THE INTERACTIVE MULTIMEDIA DOCUMENTARY
A PROPOSED ANALYSIS MODEL
CHAPTER 3: THE DOCUMENTARY GENRE. APPROACH AND TYPES
3.1 The documentary genre: preliminary issues
The study of the documentary genre is a complex area and it is often difficult to define a middle
ground that is free of criticism. As well as attempting to define a historical context and possible
definitions, it is very important to review the various positions adopted by documentary
filmmakers during the first century of the genre's existence, and to illustrate this using a number
of directors and specific works. In Documentary: A History of the Non-Fiction Film (1996:261)
(1996), Erik Barnouw says that the positions or different functions adopted by the genre were
never mutually exclusive, but instead, directors used to adopt a combination of various
functions or positions assumed at different points in time. He also points out that the
documentary's position in history has varied depending on the period and the prevailing needs,
and has often been subordinate to the regime in power and its social function.
Based on the initial studies by Janssen, Muybridge and Marey, we will consider the evolution of
the documentary genre over slightly more than a century. This brief approximation does not use
a linear chronology, but is instead essentially based on the description of the modes suggested
by Bill Nichols in Representing reality. Issues and Concepts in Documentary (1991), and cites
and lists a series of outstanding authors and periods in the genre's history.
Directors in the genre have worked outside the boundaries of the big fiction system and outside
the major studios, as their field is reality and the outside world. Documentary filmmakers are
becoming increasingly interested in the history and significance of the medium in which they
operate. They pay tribute to and remember the work and words of several pioneers of the genre,
such as Louis Lumière and his invention, Flaherty and his passion for other peoples, Esfir Shub
and montage, Dziga Vertov and stylistic innovation, Grierson and his passion for immediate
reality, and others. The directors of documentaries are excited by images and sounds from
reality, and they always place a higher value on them than anything they can invent using a
fictional screenplay. Their way of expressing themselves is based on selecting and arranging
what they find, and the decisions they take become the discourse that they broadcast to the
world, which is always framed within their individual subjectivity. Every choice by the
documentary filmmaker becomes the expression of a particular point of view, conscious or
unconscious, recognized or unrecognized. Barnouw (1996:312-313) believes that a
1
documentary cannot be considered “the truth” but rather the evidence or the testimony of a fact
or situation, within the complex historical process.
Michael Rabiger (1989:497) warned that the increasing production of documentaries, their
independence from news journalism and their growing development as an individual voice in
film could have major consequences in the future. Today, documentaries can be produced at no
great expense using the latest modern technology, as the documentary does not depend on either
studios or production centers. Two decades ago, Rabiger (1989) backed the production of films
made on a speculative basis, and predicted a considerable increase in works with the auteur's
hallmark, their diversification and their independence from the major centers of power.
As with any other art form, film has been subjected to many classifications based on different
criteria and points of view over the years. Rick Altman, in his book Film/Genre (2000) says that
the film genre can be understood based on various perspectives and meanings. The list he
suggests (Altman, 2000:35) is as follows:
-
The genre as a blueprint, as a formula that precedes, programs and patterns industry
production
-
The genre as structure, as the formal framework on which individual films are founded
-
The genre as label, as the name of a category central to the decisions and
communications of distributors and exhibitors
-
The genre as contract, as the viewing position required by each genre film of its
audience
Altman's proposal is an initial approach, which does not divide the genre into the two classic
categories, fiction and nonfiction.
Roman Gubern (1993) defined the concept of a film genre as “a subject category, a rigid
cultural model, based on standardized and repetitive formulas which are used to create the
episodic and formal variations that distinguish each specific product and create families of
themed subgenres within each major genre” (Romaguera, 1999:46).
2
3.2 The documentary film genre
3.2.1 Historical background
The documentary genre is still undergoing a long process of assessment in terms of its definition
(as is the case with the proposals for classification and categorization). According to Bienvenido
León (1999:59) in El documental de divulgación científica [The scientific dissemination
documentary] (1999), in the history of cinema and television, the term documentary has been
used to describe works of various types and characteristics, such as news films, educational
films, travel stories and TV shows with various styles and content.
