crossing ...
was released. The film documented the failed Antarctic expedition led by
Ernest Shackleton Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton (15 February 1874 – 5 January 1922) was an Anglo-Irish Antarctic explorer who led three British expeditions to the Antarctic. He was one of the principal figures of the period known as the Heroic Age of A ...
in 1914.


1920s


Romanticism

With
Robert J. Flaherty Robert Joseph Flaherty, (; February 16, 1884 – July 23, 1951) was an American filmmaker who directed and produced the first commercially successful feature-length documentary film, ''Nanook of the North'' (1922). The film made his reputatio ...
's '' Nanook of the North'' in 1922, documentary film embraced romanticism; Flaherty filmed a number of heavily staged romantic films during this time period, often showing how his subjects would have lived 100 years earlier and not how they lived right then. For instance, in ''Nanook of the North'', Flaherty did not allow his subjects to shoot a walrus with a nearby shotgun, but had them use a harpoon instead. Some of Flaherty's staging, such as building a roofless
igloo An igloo (Inuit languages: , Inuktitut syllabics (plural: )), also known as a snow house or snow hut, is a type of shelter built of suitable snow. Although igloos are often associated with all Inuit, they were traditionally used only b ...
for interior shots, was done to accommodate the filming technology of the time. Paramount Pictures tried to repeat the success of Flaherty's ''Nanook'' and ''Moana'' with two romanticized documentaries, ''
Grass Poaceae () or Gramineae () is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of monocotyledonous flowering plants commonly known as grasses. It includes the cereal grasses, bamboos and the grasses of natural grassland and species cultivated in lawns and ...
'' (1925) and '' Chang'' (1927), both directed by
Merian Cooper Merian Caldwell Cooper (October 24, 1893 – April 21, 1973) was an American filmmaker and Academy Award winner, as well as a former aviator who served as an officer in the United States Air Force and Polish Air Force. In film, he is credited a ...
and
Ernest Schoedsack Ernest Beaumont Schoedsack (June 8, 1893 – December 23, 1979) was an American motion picture cinematographer, producer, and director. Schoedsack worked as a cameraman in World War I, where he served in the Signal Corps. At the conclusion o ...
.


City-symphony

The city-symphony sub film genre were
avant-garde films Experimental film or avant-garde cinema is a mode of filmmaking that rigorously re-evaluates cinematic conventions and explores non-narrative forms or alternatives to traditional narratives or methods of working. Many experimental films, parti ...
during the 1920s and 1930s. These films were particularly influenced by
modern art Modern art includes artistic work produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the styles and philosophies of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the tra ...
; namely
Cubism Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. In Cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up and reassemble ...
,
Constructivism Constructivism may refer to: Art and architecture * Constructivism (art), an early 20th-century artistic movement that extols art as a practice for social purposes * Constructivist architecture, an architectural movement in Russia in the 1920s a ...
, and Impressionism. According to
art historian Art history is the study of aesthetic objects and visual expression in historical and stylistic context. Traditionally, the discipline of art history emphasized painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture, ceramics and decorative arts; yet today, ...
and author Scott Macdonald, city-symphony films can be described as, "An intersection between documentary and avant-garde film: an ''avant-doc''"; However, A.L. Rees suggests to see them as avant-garde films. Early titles produced within this genre include: ''
Manhatta ''Manhatta'' (1921) is a short documentary film directed by painter Charles Sheeler and photographer Paul Strand. Production background ''Manhatta'' documents the look of early 20th-century Manhattan. With the city as subject, the film consist ...
'' (New York; dir. Paul Strand, 1921); ''
Rien que les heures ''Rien que les heures'' (English: ''Nothing But Time'' or ''Nothing But the Hours'') is a 1926 experimental silent film by Brazilian director Alberto Cavalcanti showing the life of Paris through one day in 45 minutes. Other noted examples of the ...
/Nothing But The Hours'' ( France; dir.
Alberto Cavalcanti Alberto de Almeida Cavalcanti (February 6, 1897 – August 23, 1982) was a Brazilian-born film director and producer. He was often credited under the single name "Cavalcanti". Early life Cavalcanti was born in Rio de Janeiro, the son of a ...
, 1926); ''Twenty Four Dollar Island'' (dir.
Robert J. Flaherty Robert Joseph Flaherty, (; February 16, 1884 – July 23, 1951) was an American filmmaker who directed and produced the first commercially successful feature-length documentary film, ''Nanook of the North'' (1922). The film made his reputatio ...
, 1927); '' Études sur Paris'' (dir. André Sauvage, 1928); '' The Bridge'' (1928) and '' Rain'' (1929), both by
Joris Ivens Georg Henri Anton "Joris" Ivens (18 November 1898 – 28 June 1989) was a Dutch documentary filmmaker. Among the notable films he directed or co-directed are '' A Tale of the Wind'', '' The Spanish Earth'', ''Rain'', ''...A Valparaiso'', '' ...
; '' São Paulo, Sinfonia da Metrópole'' (dir.
Adalberto Kemeny Alberto is the Romance version of the Latinized form (''Albertus'') of Germanic ''Adalbert''. It is used in Italian, Portuguese and Spanish. It derives from the Old German '' Athala'' (meaning noble) and ''Berth'' (meaning bright). Notable people ...
, 1929), '' Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis'' (dir.
Walter Ruttmann Walter Ruttmann (28 December 1887 – 15 July 1941) was a German cinematographer and film director, an important German abstract experimental film maker, along with Hans Richter, Viking Eggeling and Oskar Fischinger. He is best known for dir ...
, 1927); ''
Man with a Movie Camera ''Man with a Movie Camera'' (russian: Человек с киноаппаратом, translit=Chelovek s kinoapparatom) is an experimental 1929 Soviet silent documentary film, directed by Dziga Vertov, filmed by his brother Mikhail Kaufman, an ...
'' (dir. Dziga Vertov, 1929) and ''
Douro, Faina Fluvial ''Douro, Faina Fluvial'' (Labor on the Douro River) is a 1931 Portuguese documentary short film. It was the first film directed by Manoel de Oliveira and is a portrait of his hometown of Porto and the labor and industry that takes place along t ...
'' (dir.
Manoel de Oliveira Manoel Cândido Pinto de Oliveira (; 11 December 1908 – 2 April 2015) was a Portuguese film director and screenwriter born in Cedofeita, Porto. He first began making films in 1927, when he and some friends attempted to make a film about Wor ...
, 1931). A city-symphony film, as the name suggests, is most often based around a major
metropolitan city A metropolis () is a large city or conurbation which is a significant economic, political, and cultural center for a country or region, and an important hub for regional or international connections, commerce, and communications. A big ci ...
area and seeks to capture the life, events and activities of the city. It can be abstract cinematography (Walter Ruttman's ''Berlin'') or may use
Soviet montage theory Soviet montage theory is an approach to understanding and creating cinema that relies heavily upon editing ('' montage'' is French for "assembly" or "editing"). It is the principal contribution of Soviet film theorists to global cinema, and bro ...
(Dziga Vertov's, ''Man with a Movie Camera''); yet, most importantly, a city-symphony film is a form of cinepoetry being shot and edited in the style of a "
symphony A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, most often for orchestra. Although the term has had many meanings from its origins in the ancient Greek era, by the late 18th century the word had taken on the meaning ...
". The continental tradition (''See:'' Realism) focused on humans within human-made environments, and included the so-called "''city-symphony''" films such as Walter Ruttmann's, ''Berlin, Symphony of a City'' (of which Grierson noted in an article that ''Berlin,'' represented what a documentary should not be); Alberto Cavalcanti's, ''Rien que les heures;'' and Dziga Vertov's ''Man with a Movie Camera''. These films tend to feature people as products of their environment, and lean towards the avant-garde.


