Documentary mini task

A documentary is a broad term that describes a non-fiction film that documents reality. They are usually used to explore a particular subject and to inform the audience about it. They are also used to keep a historical record of something. American theorist Bill Nichols distinguished five different formats for documentaries. These are expository, observational, interactive, reflexive and performative.

Expository documentaries speak directly to the audience by using voice overs and titles. The authoritative commentary used in this type of documentary is influential over the viewers opinions on the topic being explored and issues being discussed. David Attenborough's Planet Earth mini series is an example of this style. In each episode he explores a different habitat, showing all kinds of wildlife. The episodes are commentated by David through a voice over. He gives the audience information and facts on the animals and their habitats throughout. The information given in this documentary and the footage used is entirely truthful as David uses hard facts and authentic footage. Here is a clip from episode 1 of the series called Pole to Pole that exemplifies the features of a typical expository documentary.

 

Observational documentaries are non subjective as they don't offer the filmmakers viewpoint on the topic. The filmmaker is practically invisible and tries to give an accurate and direct representation of events taking place by acting as an unbiased bystander. This form is more authentic than most other forms of documentary due to the fact that most of the time the events taking place aren't set up and the only way the filmmaker is able to manipulate our views is through editing. This is done by not using any voice overs, interviews or anything that could involve the filmmaker being present in the film. We Are the Lambeth boys is a documentary set in the 1950's, following a group of teenagers who attended the Lambeth youth club. This would be an observational documentary as it's a camera crew simply following the teenagers to document their daily lives. Titicut Follies is another example of this type of documentary. The film documents the lives of the patient inmates of Bridgewater State hospital. In the following clip you can see that the events taking place are authentic and the filmmaker doesn't have an agenda. The only influence the filmmaker has over the viewers is the shots and music they have chose to use and the way in which they have edited it.

Some documentaries make the filmmakers presence prominent. These are know as interactive style documentaries and are used to arguably give the audience a documentary focused on opinions, making them question the information they are given. The person interacting, typically the filmmaker can either be subjective or objective in their commentaries and interviews. Their line of questioning can have a big influence on how the audience feels about the given subject or the interviewee. Bowling for Columbine is an American documentary by Michael Moore. It explores America's gun problem, focusing on what Moore perceives as the main causes for the Columbine High School massacre. Michael manipulates the audience through editing by making it seem as if he received a gun on the same day he went into the bank. He isn't being entirely transparent and has an agenda which he is trying to address. Louis Theroux often uses an interactive style in his documentaries. In this clip from America's Most Hated Family, we can see Louis asking series of questions throughout. Louis questions at times seem objective. In this particular documentary the controversy of the church requires him to ask the questions that the viewers would want to know the answer to and therefore he is unable to stay impartial all the time.

Reflexive documentaries focus mainly on how events are filmed rather than the events themselves, acknowledging the process of how the film is made. Koyaanisqatsi: Life Out of Balance is an American experimental film. The film contains no dialogue or voice over and is mainly made up of time lapse and slow motion footage of cities. The film is the first of a trilogy that explores the relationship between nature, people and technology. It is a reflexive documentary as it uses images and music to depict these iseas and it's experimental in doing so through it's non conventional methods of documentary film making,

Another form of documentary is performative. This mode constructs story's using subjective truths to focus the attention towards the expressive dimension of film.This is typically done through reenactments. One example of this type of documentary is The Imposter which explores the case of the French serial imposter Frederic Bourdin who impersonated missing Texas boy Nicholas Barclay. Although the film uses many interviews and television footage, it also uses reenacted sequence to give the audience a visual aid to the story and facts given making it more entertaining. Reenactments can also be used to manipulate the facts of a story making it a biased and less authentic account of what happened. For example scenes can be dramatised to make them look worse than they actually were.

Overall I think that a documentary serves a purpose to truthfully inform an audience about a given subject. The filmmaker and the viewer should have an theoretical contract which states that the information being given is authentic and presented in the least biased way possible. However it is apparent that in most documentaries have an agenda that is being put across to the audience normally to persuade them to think in a certain way. Although this can be interesting for a viewer I believe that this needs to be done carefully as to not brainwash them in to a certain way of thinking through deception and an overly biased perspective.