A possible definition of the term documentary is linked to its etymology, the theoretical models
it has sustained and analyzed, the evolution of the audiovisual industry and its respective
historiography and criticism. As Alejandro Cock points out in Retóricas del cine de no ficción
postvérité [Rhetorics of non-fiction post-verité film] (2009), in 1914, Edward S. Curtis was
already using the terms documentary material and documentary work when referring to moving
images in non-fiction (Plantinga, 1997:27). Some years later, during the 1920s, the French
frequently used the term documentaires to describe the films about travel and news that they
were producing at that time. The film used the concept of the document to designate films or
extracts linked to reality, and it is this status as a document that is the framework for theoretical
discussions about the documentary and its conformation as a discourse of reality (Cock,
2009:40).
The so-called “actualités” played a leading role in commercial cinemas from the early
projections by the Lumière brothers until the end of the 1910s. At that time, films about
everyday life, news stories, exotic places and cultures, were very popular among audiences and
were associated with entertainment. This all led to the later appearance of documentary
productions and the coining of the term to describe them. However, the apparent stagnation of
the audiovisual language and the aesthetic of films based on real events increased the impetus
behind fictional films, which were driven by the industrialization of filmmaking and based on
the successful narrative model of the twentieth century novel, and made rapid progress and
became a commercial leader all over the world (Cock, 2009:43).
Given the above, various filmmakers began to offer alternative narratives or suggest different
conceptions of film, which became known as documentary, experimental or avant-garde film,
depending on the commercial needs at any given time. It was a type of filmmaking that had
been on the horizon since the beginning of cinema, but which could not have come about
without the prevailing fictional model, which it used to postulate itself as an alternative. This
laid the foundations for a major evolution in the medium, and major successes at the box office
3
and among critics, such as the documentary film Nanook (Flaherty 1922) and the avant-garde
Un Chien Andalou (Buñuel, 1929). However, it led to an artificial division into three genres fiction, non-fiction and experimental - which have today become forms or modes of
representation, with increasingly permeable borders.
John Grierson, a key figure in the British documentary school, is thought to have been the first
to use the term to describe a film by Robert Flaherty in 1926, which he described as having
“documentary value”. The film was Moana and what Grierson regarded as “documentary
value was its recreation of the daily life of a Polynesian boy (Rabinowitz, 1994:18)1. In his
article called First principles of documentary, Grierson discussed Flaherty and the way he made
documentaries2:
1) The documentary must master its material on the spot, and come in intimacy to ordering it.
Flaherty digs himself in for a year, or two maybe. He lives with his people till the story is told
“out of himself.”
2) It must follow him in his distinction between description and drama. I think we shall find that
there are other forms of drama or, more accurately, other forms of film, than the one he chooses;
but is important to make the primary distinction between a method which describes only the
surface values of a subject, and the method which more explosively reveals the reality of it. You
photograph the natural life, but you also, by your juxtaposition of detail, create an interpretation
of it.
Flaherty himself says of the ethics and the duty of a documentary filmmaker:
“The purpose of the documentary, as I understand it, is to represent life in a way in which it is
lived. This by no means implies what some people might think; namely, that the task of the
documentary's director is to film, without making any selection [...] The task of selection is
performed on the documentary material, with the aim of telling the truth in the most appropriate
way” (Romaguera and Alsina, 1989:152).
1
The English term documentary was first used to refer to a film by Britain's John Grierson, the founder of
the British school. In 1926, in his review of Robert Flaherty's film Moana, (published in The New York
Sun, 1966:11) he wrote: “being a visual account of events in the daily life of a Polynesian youth and his
family, has documentary value.” Grierson's later writings suggest that the term documentary is an
adaptation of the French word documentaire, used since the twenties to refer to films about travel (Leon,
1999:59).
