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