''Kino-Pravda''

Dziga Vertov was central to the Soviet '' Kino-Pravda'' (literally, "cinematic truth") newsreel series of the 1920s. Vertov believed the camera—with its varied lenses, shot-counter shot editing, time-lapse, ability to slow motion, stop motion and fast-motion—could render reality more accurately than the human eye, and made a film philosophy out of it.


Newsreel tradition

The newsreel tradition is important in documentary film; newsreels were also sometimes staged but were usually re-enactments of events that had already happened, not attempts to steer events as they were in the process of happening. For instance, much of the battle footage from the early 20th century was staged; the cameramen would usually arrive on site after a major battle and re-enact scenes to film them.


1930s–1940s

The propagandist tradition consists of films made with the explicit purpose of persuading an audience of a point. One of the most celebrated and controversial
propaganda film A propaganda film is a film that involves some form of propaganda. Propaganda films spread and promote certain ideas that are usually religious, political, or cultural in nature. A propaganda film is made with the intent that the viewer will ad ...
s is Leni Riefenstahl's film ''
Triumph of the Will ''Triumph of the Will'' (german: Triumph des Willens) is a 1935 German Nazi propaganda film directed, produced, edited and co-written by Leni Riefenstahl. Adolf Hitler commissioned the film and served as an unofficial executive producer; his n ...
'' (1935), which chronicled the 1934 Nazi Party Congress and was commissioned by
Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Germany from 1933 until his death in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor in 1933 and then ...
. Leftist filmmakers
Joris Ivens Georg Henri Anton "Joris" Ivens (18 November 1898 – 28 June 1989) was a Dutch documentary filmmaker. Among the notable films he directed or co-directed are '' A Tale of the Wind'', '' The Spanish Earth'', ''Rain'', ''...A Valparaiso'', '' ...
and Henri Storck directed ''
Borinage The Borinage () is an area in the Walloon province of Hainaut in Belgium. The name derives from the coal mines of the region, ''bores'' meaning mineshafts. In French the inhabitants of the Borinage are called Borains. The provincial capital M ...
'' (1931) about the Belgian coal mining region. Luis Buñuel directed a " surrealist" documentary ''
Las Hurdes Las Hurdes (; Extremaduran: ''Las Jurdis'') is a ''comarca'' in the Sistema Central, at the northern end of the province of Cáceres in the Autonomous Community of Extremadura, Spain. A well-known historical region, Las Hurdes is currently a Sit ...
'' (1933). Pare Lorentz's ''
The Plow That Broke the Plains ''The Plow That Broke the Plains'' is a 1936 short documentary film that shows the cultivation of the Great Plains region of the United States and Canada following the Civil War and leading up to the Dust Bowl as a result of farmers' exploita ...
'' (1936) and '' The River'' (1938) and Willard Van Dyke's '' The City'' (1939) are notable New Deal productions, each presenting complex combinations of social and ecological awareness, government propaganda, and leftist viewpoints.
Frank Capra Frank Russell Capra (born Francesco Rosario Capra; May 18, 1897 – September 3, 1991) was an Italian-born American film director, producer and writer who became the creative force behind some of the major award-winning films of the 1930s ...
's '' Why We Fight'' (1942–1944) series was a newsreel series in the United States, commissioned by the government to convince the U.S. public that it was time to go to war.
Constance Bennett Constance Campbell Bennett (October 22, 1904 – July 24, 1965) was an American stage, film, radio, and television actress and producer. She was a major Hollywood star during the 1920s and 1930s; during the early 1930s, she was the highest-paid ...
and her husband
Henri de la Falaise Henry de La Falaise, Marquis de La Coudraye (born James Henry Le Bailly de La Falaise, February 11, 1898 – April 10, 1972), was a French nobleman, translator, film director, film producer, sometime actor, and war hero who was best known for his ...
produced two feature-length documentaries, '' Legong: Dance of the Virgins'' (1935) filmed in
Bali Bali () is a province of Indonesia and the westernmost of the Lesser Sunda Islands. East of Java and west of Lombok, the province includes the island of Bali and a few smaller neighbouring islands, notably Nusa Penida, Nusa Lembongan, and N ...
, and ''Kilou the Killer Tiger'' (1936) filmed in Indochina. In Canada, the Film Board, set up by John Grierson, was created for the same propaganda reasons. It also created newsreels that were seen by their national governments as legitimate counter-propaganda to the psychological warfare of Nazi Germany (orchestrated by
Joseph Goebbels Paul Joseph Goebbels (; 29 October 1897 – 1 May 1945) was a German Nazi politician who was the ''Gauleiter'' (district leader) of Berlin, chief propagandist for the Nazi Party, and then Reich Minister of Propaganda from 1933 to 194 ...
). In Britain, a number of different filmmakers came together under John Grierson. They became known as the Documentary Film Movement. Grierson,
Alberto Cavalcanti Alberto de Almeida Cavalcanti (February 6, 1897 – August 23, 1982) was a Brazilian-born film director and producer. He was often credited under the single name "Cavalcanti". Early life Cavalcanti was born in Rio de Janeiro, the son of a ...
,
Harry Watt Harry Watt (18 October 19062 April 1987) was a Scottish documentary and feature film director, who began his career working for John Grierson and Robert Flaherty. His 1959 film '' The Siege of Pinchgut'' was entered into the 9th Berlin Inte ...
,
Basil Wright Basil Wright (12 June 1907, Sutton, Surrey – 14 October 1987, Frieth, Buckinghamshire, England) was a documentary filmmaker, film historian, film critic and teacher. Biography After leaving Sherborne School, a well known independent schoo ...
, and
Humphrey Jennings Frank Humphrey Sinkler Jennings (19 August 1907 – 24 September 1950) was an English documentary filmmaker and one of the founders of the Mass Observation organisation. Jennings was described by film critic and director Lindsay Anderson in 195 ...
amongst others succeeded in blending propaganda, information, and education with a more poetic aesthetic approach to documentary. Examples of their work include ''Drifters'' (
John Grierson John Grierson (26 April 1898 – 19 February 1972) was a pioneering Scottish documentary maker, often considered the father of British and Canadian documentary film. In 1926, Grierson coined the term "documentary" in a review of Robert J. Fla ...
), ''
Song of Ceylon ''The Song of Ceylon'' is a 1934 British documentary film directed by Basil Wright and produced by John Grierson for the Ceylon Tea Propaganda Board. The film was shot on location in Ceylon ( Sri Lanka) at the start of 1934 and completed at the ...
'' (
Basil Wright Basil Wright (12 June 1907, Sutton, Surrey – 14 October 1987, Frieth, Buckinghamshire, England) was a documentary filmmaker, film historian, film critic and teacher. Biography After leaving Sherborne School, a well known independent schoo ...
), ''
Fires Were Started ''Fires Were Started'' is a 1943 British film written and directed by Humphrey Jennings. Filmed in documentary style, it shows the lives of firefighters through the Blitz during the Second World War. The film uses actual firemen (including Cyril ...
'', and ''
A Diary for Timothy ''A Diary for Timothy'' (1945) is a British documentary film directed by Humphrey Jennings. It was produced by Basil Wright for the Crown Film Unit. The narration was written by the British author E. M. Forster (spoken by Michael Redgrave) and ...
'' (
Humphrey Jennings Frank Humphrey Sinkler Jennings (19 August 1907 – 24 September 1950) was an English documentary filmmaker and one of the founders of the Mass Observation organisation. Jennings was described by film critic and director Lindsay Anderson in 195 ...
). Their work involved poets such as
W. H. Auden Wystan Hugh Auden (; 21 February 1907 – 29 September 1973) was a British-American poet. Auden's poetry was noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in ...
, composers such as
Benjamin Britten Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976, aged 63) was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British music, with a range of works including opera, other ...
, and writers such as
J. B. Priestley John Boynton Priestley (; 13 September 1894 – 14 August 1984) was an English novelist, playwright, screenwriter, broadcaster and social commentator. His Yorkshire background is reflected in much of his fiction, notably in '' The Good Comp ...
. Among the best known films of the movement are ''
Night Mail ''Night Mail'' is a 1936 British documentary film directed and produced by Harry Watt and Basil Wright, and produced by the General Post Office (GPO) Film Unit. The 24-minute film documents the nightly postal train operated by the London, Mi ...
'' and ''
Coal Face ''Coal Face'' is a 1935 British documentary film short directed by Alberto Cavalcanti. With a film score by Benjamin Britten and a poem written and narrated by W.H. Auden, the film gives a glimpse into the lives of a Yorkshire mining community a ...
''. Film ''Calling mr. Smith'' (1943) was anti-nazi color film created by
Stefan Themerson Stefan Themerson (25 January 1910 – 6 September 1988) was a Polish writer of children's literature, poet and inventor of Semantic Poetry, novelist, script writer filmmaker, composer and philosopher. He wrote in at least three languages. Wit ...
and being both documentary and avant-garde film against war. It was one of the first anti-nazi films in history.