2
Text published in three articles between 1939 and 1944. Available online at:
http://www.catedras.fsoc.uba.ar/decarli/textos/Grierson.htm
/
http://www.everyoneweb.es/orzcinema/Pr_Update_Knooppunt_Inhoud.aspx?WebID=orzcinema&BoomI
D=B1&KnooppuntID=K481&LG=
4
John Grierson (1966:40) says that all works using materials from reality are generally
categorized as documentaries, but unlike Paul Rotha, he suggests that the category should be set
aside for works that include a significant artistic contribution. Grierson considers the
documentary to be creative treatment of reality and believes that it is wise to establish formal
limits of the different “species” of documentary.
3.2.2 Theoretical approach
More than half a century ago (in 1948), the World Union of Documentary established the
following definition of a documentary:
“Documentaries are all methods of recording on celluloid any aspect of reality interpreted either
by sincere and justifiable reconstruction, so as to appeal either to reason or emotion, for the
purpose of stimulating the desire for, and the widening of human knowledge and understanding,
and of truthfully posing problems and their solutions in the spheres of economics, culture, and
human relations” (quoted in Leon, 1999:63).
We can maintain all the parameters from the definition above, except for the one referring to the
recording medium (celluloid). In any event, the evolution of the documentary and its various
meanings has not ceased. As Grierson says in Grierson on documentary (1966), the various
works within the genre include forms and different intentions of observing reality and
organizing the material that has been extracted from it. A more precise definition of the concept
is therefore required. Using this approach, Grierson sets out three guiding principles for the
documentary. First, he argues that documentary film is a “new and vital art form [...] that can
photograph the living scene and the living story.” He also argues that the characters and scenes
taken from reality provide better opportunities for interpreting the modern world. Finally, he
considers that the material taken from the world can reflect the essence of reality, capture
spontaneous gestures and perform movements. In short, “The documentary is nothing more than
a creative treatment of actuality. The editing of sequences must therefore include not only
description and rhythm, but also comment and dialogue” (Grierson, 1966:36-37). He also says,
with regard to art and poetry:
“Realistic documentary, with streets and cities and slums and markets and exchanges and
factories, has given itself the job of making poetry when no poet has gone before it, and where
no ends, sufficient for the purposes of art, are easily observed. It requires not only taste but also
inspiration, which is to say a very notorious, deep-seeing, deep-sympathizing creative effort
indeed” (Grierson, 1966:37).
He believes that the documentary is a useful, educational and impersonal genre, able to develop
a discourse of sobriety, with connotations of authority, seriousness and honesty (Bruzzi,
2000:79). Grierson also makes a distinction between the documentary and other non-fiction
discourses based on the production of sequences ordered in time or space, and the construction
5
of a discourse is therefore the basis for its differentiation from other audiovisual forms, which
he believes are simpler (Cock, 2009:52).
Paul Rotha (1970:65), the British producer and director, says that documentary is synonymous
with “the film of specific interest about scientific, cultural and sociological subjects.” Grierson
disagrees with Rotha's definition and says that scientific or educational films are not strictly
documentaries. For Rotha, the documentary is “the use of the film medium to interpret
creatively and in social terms the life of the people as it exists in reality” (Rotha, 1970:5). Rotha
was a collaborator with Grierson, but also criticized some of his positions. He popularized the
term documentary in the academic world of cinema with his book The Film Till Now, published
in 1930, in which he refers to the various types of film, and places the documentary film in a
different category, which he defines based on its purpose and meaning, as follows (Cock,
2009:52-53):
“Documentary defines not subject or style, but approach. It denies neither trained actors nor the
advantages of staging. It justifies the use of every known technical artifice to gain its effect on
the spectator....To the documentary director the appearance of things and people is only
superficial. It is the meaning behind the thing and the significance underlying the person that
occupy his attention....Documentary approach to cinema differs from that of story-film not in its
disregard for craftsmanship, but in the purpose to which that craftsmanship is put. Documentary
is a trade just as carpentry or pot-making. The pot-maker makes pots, and the documentarian
documentaries” (quoted in Jack, 1989:61)
Michael Renov reminds us in Theorizing Documentary (1993) that the concept of the document
and its adjectivization as a documentary have a genealogy that can be linked to historicity, based
on the two roots of the term, one from Latin and one from Old French. The original Latin word,
docere, means the ability to teach, i.e. the conscious transmission of something that can be
learned. The Old French root denotes “evidence or proof”. Renov (1993:21-22) defines the
documentary form as “the more or less artful reshaping of the historical world,” in which four
modalities or functions may arise, which he calls rhetorical/aesthetic, which make up the
documentary text. These are to record, reveal or preserve; to persuade or promote; to analyze or
interrogate; and to express.
