Documentary Films

A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in terms of "a filmmaking practice, a cinematic tradition, and mode of audience reception hat remainsa practice without clear boundaries".

Early documentary films, originally called " actuality films", lasted one minute or less. Over time, documentaries have evolved to become longer in length, and to include more categories. Some examples are educational, observational and docufiction. Documentaries are very informative, 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 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 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, 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, 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''. Using pioneering film-looping technology, Enoch J. Rector presented the entirety of a famous 1897 prize-fight on cinema screens across the United States.

In May 1896, Bolesław Matuszewski recorded on film a few surgical operations in Warsaw and Saint Petersburg hospitals. In 1898, French surgeon Eugène-Louis Doyen 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 made several science films in his neurology clinic in Bucharest: Mircea Dumitrescu, ''O privire critică asupra filmului românesc'', Brașov, 2005, ''Walking Troubles of Organic Hemiplegy'' (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'' (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 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, Veronica Micle and Ion Creangă (all deceased at the time of the production) released by the Bucharest chapter of Pathé.

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's feature documentary film, ''South'' (1919), about the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition was released. The film documented the failed Antarctic expedition led by Ernest Shackleton in 1914.

1920s

Romanticism

With Robert J. Flaherty'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 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'' (1925) and '' Chang'' (1927), both directed by Merian Cooper and Ernest Schoedsack.

City-symphony

The city-symphony sub film genre were avant-garde films during the 1920s and 1930s. These films were particularly influenced by modern art; namely Cubism, Constructivism, and Impressionism. According to art historian 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'' (New York; dir. Paul Strand, 1921); ''Rien que les heures/Nothing But The Hours'' (France; dir. Alberto Cavalcanti, 1926); ''Twenty Four Dollar Island'' (dir. Robert J. Flaherty, 1927); ''Études sur Paris'' (dir. André Sauvage, 1928); ''The Bridge'' (1928) and ''Rain'' (1929), both by Joris Ivens; '' São Paulo, Sinfonia da Metrópole'' (dir. Adalberto Kemeny, 1929), '' Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis'' (dir. Walter Ruttmann, 1927); ''Man with a Movie Camera'' (dir. Dziga Vertov, 1929) and '' Douro, Faina Fluvial'' (dir. Manoel de Oliveira, 1931).

A city-symphony film, as the name suggests, is most often based around a major metropolitan city 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 (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".

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 films is Leni Riefenstahl's film ''Triumph of the Will'' (1935), which chronicled the 1934 Nazi Party Congress and was commissioned by Adolf Hitler. Leftist filmmakers Joris Ivens and Henri Storck directed '' Borinage'' (1931) about the Belgian coal mining region. Luis Buñuel directed a "surrealist" documentary '' Las Hurdes'' (1933).

Pare Lorentz's '' The Plow That Broke the Plains'' (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'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 and her husband Henri de la Falaise produced two feature-length documentaries, '' Legong: Dance of the Virgins'' (1935) filmed in Bali, 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).

In Britain, a number of different filmmakers came together under John Grierson. They became known as the Documentary Film Movement. Grierson, Alberto Cavalcanti, Harry Watt, Basil Wright, and Humphrey Jennings 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), ''Song of Ceylon'' (Basil Wright), '' Fires Were Started'', and '' A Diary for Timothy'' (Humphrey Jennings). Their work involved poets such as W. H. Auden, composers such as Benjamin Britten, and writers such as J. B. Priestley. Among the best known films of the movement are '' Night Mail'' and '' Coal Face''.

Film ''Calling mr. Smith'' (1943) was anti-nazi color film created by Stefan Themerson 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 (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) and the North American " direct cinema" (or more accurately " cinéma direct"), pioneered by, among others, Canadians Allan King

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