1950s–1970s


Cinéma-vérité

Cinéma vérité Cinéma vérité (, , ; "truthful cinema") is a style of documentary filmmaking developed by Edgar Morin and Jean Rouch, inspired by Dziga Vertov's theory about Kino-Pravda. It combines improvisation with use of the camera to unveil truth or high ...
(or the closely related direct cinema) was dependent on some technical advances to exist: light, quiet and reliable cameras, and portable sync sound. Cinéma vérité and similar documentary traditions can thus be seen, in a broader perspective, as a reaction against studio-based film production constraints. Shooting on location, with smaller crews, would also happen in the French New Wave, the filmmakers taking advantage of advances in technology allowing smaller, handheld cameras and synchronized sound to film events on location as they unfolded. Although the terms are sometimes used interchangeably, there are important differences between cinéma vérité (
Jean Rouch Jean Rouch (; 31 May 1917 – 18 February 2004) was a French filmmaker and anthropologist. He is considered one of the founders of cinéma vérité in France. Rouch's practice as a filmmaker, for over 60 years in Africa, was characterized b ...
) and the North American " direct cinema" (or more accurately " cinéma direct"), pioneered by, among others, Canadians
Allan King Allan Winton King, (February 6, 1930 – June 15, 2009), was a Canadian film director. Life Born in Vancouver, British Columbia, during the Great Depression, King attended Henry Hudson Elementary School, in Kitsilano.Michel Brault Michel Brault, OQ (25 June 1928 – 21 September 2013) was a Canadian cinematographer, cameraman, film director, screenwriter, and film producer. He was a leading figure of Direct Cinema, characteristic of the French branch of the National ...
, and
Pierre Perrault Pierre Perrault (29 June 1927 – 24 June 1999) was a Québécois documentary film director. He directed 20 films between 1963 and 1996. He was one of the most important filmmakers in Canada, although largely unknown outside of Québec. In ...
, and Americans Robert Drew,
Richard Leacock Richard Leacock (18 July 192123 March 2011)
The Telegraph (Lon ...
,
Frederick Wiseman Frederick Wiseman (born January 1, 1930) is an American filmmaker, documentarian, and theater director. His work is "devoted primarily to exploring American institutions". He has been called "one of the most important and original filmmakers work ...
and Albert and David Maysles. The directors of the movement take different viewpoints on their degree of involvement with their subjects. Kopple and Pennebaker, for instance, choose non-involvement (or at least no overt involvement), and Perrault, Rouch, Koenig, and Kroitor favor direct involvement or even provocation when they deem it necessary. The films ''
Chronicle of a Summer ''Chronicle of a Summer'' (French original title: ''Chronique d'un été'') is a 1961 French documentary film shot during the summer of 1960 by sociologist Edgar Morin and anthropologist and filmmaker Jean Rouch, with the technical and aestheti ...
'' (
Jean Rouch Jean Rouch (; 31 May 1917 – 18 February 2004) was a French filmmaker and anthropologist. He is considered one of the founders of cinéma vérité in France. Rouch's practice as a filmmaker, for over 60 years in Africa, was characterized b ...
), ''
Dont Look Back '' Look Back'' is a 1967 American documentary film directed by D. A. Pennebaker that covers Bob Dylan's 1965 concert tour in England. In 1998, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library ...
'' (
D. A. Pennebaker Donn Alan Pennebaker (; July 15, 1925 – August 1, 2019) was an American documentary filmmaker and one of the pioneers of direct cinema. Performing arts and politics were his primary subjects. In 2013, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sci ...
), ''
Grey Gardens ''Grey Gardens'' is a 1975 American documentary film by Albert and David Maysles. The film depicts the everyday lives of two reclusive, upper-class women, a mother and daughter both named Edith Beale, who lived in poverty at Grey Gardens, a de ...
'' ( Albert and David Maysles), ''
Titicut Follies ''Titicut Follies'' is a 1967 American direct cinema documentary film produced, written, and directed by Frederick Wiseman and filmed by John Marshall. It deals with the patient-inmates of Bridgewater State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, ...
'' (
Frederick Wiseman Frederick Wiseman (born January 1, 1930) is an American filmmaker, documentarian, and theater director. His work is "devoted primarily to exploring American institutions". He has been called "one of the most important and original filmmakers work ...
), '' Primary'' and '' Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment'' (both produced by Robert Drew), '' Harlan County, USA'' (directed by
Barbara Kopple Barbara Kopple (born July 30, 1946) is an American film director known primarily for her documentary work. She has won two Academy Awards, the first in 1977 for ''Harlan County, USA'', about a Kentucky miners' strike, /sup> and the second in 1 ...
), '' Lonely Boy'' (
Wolf Koenig Wolf Koenig (October 17, 1927 – June 26, 2014) was a Canadian film director, producer, animator, cinematographer, and a pioneer in Direct Cinema at the National Film Board of Canada. Early life Born in Dresden, Germany, Koenig emigrated to Ca ...
and
Roman Kroitor Roman Kroitor (December 12, 1926 – September 17, 2012) was a Canadian filmmaker who was known as an early practitioner of ''cinéma vérité'', as co-founder of IMAX, and as creator of the Sandde hand-drawn stereoscopic animation system. ...
) are all frequently deemed
cinéma vérité Cinéma vérité (, , ; "truthful cinema") is a style of documentary filmmaking developed by Edgar Morin and Jean Rouch, inspired by Dziga Vertov's theory about Kino-Pravda. It combines improvisation with use of the camera to unveil truth or high ...
films. The fundamentals of the style include following a person during a crisis with a moving, often handheld, camera to capture more personal reactions. There are no sit-down interviews, and the
shooting ratio The shooting ratio or "Bertolo code" in filmmaking and television production is the ratio between the total duration of its footage created for possible use in a project and that which appears in its final cut. A film with a shooting ratio of 2:1 ...
(the amount of film shot to the finished product) is very high, often reaching 80 to one. From there, editors find and sculpt the work into a film. The editors of the movement—such as Werner Nold, Charlotte Zwerin, Muffie Myers,
Susan Froemke Susan Froemke (born November 5, 1947) is an American film director and producer. Froemke was the associate producer and one of the editors of the influential 1975 documentary film '' Grey Gardens'', which was selected for preservation in the Nati ...
, and Ellen Hovde—are often overlooked, but their input to the films was so vital that they were often given co-director credits. Famous cinéma vérité/direct cinema films include '' Les Raquetteurs'', ''Showman'', '' Salesman'', ''Near Death'', and ''The Children Were Watching''.