The standpoint of Bill Nichols in his book Representing Reality. Issues and Concepts in
Documentary (1991) has received the most attention from international academia. In this
theoretical work, Nichols suggests an open and rather unorthodox definition, based on a
multiple perspective. He believes that the documentary is a protean institution, consisting of a
corpus of texts, a set of viewers and a community of practitioners and conventional
practices that are subject to historical changes. He thereby sees the documentary as a
conceptual shift in film theory, as it is not merely defined simply in terms of the argument, the
6
purpose, the form, style and production methods, but instead he defines it by its changing nature
as a social construct. For this reason, the social network of production, filming, distribution and
promotion are constructed by the concept itself. Bill Nichols says:
“A good documentary stimulates discussion about its subject, not itself. This serves as many a
documentarist's motto, but it neglects to indicate how crucial rhetoric and form are to the
realization of this goal. Despite such a motto, documentary films raise a rich array of
historiographic, legal, philosophic, ethical, political and aesthetic issues [...] Rather than one,
three definitions of documentary suggest themselves since each definition contributes
something distinctive and helps identify different sets of concerns. Let us consider documentary
from the point of view of the filmmaker, the text and the viewer” (Nichols, 1991:42).
Nichols sets out three criteria for the definition of the documentary, with which he attempts to
cover most aspects involved in the complexity of the genre. Each criterion gives rise to a
definition that highlights different but complementary meanings.
The first definition, focused on the director's point of view, considers fiction in terms of
control: “One common but misleading way of defining documentary from the point of view of
filmmaker is in terms of control: documentary filmmakers exercise less control over their
subject than their fictional counterparts do” (Nichols, 1991: 42). As Bordwell and Thompson
(1995) argue, it is often possible to distinguish a documentary film from a fiction film based on
the degree of control exercised during the production. While in fiction almost all the factors are
controlled down to the smallest detail, the director of a documentary film only controls a few
variables in the preparation, filming and editing. However, what is ultimately uncontrollable by
the filmmaker is his subject, which is of necessity part of the story. As Nichols says, “by
addressing the historical domain, the documentarist is in a similar position to other practitioners
who lack control over what they do: social scientists, physicians, politicians, entrepreneurs,
engineers and revolutionaries.”
The second area of definition refers to the text. We will assume that the documentary genre is a
film genre like any other. The films included in this genre have some common characteristics.
As Nichols says:
“Each film establishes internal norms or structures of its own but these frequently share
common traits with the textual system or organizing pattern of other documentaries.
Documentaries take shape around an informing logic. The economy of the logic requires a
representation, case or argument about the historical world. The economy is basically
instrumental or pragmatic: it operates in terms of problem-solving. A paradigmatic structure for
documentary would involve the establishment of an issue or problem, the presentation of the
background to the problem, followed by an examination of its current extent or complexity,
often including more than one perspective or point of view. This would lead to a concluding
section where a solution or path toward a solution is introduced” (Nichols, 1991:48).
Nichols also mentions that the structure of the documentary text has parallels with other texts.
These parallels occur at various levels: they may belong to a movement, period, style or form. If
7
the documentary is considered as a genre, the subdivisions within the documentary may have
other names.
His third definition concerns the relationship between the documentary and receiver, i.e. the
figure of the viewer. He says that viewers develop skills based on an understanding and
interpretation of the process that enables them to understand the film. These procedures are a
type of methodical knowledge, derived from an active process of deduction, based on prior
knowledge and the text itself:
“This knowledge would encompass such things as recognizing the picture of Martin Luther
King, Jr. as the likeness of a historical figure, understanding that social dislocations can be
unified by an argument, assuming that social actors do not conduct themselves solely at the
behest of the filmmaker, and hypothesizing the presentation of a solution once a problem begins
to be described” (Nichols, 1991:55).
