MODES OF NON-FICTION FILMS

DOES DOCUMENTARY = REAL OR TRUTH? The photograph – once we are sure that it is a

photograph – cannot lie. But it can be falsely labeled…If we accept that documentary is best defined as a way of perceiving images, we cannot evade the implication that it is blind to the falsity of labels. Documentary will be consequent upon what it appears to show, rather than upon what it necessarily shows; and the relationship between the two is a matter for the filmmakers’ ethics, inaccessible to the viewer. Yet the assumptions which the viewer makes about this relationship, on the basis of signals intended or unintended, will inform his perception of the film. To make a documentary is therefore to persuade the viewer that what appears to be IS.

SUMMARY?

EVERY text has a bias!

What is bias, again?

Let’s look at HOW those biases are created…..

Absolute “truth”One-sided One-sided

FIRST FILMS…WERE DOCUMENTARIES

Horse Running

Frank Ott’s Sneeze

Women Leaving the Factory

Captured life…

ACCIDENTAL DOCUMENTARIES

Zapruder film

Holliday’s film of Rodney King beating

CINEMA VERITE

Meaning of verite? Think of Greek and Latin roots.

Documentary’s driving ambition is to find a way of reproducing reality without bias or manipulation.

But…such a pursuit towards actuality is futile (useless).

Why?

1) EXPOSITORY MODE Filmmaker EXPLAINS a topic to the audience.

Nuclear Power History Background Interviews

DIRECT ADDRESS

On-screen narrator Off-screen narrator

Voice of God Text track as narrator

Guide through the topic for the audience

INDIRECT ADDRESS

No direct address to audience

Visual – people talking about nuclear power Visual – cutaways to pictures of Three Mile

Island or some other nuclear accident site.

Expected to follow along!

EXAMPLES

Ken Burns…anything.

Fifty

Baraka

2) OBSERVATIONAL MODE Audience feels as if they “are there” “Fly on the wall”

Filmmaker tries to disappear Minimum of editing

Little B-roll usage (cutaways to other stuff) Little non-diegetic (soundtrack) sound

Often called “direct cinema” Similar to C-SPAN

Might feel more “real”

EXAMPLES

High School

Titicut Follies

Spinal Tap

3) INTERACTIVE MODE Filmmaker is heard (and seen) on screen Subject of the film act differently because

they KNOW a film is being made of them!

The film maker!!

REALITY TV = INTERACTIVE

Fear Factor The Bachelor The Apprentice

Other examples Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden? Fahrenheit 9/11

4) REFLEXIVE MODE Film that is aware of itself AS a film.

Documentaries that raise questions, problems, and dilemmas about the very act of creating a documentary!

Show the difficulties of making an unbiased documentary.

Most obscure.

EXAMPLES

Man with a Movie Camera

Colbert Report

MIX OF MODES

Most documentaries are a MIX of many modes throughout.

LET’S PRACTICE

Chalk