Political weapons

In the 1960s and 1970s, documentary film was often conceived as a political weapon against neocolonialism and
capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, private pr ...
in general, especially in Latin America, but also in a changing Quebec society. ''La Hora de los hornos'' (''
The Hour of the Furnaces ''The Hour of the Furnaces'' ( es, La hora de los hornos) is a 1968 Argentine film directed by Octavio Getino and Fernando Solanas. 'The paradigm of revolutionary activist cinema', it addresses the politics of the 'Third worldist' films and La ...
'', from 1968), directed by
Octavio Getino Octavio Getino (August 6, 1935 in León, Spain – October 1, 2012) was an Argentine film director and writer who is best known for co-founding, along with Fernando Solanas, the '' Grupo Cine Liberación'' and the school of Third Cinema. Getino ...
and Arnold Vincent Kudales Sr., influenced a whole generation of filmmakers. Among the many political documentaries produced in the early 1970s was "Chile: A Special Report," public television's first in-depth expository look of the September 1973 overthrow of the Salvador Allende government in Chile by military leaders under
Augusto Pinochet Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte (, , , ; 25 November 1915 – 10 December 2006) was a Chilean general who ruled Chile from 1973 to 1990, first as the leader of the Military Junta of Chile from 1973 to 1981, being declared President of ...
, produced by documentarians Ari Martinez and José Garcia. A June 2020 article in '' The New York Times'' reviewed the political documentary ''And She Could Be Next'', directed by Grace Lee and Marjan Safinia. The ''Times'' described the documentary not only as focusing on women in politics, but more specifically on women of color, their communities, and the significant changes they have wrought upon America.


Modern documentaries

Box office analysts have noted that this film genre has become increasingly successful in theatrical release with films such as '' Fahrenheit 9/11'', '' Super Size Me'', ''
Food, Inc. ''Food, Inc.'' is a 2008 American documentary film directed by Robert Kenner
'', '' Earth'', ''
March of the Penguins ''March of the Penguins'' ( French ''La Marche de l'empereur'' ; ) is a 2005 French feature-length nature documentary directed and co-written by Luc Jacquet, and co-produced by Bonne Pioche and the National Geographic Society. The documentary de ...
'', and ''
An Inconvenient Truth ''An Inconvenient Truth'' is a 2006 American documentary film directed by Davis Guggenheim about former United States Vice President Al Gore's campaign to educate people about global warming. The film features a slide show that, by Gore's own e ...
'' among the most prominent examples. Compared to dramatic narrative films, documentaries typically have far lower budgets which makes them attractive to film companies because even a limited theatrical release can be highly profitable. The nature of documentary films has expanded in the past 20 years from the cinéma vérité style introduced in the 1960s in which the use of portable camera and sound equipment allowed an intimate relationship between filmmaker and subject. The line blurs between documentary and narrative and some works are very personal, such as
Marlon Riggs Marlon Troy Riggs (February 3, 1957 – April 5, 1994) was a Black gay filmmaker, educator, poet, and activist. He produced, wrote, and directed several documentary films, including '' Ethnic Notions'', '' Tongues Untied'', '' Color Adjustment' ...
's ''Tongues Untied'' (1989) and ''Black Is...Black Ain't'' (1995), which mix expressive, poetic, and rhetorical elements and stresses subjectivities rather than historical materials. Historical documentaries, such as the landmark 14-hour ''
Eyes on the Prize ''Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Movement'' is an American television series and 14-part documentary about the 20th-century civil rights movement in the United States. The documentary originally aired on the PBS network, and it also ...
: America's Civil Rights Years'' (1986—Part 1 and 1989—Part 2) by Henry Hampton, ''
4 Little Girls ''4 Little Girls'' is a 1997 American historical documentary film about the murder of four African-American girls (Addie May Collins, Carol Denise McNair, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Rosamond Robertson) in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Bi ...
'' (1997) by Spike Lee, and '' The Civil War'' by
Ken Burns Kenneth Lauren Burns (born July 29, 1953) is an American filmmaker known for his documentary film, documentary films and television series, many of which chronicle United States, American History of the United States, history and Culture of the ...
, UNESCO awarded independent film on slavery ''
500 Years Later ''500 Years Later'' ( ') is a 2005 independent documentary film directed by Owen 'Alik Shahadah and written by M. K. Asante, Jr. It has won five international film festival awards in the category of Best Documentary, including the UNESCO "Brea ...
'', expressed not only a distinctive voice but also a perspective and point of views. Some films such as '' The Thin Blue Line'' by
Errol Morris Errol Mark Morris (born February 5, 1948) is an American film director known for documentaries that interrogate the epistemology of its subjects. In 2003, his documentary film '' The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNama ...
incorporated stylized re-enactments, and Michael Moore's ''
Roger & Me ''Roger & Me'' is a 1989 American documentary film written, produced, directed by, and starring Michael Moore, in his directorial debut. Moore portrays the regional economic impact of General Motors CEO Roger Smith's action of closing several a ...
'' placed far more interpretive control with the director. The commercial success of these documentaries may derive from this narrative shift in the documentary form, leading some critics to question whether such films can truly be called documentaries; critics sometimes refer to these works as "
mondo films Mondo films are a subgenre of exploitation films and documentary films. Many mondo films are made in a way to resemble a pseudo-documentary and usually depicting sensational topics, scenes, or situations. Common traits of mondo films include p ...
" or "docu-ganda." However, directorial manipulation of documentary subjects has been noted since the work of Flaherty, and may be endemic to the form due to problematic ontological foundations. Documentary filmmakers are increasingly using social impact campaigns with their films. Social impact campaigns seek to leverage media projects by converting public awareness of social issues and causes into engagement and action, largely by offering the audience a way to get involved. Examples of such documentaries include '' Kony 2012'', ''
Salam Neighbor ''Salam Neighbor'' is a 2015 documentary film by the production companies Living on One Dollar and 1001 MEDIA. The title means "hello" neighbor. The title has a dual meaning as the Arabic word "salam" also means "peace." The film documents the ex ...
,
Gasland ''Gasland'' is a 2010 American documentary film written and directed by Josh Fox. It focuses on communities in the United States where natural gas drilling activity was a concern and, specifically, on hydraulic fracturing ("fracking"), a method ...
'', ''
Living on One Dollar ''Living on One Dollar'' is a documentary film directed, produced and edited by Chris Temple, Zach Ingrasci, Sean Leonard, and Ryan Christofferson. Premise The film follows the experience of four young friends as they live on less than $1 a d ...
'', and ''
Girl Rising Girl Rising is a global movement for girls' education, based primarily around a 2013 feature film, ''Girl Rising''. Film The movie ''Girl Rising'' was produced by Kayce Freed, Tom Yellin and Holly Gordon at The Documentary Group in partnership ...
''. Although documentaries are financially more viable with the increasing popularity of the genre and the advent of the DVD, funding for documentary film production remains elusive. Within the past decade, the largest exhibition opportunities have emerged from within the broadcast market, making filmmakers beholden to the tastes and influences of the broadcasters who have become their largest funding source. Modern documentaries have some overlap with television forms, with the development of "reality television" that occasionally verges on the documentary but more often veers to the fictional or staged. The "making-of" documentary shows how a movie or a
computer game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This feedback ...
was produced. Usually made for promotional purposes, it is closer to an advertisement than a classic documentary. Modern lightweight digital video cameras and computer-based editing have greatly aided documentary makers, as has the dramatic drop in equipment prices. The first film to take full advantage of this change was
Martin Kunert Martin Kunert (born Marcin Stanisław Kunert-Dziewanowski; 1974) is a feature film and television writer, director and producer; and since 2010, a photographer. In 2004, Kunert conceived and directed the documentary '' Voices of Iraq'', made by s ...
and
Eric Manes Eric David Manes is a feature film and television writer and producer, owner of Swiss chocolate company Coco Suisse with his wife Marianne Manes, and a State of California Registered Investment Advisor. Biography Manes produced the documentary ...
' ''
Voices of Iraq ''Voices of Iraq'' is a 2004 documentary film about Iraq, created by distributing cameras to the subjects of a film, thus enabling subjects to film themselves. To preserve its innovative filmmaking, ''Voices of Iraq'' was added to the permanent c ...
'', where 150 DV cameras were sent to Iraq during the war and passed out to Iraqis to record themselves.