In his work Blurred Boundaries. Question of meaning in contemporary culture (1994), Nichols
summarizes the current state of the documentary as follows:
“Traditionally, the word documentary has suggested fullness and completion, knowledge and
fact, explanations of the social world and its motivating mechanisms. More recently, though,
documentary has come to suggest incompleteness and uncertainty, recollection and impression,
images of personal worlds and their subjective construction” (Nichols, 1994:1)
3.3 Proposed types of documentary
Despite the difficulties and differences in the proposals for classification of the documentary,
the various efforts are in themselves an interesting methodological tool for the study of
documentary and its discourse. The aim of this section is to present the most widely accepted
and recognized classifications within the academia of the documentary.
Since the 1980s, and especially in recent years, there has been a strong new conceptual
movement in non-fiction film, which has replaced or reworked many previous concepts and
practices. There are various theoretical trends, such as the semiological and psychoanalytic
model, represented by William Guynn; anthropological theory and information, represented by
Bill Nichols; deconstructionism and postmodernism, as in the ideas of Michael Reno; feminism
and postcolonialism, represented by Trinh T. Minh-Ha, and critical realism and cognitivism
(“post-theory”) as considered by Noël Carroll and Carl Plantinga. In this section, we discuss in
depth the classifications of Erik Barnouw, Michael Renov and Bill Nichols, in order to classify
the periods, movements, authors and works with the various proposals presented by the authors.
For reasons of space, we will omit other authors from our study, such as Peter I. Crawford
(Crawford 1992) and Elisenda Ardèvol (Ardèvol 1995 and 1996), whose proposals are included
in a final synoptic table (Table 3.1).
8
3.3.1 Barnouw and the historical modes.
In his book published in 1996, Documentary. A History of the Non-Fiction Film, Erik Barnouw
categorizes movements and series of films with similar stylistic characteristics and which fulfill
the same social function, and which take place at a specific historical point. The common link
in his classification is based on a particular profession or trade.
Barnouw's work begins with a brief description of the background and history that made the
invention of cinema possible. He begins by focusing his attention on Louis Lumière, who he
describes as a prophet (the invention of the Lumière brothers anticipated and prophesied
immense future possibilities). One of the first pioneers to take advantage of the Lumières' new
invention was Robert Flaherty, in a kind of anthropological and ethnographic documentary,
described by Barnouw as an explorer (based on the financed expeditions of the period, which
enabled the production of the first film in the genre); he then examines the role of the reporter
(the news genre, following the guidelines laid down by the Soviet propaganda of the time), with
one name in particular, Dziga Vertov. This is followed by the avant-garde and its innovative
contribution to the genre, described by Barnouw using the figure of the painter (documentary
filmmakers had very artistic and pictorial, as is apparent in their output) and emphasizing
authors such as Walter Ruttman, Jean Vigo and Joris Ivens. The documentary then adopted the
role of an advocate (the documentary within a social context, to defend the cause of the people
and society), in which the central figure of Grierson and the British school assumed a prominent
role. In preparation for the Second World War, he gives us the chapter discussing the bugler (in
which the author presents clear examples of the·propaganda films of World War II), the
exponents of which are Humphrey Jennings and Frank Capra. After the war, we look at the
Thorndikes, who feature in the chapter on the prosecutor (who judges and condemns the war
crimes of the Second World War) and the figure of the poet (characterized by a search for
metaphorical, everyday or neorealistic language), a chapter featuring Arne Sucksdorf and Bert
Haanstra. Towards the end of the book, the documentary is considered from the point of view of
the chronicler (based on the historical account of the late fifties and early sixties), with Jean
Rouch, and reaches the figure of the promoter (when works are sponsored by private institutions
and companies), with Edward Murrow, among others. Fred Wiseman and Richard Leacock
illustrate the chapter on the documentary observer (focused on the American direct cinema
U.S.), followed by Chris Marker and the documentary as a catalyst (which breaks down and
describes the French Cinema Verite), the guerilla (the showing of political and militant
documentaries of the sixties and seventies) and video production focusing on the figure of John
Alpert. By way of a conclusion, it features a lengthy closing chapter, the movement (which
covers the heterogeneous documentary of the eighties and nineties). The latest trends are not
included since it was published in 2001.
