DOCUMENTARY CINEMA
THFM 1610: INTRODUCTION TO FILMDR. ROSALIND SIBIELSKI,
BOWING GREEN STATE UNIVERSITY
There are 3 basic types of movies• Narrative• Documentary• Experimental (Avant-Garde)
What separates them:• Industrial context in which they
are produced, distributed, & exhibited
• How they use the formal elements of film to present content to viewers
• The purpose in making the film
CATEGORIES OF CINEMA
Subject matter = examination of real-world people, events, or issues
Made to educate, inform, and/or persuade audiences about subject
Unscripted Success measured in terms
of trustworthiness of information/sources
DOCUMENTARY CINEMA
Produced for commercial distribution/exhibition• mostly independently, but
sometimes with financial support from movie studio or TV network
Limited Theatrical release• Primary exhibition venues =
festivals and TV Small demand in ancillary
markets outside of television
INDUSTRIAL CONTEXT
Documentaries do not simply record reality
ALL documentaries make use of filmmaking techniques to re-present reality in a particular way that is meant to convince us to adopt the POV of the documentary towards its subject
Mediation = the way that form influences our interpretation of content
DOCUMENTARY “BIAS”
Compilation Film
Interview (or “Talking Heads”) Documentary
Direct Cinema/ Cinema Vérité Documentary
Nature Documentary
Portrait Documentary
Synthetic Documentary
DOCUMENTARY GENRES
EXAMPLE 1
How To Survive a Plague
(David France, 2012)
March of the Penguins
(Luc Jaquet, 2005)
EXAMPLE 2
Man on Wire
(James Marsh, 2008)
EXAMPLE 3
The Story of Film: An Odyssey, Episode 1
(Mark Cousins, 2011)
EXAMPLE 4
Waltz With Bashir (Ari Folsom, 2008)
EXAMPLE 5
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