Documentaries without words

Films in the documentary form without words have been made. ''
Listen to Britain ''Listen to Britain'' is a 1942 British propaganda short film by Humphrey Jennings and Stewart McAllister. The film was produced during World War II by the Crown Film Unit, an organisation within the British Government's Ministry of Information ...
'', directed by Humphrey Jennings and Stuart McAllister in 1942, is a wordless meditation on wartime Britain. From 1982, the Qatsi trilogy and the similar ''
Baraka Baraka or Barakah may refer to: * Berakhah or Baraka, in Judaism, a blessing usually recited during a ceremony * Barakah or Baraka, in Islam, the beneficent force from God that flows through the physical and spiritual spheres * Baraka, full ''ḥa ...
'' could be described as visual tone poems, with music related to the images, but no spoken content. '' Koyaanisqatsi'' (part of the Qatsi trilogy) consists primarily of slow motion and time-lapse photography of cities and many natural landscapes across the United States. ''Baraka'' tries to capture the great pulse of humanity as it flocks and swarms in daily activity and religious ceremonies. ''
Bodysong ''Bodysong'' is a 2003 BAFTA-winning documentary about human life and the human condition directed by Simon Pummell and produced by Janine Marmot. Synopsis The film tells the story of an archetypal human life using images taken from al ...
'' was made in 2003 and won a British Independent Film Award for "Best British Documentary." The 2004 film ''
Genesis Genesis may refer to: Bible * Book of Genesis, the first book of the biblical scriptures of both Judaism and Christianity, describing the creation of the Earth and of mankind * Genesis creation narrative, the first several chapters of the Book of ...
'' shows animal and plant life in states of expansion, decay, sex, and death, with some, but little, narration.


Narration styles

; Voice-over narrator The traditional style for narration is to have a dedicated narrator read a script which is dubbed onto the audio track. The narrator never appears on camera and may not necessarily have knowledge of the subject matter or involvement in the writing of the script. ; Silent narration This style of narration uses title screens to visually narrate the documentary. The screens are held for about 5–10 seconds to allow adequate time for the viewer to read them. They are similar to the ones shown at the end of movies based on true stories, but they are shown throughout, typically between scenes. ; Hosted narrator In this style, there is a host who appears on camera, conducts interviews, and who also does voice-overs.


Other forms


Hybrid documentary

The release of ''
The Act of Killing ''The Act of Killing'' ( id, Jagal, meaning "Butcher") is a 2012 documentary film about individuals who participated in the Indonesian mass killings of 1965–1966. The film is directed by Joshua Oppenheimer and co-directed by Christine Cynn an ...
'' (2012) directed by
Joshua Oppenheimer Joshua Lincoln Oppenheimer (born September 23, 1974) is an American-British film director based in Copenhagen, Denmark. He is known for his Oscar-nominated films '' The Act of Killing'' (2012) and '' The Look of Silence'' (2014), Oppenheimer wa ...
has introduced possibilities for emerging forms of the hybrid documentary. Traditional documentary filmmaking typically removes signs of fictionalization to distinguish itself from fictional film genres. Audiences have recently become more distrustful of the media's traditional fact production, making them more receptive to experimental ways of telling facts. The hybrid documentary implements truth games to challenge traditional fact production. Although it is fact-based, the hybrid documentary is not explicit about what should be understood, creating an open dialogue between subject and audience.
Clio Barnard Clio Barnard (1 January 1965) is a British director of documentary and feature films. She won widespread critical acclaim and multiple awards for her debut, '' The Arbor'', an experimental documentary about Bradford playwright Andrea Dunbar. ...
's ''The Arbor'' (2010),
Joshua Oppenheimer Joshua Lincoln Oppenheimer (born September 23, 1974) is an American-British film director based in Copenhagen, Denmark. He is known for his Oscar-nominated films '' The Act of Killing'' (2012) and '' The Look of Silence'' (2014), Oppenheimer wa ...
's ''
The Act of Killing ''The Act of Killing'' ( id, Jagal, meaning "Butcher") is a 2012 documentary film about individuals who participated in the Indonesian mass killings of 1965–1966. The film is directed by Joshua Oppenheimer and co-directed by Christine Cynn an ...
'' (2012),
Mads Brügger Mads Brügger (; born 24 June 1972) is a Danish filmmaker and TV host. Career Film Brügger's first two projects, the documentary series '' Danes for Bush'' and the feature '' The Red Chapel'', filmed in the United States and North Korea, resp ...
's ''The Ambassador'', and
Alma Har'el Alma Har'el ( he, עלמה הראל) is an Israeli-American music video and film director. She is best known for her 2019 feature film debut ''Honey Boy (film), Honey Boy'', for which she won a Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Dir ...
's ''Bombay Beach'' (2011) are a few notable examples.


Docufiction

Docufiction is a
hybrid Hybrid may refer to: Science * Hybrid (biology), an offspring resulting from cross-breeding ** Hybrid grape, grape varieties produced by cross-breeding two ''Vitis'' species ** Hybridity, the property of a hybrid plant which is a union of two dif ...
genre from two basic ones,
fiction film Narrative film, fictional film or fiction film is a motion picture that tells a fictional or fictionalized story, event or narrative. Commercial narrative films with running times of over an hour are often referred to as feature films, or feature ...
and documentary, practiced since the first documentary films were made.


Fake-fiction

Fake-fiction is a genre which deliberately presents real, unscripted events in the form of a fiction film, making them appear as staged. The concept was introduced by
Pierre Bismuth Pierre Bismuth (6 June 1963) is a French artist and filmmaker based in Brussels. His practice can be placed in the tradition of conceptual art and appropriation art. His work uses a variety of media and materials, including painting, sculpture, ...
to describe his 2016 film ''Where is Rocky II?''


DVD documentary

A DVD documentary is a documentary film of indeterminate length that has been produced with the sole intent of releasing it for direct sale to the public on DVD, as different from a documentary being made and released first on television or on a cinema screen (a.k.a.
theatrical release An art release is the premiere of an artistic production and its presentation and marketing to the public. Film A film release is the authorization by the owner of a completed film to a public exhibition of the film. The exhibition may be in theat ...
) and subsequently on DVD for public consumption. This form of documentary release is becoming more popular and accepted as costs and difficulty with finding TV or theatrical release slots increases. It is also commonly used for more "specialist" documentaries, which might not have general interest to a wider TV audience. Examples are military, cultural arts, transport, sports, etc.