9
3.3.2 Renov and the modes of desire.
Michael Renov and Brian Winston adopt a deconstructive approach to the documentary.
Winston (1993:21) reflects on scientific and documentary discourse, and concludes that the
former has been invoked to legitimize the latter, and to become its standard. Renov (1993:2-3)
believes that the terms of the established hierarchy between fiction and nonfiction must be
displaced and transformed. “Nonfiction” is valuable as a category, but based on the assumption
that it must necessarily include elements of fiction and vice versa.
Renov says that a perspective that assumes that the documentary is a completely sober discourse
fails to understand the deep roots of non-fiction, because it is its distinctive historical status of
which distinguishes the documentary from its fictional counterparts, and not its formal
relationships. He concludes by saying that “the documentary shares the status of all discursive
forms with regard to its tropical or figurative character,” and following other contemporary
authors, he says that all forms of discourse, including the documentary, are at least fictitious if
they are not fictional (Renov, 1993: 8).
Michael Renov (1993) uses the theory of poetry for his classification, which is an area that is
far removed from that Barnouw, the historiographer. Renov proposes a division based on the
specific process of composition, function and effect, based on four fundamental trends or
aesthetic and rhetorical functions, which he says are modes of desire, which have been the
mainstay of the discourse on the documentary for decades. They are as follows:
1. To record, reveal or preserve. This mimetic function is common to all film, and very
closely associated with the documentary genre. This category could include anthropological
or ethnographic documentaries (mainly represented by Robert Flaherty) and even personal
diaries.
2. To persuade or promote. A function considered rhetorical by Renov, i.e. the search for
aesthetic and argumentative techniques of persuasion to achieve social and personal goals.
Examples include the British school and the Grierson-style documentary, but could also
include Night and Fog, by Alain Resnais, because for Renov persuasion is a technique that
cuts across through all the other functions.
3. To analyze or interrogate. A mimetic and rational function that is a more “cerebral” reflex
than the first mode, in which the aesthetic attitude seeks the active involvement of the
audience. This model includes the documentaries produced by the Direct Cinema and
Cinéma Vérité schools, although this function was also found in pioneering documentaries,
such as those by the Russian Dziga Vertov, or contemporary documentarists such as Alain
Resnais and Chris Marker.
4. To express. This is the aesthetic function, closely related to the documentary form, of
reality itself, but it has to date been the least highly valued and rejected because of the
10
prevailing scientific attitude in society. The aesthetic function is predominant in many
schools, such as the avant-garde, when the documentary is similar to pictorial arts or poetry,
or Robert Flaherty's anthropological documentaries.
Renov acknowledges that these methods are not specific to the documentary, or exclusive of
anything that is not a documentary, but he argues that they bear witness to the historical richness
and variety of forms of non-fiction in the visual arts and its rhetorical possibilities.
3.3.3 Nichols and the modes of representation
Nichols' model has been the most extensively studied and criticized in the area of contemporary
film theory. His categories are based on the combination of variables of filming styles and
material practices. The first classifications were based on the narratological distinction between
direct and indirect styles, which evolved until there were four basic documentary modes: the
expository, the observational, the reflexive, and the interactive (Burton, 1990)3. In her
subsequent work, she changed the interactive mode for the participatory mode and introduced
two new modes - the poetic and reflective. Finally, in her third book, she revises and extends
her previous work and incorporates the performance mode.
According to Nichols says (1991:65), situations and events, actions and issues, can be
represented in different ways. The modes of representation are basic ways of organizing texts in
relation to some recurrent characteristics or conventions. The author insists that his analysis and
categories have a historical chronology, as new models are developed as a result of
dissatisfaction with the predominant model in a given period, although this does not prevent the
coexistence of specific movements or documentaries within the same period. Nichols put it as
follows:
“New modes convey a fresh, new perspective on reality. Gradually, the conventional nature of
this mode of representation becomes increasingly apparent: an awareness of norms and
conventions to which a given text adheres begins to frost the window onto reality. The time for
a new mode is then at hand” (Nichols, 1991:66).