Compilation films

Compilation films were pioneered in 1927 by Esfir Schub with ''The Fall of the Romanov Dynasty''. More recent examples include ''
Point of Order! ''Point of Order!'' is a 1964 American documentary film by Emile de Antonio, about the Senate Army–McCarthy hearings of 1954. Background The Army–McCarthy hearings came about when the Army accused Senator Joseph McCarthy of improperly pressur ...
'' (1964), directed by
Emile de Antonio Emile Francisco de Antonio (May 14, 1919 – December 15, 1989) was an American director and producer of documentary films, usually detailing political, social, and counterculture events circa 1960s–1980s. He has been referred to by Randolph L ...
about the McCarthy hearings. Similarly, ''
The Last Cigarette ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the ...
'' combines the testimony of various tobacco company executives before the U.S. Congress with archival propaganda extolling the virtues of smoking. Poetic documentaries, which first appeared in the 1920s, were a sort of reaction against both the content and the rapidly crystallizing grammar of the early fiction film. The poetic mode moved away from continuity editing and instead organized images of the material world by means of associations and patterns, both in terms of time and space. Well-rounded characters—"lifelike people"—were absent; instead, people appeared in these films as entities, just like any other, that are found in the material world. The films were fragmentary, impressionistic, lyrical. Their disruption of the coherence of time and space—a coherence favored by the fiction films of the day—can also be seen as an element of the modernist counter-model of cinematic narrative. The "real world"—Nichols calls it the "historical world"—was broken up into fragments and aesthetically reconstituted using film form. Examples of this style include Joris Ivens' ''Rain'' (1928), which records a passing summer shower over Amsterdam;
László Moholy-Nagy László Moholy-Nagy (; ; born László Weisz; July 20, 1895 – November 24, 1946) was a Hungarian painter and photographer as well as a professor in the Bauhaus school. He was highly influenced by constructivism and a strong advocate of the i ...
's ''Play of Light: Black, White, Grey (1930)'', in which he films one of his own kinetic sculptures, emphasizing not the sculpture itself but the play of light around it;
Oskar Fischinger Oskar Wilhelm Fischinger (June 22, 1900 – January 31, 1967) was a German-American abstract animator, filmmaker, and painter, notable for creating abstract musical animation many decades before the appearance of computer graphics and music vid ...
's abstract animated films; Francis Thompson's '' N.Y., N.Y.'' (1957), a city symphony film; and
Chris Marker Chris Marker (; 29 July 1921 – 29 July 2012) was a French writer, photographer, documentary film director, multimedia artist and film essayist. His best known films are ''La Jetée'' (1962), '' A Grin Without a Cat'' (1977) and ''Sans Soleil ...
's '' Sans Soleil'' (1982). Expository documentaries speak directly to the viewer, often in the form of an authoritative commentary employing voiceover or titles, proposing a strong argument and point of view. These films are rhetorical, and try to persuade the viewer. (They may use a rich and sonorous male voice.) The (voice-of-God) commentary often sounds "objective" and omniscient. Images are often not paramount; they exist to advance the argument. The rhetoric insistently presses upon us to read the images in a certain fashion. Historical documentaries in this mode deliver an unproblematic and "objective" account and interpretation of past events. Examples: TV shows and films like ''
Biography A biography, or simply bio, is a detailed description of a person's life. It involves more than just the basic facts like education, work, relationships, and death; it portrays a person's experience of these life events. Unlike a profile or ...
'', ''
America's Most Wanted ''America's Most Wanted'' (often abbreviated as ''AMW'') is an American Television show, television program whose first run was produced by 20th Television, and second run is under the Fox Entertainment#Fox Alternative Entertainment, Fox Alter ...
'', many science and nature documentaries,
Ken Burns Kenneth Lauren Burns (born July 29, 1953) is an American filmmaker known for his documentary film, documentary films and television series, many of which chronicle United States, American History of the United States, history and Culture of the ...
' '' The Civil War'' (1990), Robert Hughes' ''
The Shock of the New ''The Shock of the New'' is an eight-part documentary television series about the development of modern art written and presented in 1980 by Robert Hughes for the BBC, in association with Time-Life Films. It was produced by Lorna Pegram, who ...
'' (1980),
John Berger John Peter Berger (; 5 November 1926 – 2 January 2017) was an English art critic, novelist, painter and poet. His novel '' G.'' won the 1972 Booker Prize, and his essay on art criticism ''Ways of Seeing'', written as an accompaniment to the ...
's ''
Ways Of Seeing ''Ways of Seeing'' is a 1972 television series of 30-minute films created chiefly by writer John Berger and producer Mike Dibb. It was broadcast on BBC Two in January 1972 and adapted into a book of the same name. The series was intended as a ...
'' (1974),
Frank Capra Frank Russell Capra (born Francesco Rosario Capra; May 18, 1897 – September 3, 1991) was an Italian-born American film director, producer and writer who became the creative force behind some of the major award-winning films of the 1930s ...
's wartime '' Why We Fight'' series, and Pare Lorentz's ''
The Plow That Broke The Plains ''The Plow That Broke the Plains'' is a 1936 short documentary film that shows the cultivation of the Great Plains region of the United States and Canada following the Civil War and leading up to the Dust Bowl as a result of farmers' exploita ...
'' (1936).


Observational

Observational documentaries attempt to spontaneously observe their subjects with minimal intervention. Filmmakers who worked in this subgenre often saw the poetic mode as too abstract and the expository mode as too didactic. The first observational docs date back to the 1960s; the technological developments which made them possible include mobile lightweight cameras and portable sound recording equipment for synchronized sound. Often, this mode of film eschewed voice-over commentary, post-synchronized dialogue and music, or re-enactments. The films aimed for immediacy, intimacy, and revelation of individual human character in ordinary life situations.


Types

Participatory documentaries believe that it is impossible for the act of filmmaking to not influence or alter the events being filmed. What these films do is emulate the approach of the anthropologist: participant-observation. Not only is the filmmaker part of the film, we also get a sense of how situations in the film are affected or altered by their presence. Nichols: "The filmmaker steps out from behind the cloak of voice-over commentary, steps away from poetic meditation, steps down from a fly-on-the-wall perch, and becomes a social actor (almost) like any other. (Almost like any other because the filmmaker retains the camera, and with it, a certain degree of potential power and control over events.)" The encounter between filmmaker and subject becomes a critical element of the film. Rouch and Morin named the approach cinéma vérité, translating Dziga Vertov's kinopravda into French; the "truth" refers to the truth of the encounter rather than some absolute truth. Reflexive documentaries do not see themselves as a transparent window on the world; instead, they 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 subgenre of films. They prompt us to "question the authenticity of documentary in general." It is the most self-conscious of all the modes, and is highly skeptical of "realism". It may use Brechtian alienation strategies to jar us, in order to "defamiliarize" what we are seeing and how we are seeing it. Performative documentaries stress subjective experience and emotional response to the world. They are strongly personal, unconventional, perhaps poetic and/or experimental, and 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, e.g. that of black, gay men in Marlon Riggs's ''Tongues Untied'' (1989) or Jenny Livingston's ''Paris Is Burning'' (1991). This subgenre might also lend itself to certain groups (e.g. women, ethnic minorities, gays and lesbians, etc.) to "speak about themselves". Often, a battery of techniques, many borrowed from fiction or avant-garde films, are used. Performative docs often link up personal accounts or experiences with larger political or historical realities.


Educational films

Documentaries are shown in schools around the world in order to educate students. Used to introduce various topics to children, they are often used with a school lesson or shown many times to reinforce an idea.


Translation

There are several challenges associated with translation of documentaries. The main two are working conditions and problems with terminology.


Working conditions

Documentary translators very often have to meet tight deadlines. Normally, the translator has between five and seven days to hand over the translation of a 90-minute programme. Dubbing studios typically give translators a week to translate a documentary, but in order to earn a good salary, translators have to deliver their translations in a much shorter period, usually when the studio decides to deliver the final programme to the client sooner or when the broadcasting channel sets a tight deadline, e.g. on documentaries discussing the latest news. Another problem is the lack of postproduction script or the poor quality of the transcription. A correct transcription is essential for a translator to do their work properly, however many times the script is not even given to the translator, which is a major impediment since documentaries are characterised by "the abundance of terminological units and very specific proper names".Matamala, A. (2009). Main Challenges in the Translation of Documentaries. In J. Cintas (Ed.), New Trends in Audiovisual Translation (pp. 109–120). Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters, p. 111 When the script is given to the translator, it is usually poorly transcribed or outright incorrect making the translation unnecessarily difficult and demanding because all of the proper names and specific terminology have to be correct in a documentary programme in order for it to be a reliable source of information, hence the translator has to check every term on their own. Such mistakes in proper names are for instance: "Jungle Reinhard instead of Django Reinhart, Jorn Asten instead of Jane Austen, and Magnus Axle instead of Aldous Huxley".


Terminology

The process of translation of a documentary programme requires working with very specific, often scientific terminology. Documentary translators are not usually specialists in a given field. Therefore, they are compelled to undertake extensive research whenever asked to make a translation of a specific documentary programme in order to understand it correctly and deliver the final product free of mistakes and inaccuracies. Generally, documentaries contain a large number of specific terms, with which translators have to familiarise themselves on their own, for example:
The documentary ''Beetles, Record Breakers'' makes use of 15 different terms to refer to beetles in less than 30 minutes (longhorn beetle, cellar beetle, stag beetle, burying beetle or gravediggers, sexton beetle, tiger beetle, bloody nose beetle, tortoise beetle, diving beetle, devil's coach horse, weevil, click beetle, malachite beetle, oil beetle, cockchafer), apart from mentioning other animals such as horseshoe bats or meadow brown butterflies.
This poses a real challenge for the translators because they have to render the meaning, i.e. find an equivalent, of a very specific, scientific term in the target language and frequently the narrator uses a more general name instead of a specific term and the translator has to rely on the image presented in the programme to understand which term is being discussed in order to transpose it in the target language accordingly. Additionally, translators of minorised languages often have to face another problem: some terms may not even exist in the target language. In such cases, they have to create new terminology or consult specialists to find proper solutions. Also, sometimes the official nomenclature differs from the terminology used by actual specialists, which leaves the translator to decide between using the official vocabulary that can be found in the dictionary, or rather opting for spontaneous expressions used by real experts in real life situations.Matamala, A. (2009). Main Challenges in the Translation of Documentaries. In J. Cintas (Ed.), New Trends in Audiovisual Translation (pp. 109–120). Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters, p. 114–115


See also

*
Actuality film The actuality film is a non-fiction film genre that, like the documentary film, uses footage of real events, places, and things. Unlike the documentaries, actuality films are not structured into a larger argument, picture of the phenomenon or coh ...
* Animated documentary *
Citizen media Citizen media is content produced by private citizens who are not professional journalists. Citizen journalism, participatory media and democratic media are related principles. Background "Citizen media" was coined by Clemencia Rodriguez, ...
*
Concert film A concert film, or concert movie, is a film that showcases a live performance from the perspective of a concert goer, the subject of which is an extended live performance or concert by either a musician or a stand-up comedian. Early history The ...
* Dance film * Docudrama * Documentary mode * Documentary theatre *
Ethnofiction Ethnofiction refers to a subfield of ethnography which produces works that introduces art, in the form of storytelling, "thick descriptions and conversational narratives", and even first-person autobiographical accounts, into peer-reviewed academi ...
*
Ethnographic film An ethnographic film is a non-fiction film, often similar to a documentary film, historically shot by Western filmmakers and dealing with non-Western people, and sometimes associated with anthropology. Definitions of the term are not definitive. ...
* Filmmaking *
List of documentary films This is an alphabetical list of documentary films with Wikipedia articles. The earliest documentary listed is ''Fred Ott's Sneeze'' (1894), which is also the first motion picture ever copyrighted in North America. The term ''documentary'' was ...
*
List of documentary film festivals Documentary film festivals are film festivals devoted solely to documentary film, which is a broad category of visual expression that is based on the attempt, in one fashion or another, to "document" reality. Although "documentary film" originall ...
*
List of documentary television channels This is a list of documentary channels, including channels that have been affected by " channel drift". It also contains channels accused of a biased point of view. List See also * Channel drift References {{DEFAULTSORT:Documentary tele ...
*
List of directors and producers of documentaries Africa * Sidiki Bakaba * Safi Faye * Sorious Samura ('' Cry Freetown'', '' Return to Freetown'', ''Exodus'', '' Living with Hunger'', '' Living with Refugees'') * Nolan Davis ('' Passing Through: Woni Spotts, The First Black Woman to Travel to Ever ...
* Mockumentary *
Mondo film Mondo films are a subgenre of exploitation films and documentary films. Many mondo films are made in a way to resemble a pseudo-documentary and usually depicting sensational topics, scenes, or situations. Common traits of mondo films include por ...
*
Nature documentary A nature documentary or wildlife documentary is a genre of documentary film or series about animals, plants, or other non-human living creatures, usually concentrating on video taken in their natural habitat but also often including footage of t ...
* Outline of film *
Participatory video Participatory video (PV) is a form of participatory media in which a group or community creates their own film. The idea behind this is that making a video is easy and accessible, and is a great way of bringing people together to explore issues, vo ...
*
Political cinema Political cinema, in the narrow sense of that portray current or historical events or social conditions through a partisan perspective in order to inform or to agitate the spectator. Political cinema exists in different forms, such as documenta ...
*
Public-access television Public-access television is traditionally a form of non-commercial mass media where the general public can create content television programming which is narrowcast through cable television specialty channels. Public-access television was crea ...
*
Reality film Reality film or reality movie describes a genre of films that have resulted from reality television, such as ''The Real Cancun'', MTV's film version of '' The Real World'', which was originally titled ''Spring Break: The Reality Movie''. In an art ...
* Rockumentary *
Sponsored film Sponsored film, or ephemeral film, as defined by film archivist Rick Prelinger, is a film made by a particular sponsor for a specific purpose other than as a work of art: the films were designed to serve a specific pragmatic purpose for a limited ...
* Television documentary * Travel documentary * Visual anthropology * Web documentary *
Women's cinema Women's cinema primarily describes cinematic works directed (and optionally produced too) by women filmmakers. The works themselves do not have to be stories specifically about women and the target audience can be varied. It is also a variety of ...


Some documentary film awards

*
Grierson Awards The Grierson Awards are awards set up by The Grierson Trust to recognise innovative and exciting documentary films, created to commemorate the life and work of the pioneering Scottish documentary filmmaker John Grierson. The inaugural Awards w ...
*
Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, ...
*
Joris Ivens Award The International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) is the world's largest documentary film festival held annually since 1988 in Amsterdam. Over a period of twelve days, it has screened more than 300 films and sold more than 250,000 ...
, International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), (named after
Joris Ivens Georg Henri Anton "Joris" Ivens (18 November 1898 – 28 June 1989) was a Dutch documentary filmmaker. Among the notable films he directed or co-directed are '' A Tale of the Wind'', '' The Spanish Earth'', ''Rain'', ''...A Valparaiso'', '' ...
) * Filmmaker Award, Margaret Mead Film Festival * Grand Prize,
Visions du Réel Visions du Réel (Visions of Reality) is an internationally renowned documentary film festival held in April each year in Nyon, Switzerland. Established in 1969 as the Nyon International Documentary Film Festival, the event adopted its current na ...


Sources and bibliography

* Aitken, Ian (ed.). ''Encyclopedia of the Documentary Film''. New York: Routledge, 2005. . * Barnouw, Erik. ''Documentary: A History of the Non-Fiction Film'', 2nd rev. ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. . Still a useful introduction. * Ron Burnett
"Reflections on the Documentary Cinema"
* Burton, Julianne (ed.). ''The Social Documentary in Latin America''. Pittsburgh, Penn.:
University of Pittsburgh Press The University of Pittsburgh Press is a scholarly publishing house and a major American university press, part of the University of Pittsburgh. The university and the press are located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the United States. The press ...
, 1990. . * Dawson, Jonathan. "Dziga Vertov". * Ellis, Jack C., and Betsy A. McLane. "A New History of Documentary Film." New York: Continuum International, 2005. , . * Goldsmith, David A. ''The Documentary Makers: Interviews with 15 of the Best in the Business''. Hove, East Sussex: RotoVision, 2003. . * * Klotman, Phyllis R. and Culter, Janet K.(eds.). ''Struggles for Representation: African American Documentary Film and Video'' Bloomington and Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press, 1999. . * Leach, Jim, and Jeannette Sloniowski (eds.). ''Candid Eyes: Essays on Canadian Documentaries''. Toronto; Buffalo:
University of Toronto Press The University of Toronto Press is a Canadian university press founded in 1901. Although it was founded in 1901, the press did not actually publish any books until 1911. The press originally printed only examination books and the university cale ...
, 2003. , . * Nichols, Bill. ''Introduction to Documentary'', Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 2001. , . * Nichols, Bill. ''Representing Reality: Issues and Concepts in Documentary''. Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1991. , . * Nornes, Markus. ''Forest of Pressure: Ogawa Shinsuke and Postwar Japanese Documentary''. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007. , . * Nornes, Markus. ''Japanese Documentary Film: The Meiji Era through Hiroshima''. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003. , . * Rotha, Paul, ''Documentary diary; An Informal History of the British Documentary Film, 1928–1939''. New York: Hill and Wang, 1973. . * Saunders, Dave. ''Direct Cinema: Observational Documentary and the Politics of the Sixties''. London: Wallflower Press, 2007. , . * Saunders, Dave. ''Documentary: The Routledge Film Guidebook''. London: Routledge, 2010. * Tobias, Michael. ''The Search for Reality: The Art of Documentary Filmmaking''. Studio City, CA: Michael Wiese Productions 1997. * Walker, Janet, and Diane Waldeman (eds.). ''Feminism and Documentary''. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999. , . * Wyver, John. ''The Moving Image: An International History of Film, Television & Radio''. Oxford:
Basil Blackwell Sir Basil Henry Blackwell (29 May 18899 April 1984) was born in Oxford, England. He was the son of Benjamin Henry Blackwell (18491924), founder of Blackwell's bookshop in Oxford, which went on to become the Blackwell family's publishing and book ...
Ltd. in association with the
British Film Institute The British Film Institute (BFI) is a film and television charitable organisation which promotes and preserves film-making and television in the United Kingdom. The BFI uses funds provided by the National Lottery to encourage film production, ...
, 1989. .
Murdoch.edu
, Documentary—reading list


Ethnographic film

* Emilie de Brigard, "The History of Ethnographic Film," in ''Principles of Visual Anthropology'', ed. Paul Hockings. Berlin and New York City : Mouton de Gruyter, 1995, pp. 13–43. * Leslie Devereaux, "Cultures, Disciplines, Cinemas," in ''Fields of Vision. Essays in Film Studies, Visual Anthropology and Photography'', ed. Leslie Devereaux & Roger Hillman. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995, pp. 329–339. * Faye Ginsburg, Lila Abu-Lughod and Brian Larkin (eds.), ''Media Worlds: Anthropology on New Terrain''. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2002. . * Anna Grimshaw, ''The Ethnographer's Eye: Ways of Seeing in Modern Anthropology''. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001. . *
Karl G. Heider Karl Heider (born January 21, 1935) is an American visual anthropologist. Life and education Heider was born in Northampton, Massachusetts. Heider is the son of psychologists Fritz and Grace (née Moore) Heider. He had two brothers; John and Ste ...
, ''Ethnographic Film''. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994. *
Luc de Heusch Luc de Heusch (7 May 1927 – 7 August 2012) was a Belgian filmmaker, writer, and anthropologist, professor emeritus at the Free University of Brussels. His 1967 film '' Thursday We Shall Sing Like Sunday'' was entered into the 5th Moscow Int ...
, ''Cinéma et Sciences Sociales'', Paris: UNESCO, 1962. Published in English as ''The Cinema and Social Science. A Survey of Ethnographic and Sociological Films''. UNESCO, 1962. * Fredric Jameson, ''Signatures of the Visible''. New York & London: Routledge, 1990. * Pierre-L. Jordan, ''Premier Contact-Premier Regard'', Marseille: Musées de Marseille. Images en Manoeuvres Editions, 1992. *
André Leroi-Gourhan André Leroi-Gourhan (; ; 25 August 1911 – 19 February 1986) was a French archaeologist, paleontologist, paleoanthropologist, and anthropologist with an interest in technology and aesthetics and a penchant for philosophical reflection. B ...
, "Cinéma et Sciences Humaines. Le Film Ethnologique Existe-t-il?," ''Revue de Géographie Humaine et d'Ethnologie'' 3 (1948), pp. 42–50. *
David MacDougall David MacDougall (born November 12, 1939) is an American-Australian visual anthropologist, academic, and documentary filmmaker, who is known for his ethnographic film work in Africa, Australia, Europe and India. For much of his career he co-pr ...
, ''Transcultural Cinema''. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998. . * David MacDougall, "Whose Story Is It?," in ''Ethnographic Film Aesthetics and Narrative Traditions'', ed. Peter I. Crawford and Jan K. Simonsen. Aarhus, Intervention Press, 1992, pp. 25–42. * Fatimah Tobing Rony, ''The Third Eye: Race, Cinema and Ethnographic Spectacle''. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1996. . * Georges Sadoul, ''Histoire Générale du Cinéma''. Vol. 1, ''L'Invention du Cinéma 1832–1897''. Paris: Denöel, 1977, pp. 73–110. *
Pierre Sorlin Pierre is a masculine given name. It is a French language, French form of the name Peter (given name), Peter. Pierre originally meant "rock" or "stone" in French (derived from the Greek word πέτρος (''petros'') meaning "stone, rock", via ...
, ''Sociologie du Cinéma'', Paris: Aubier Montaigne, 1977, pp. 7–74. * Charles Warren, "Introduction, with a Brief History of Nonfiction Film," in ''Beyond Document. Essays on Nonfiction Film'', ed. Charles Warren. Hanover and London: Wesleyan University Press, 1996, pp. 1–22. * Ismail Xavier, "Cinema: Revelação e Engano", in ''O Olhar'' , ed. Adauto Novaes. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1993, pp. 367–384.


References

{{Authority control Film genres Investigative journalism Types of journalism Television genres