In his more recent books, Bill Nichols talks about the rhetorical nature of the documentary,
although he does so hesitantly and with some inconsistencies. In Representing Reality (1991) he
separates rhetoric from style: “Rhetoric moves us away from style, to the other end of the axis
between author and viewer” (Nichols, 1991:181) and he associates it with argumentation and
3
The origin of the four modes began as a distinction between the direct and indirect modes in Nichols'
work Ideology and the image. Julianne Burton reviewed and put the finishing touches to the initial
distinction, and made it into a four-part categorisation, in “Toward a History of Social Documentary in
Latín America”, in her anthology The Social Documentary in Latín America (1990).
11
persuasion of a more ideological and almost misleading nature: “rhetoric involves making a
persuasive case, not describing and assessing damaging or less appealing facts, though their
disclosure would be necessary” (Nichols, 1991:183).
In his book Introduction to documentary (2001), Nichols continues to argue, less forcefully but
directly, that the documentary is a rhetorical form and cites several classical figures, such as
Cicero, Quintilian and Aristotle to justify this claim. Furthermore, he argues that the voice of
the documentary is the voice of oratory: the voice of the filmmaker who adopts a position on
aspects of the historical world and who is convincing about his own merits. This position
contradicts the aspects of the world that are open to debate (i.e. those not based on scientific
evidence, which depend on understanding, interpretation, values and judgment). Nichols points
out that this mode of representation requires a way of speaking that is fundamentally different to
logic and narrative. This is rhetoric, although he once again associates it with argument, and
clearly separates it from scientific and literary discourses, which are also always present
(Nichols, 2001:49). There are six modes of representation in the documentary described by
Nichols:
1. The expository mode. This is associated with the classic documentary, and based on
illustrating an argument using images. It is a rhetorical rather than an aesthetic mode,
aimed directly at the viewer, using text titles or phrases to guide the image and to
emphasize the idea of objectivity and logical argument. It emerged from the
disappointment generated by the poor entertainment quality of fiction films. Key
examples of this mode are the socio-ethnographic expeditions (anthropology in
documentary films, especially in the work of Robert Flaherty) and the British
documentary movement (social objectives in documentary film, led by John Grierson
and the documentarists of the British school) (Nichols, 1991:68-72 and Nichols,
2001:105-109).
2. The poetic mode. Its origin is linked to the emergence of artistic avant-gardes in
cinema, and that is why it uses many of the devices typical of other arts (fragmentation,
subjective impressions, surrealism, etc.). It is a mode that has reappeared at different
times and which is experiencing a resurgence in many contemporary documentaries. It
aims to create a specific mood and tone rather than to provide the viewer with
information, as is the case with the expository and observational modes. This mode
includes the avant-garde of the 1920s and 1930s (the aesthetic objective in documentary
film led by Walter Ruttman, Jean Vigo and Joris Ivens) and the films verging on art and
neo-realism (the artistic and poetic purpose of the documentary language as embodied
12
by the contributions of Arne Sucksdorf and Bert Haanstra) (Nichols, 1991:72-78 and
Nichols, 2001:102-105).
3. The reflexive mode. The purpose of this mode is to raise the audience’s awareness of
the means of representation itself and the devices that have given it authority. The film
is not considered a window on the world, but is instead considered a construct or
representation of it, and it aims for the viewer to adopt a position that is critical of any
form of representation. Nichols considers this to be the most self-critical and selfconscious mode. It arose from the desire to make the conventions of representation
more evident, and to put to the test the impression of reality that the other modes
usually transmitted without any problem (in his first study in 1991, Nichols established
four basic modes based on the book The Social Documentary in Latin America by
Julianne Burton). This is the most introspective mode - it uses many of the resources
found in other types of documents, but it takes them to the limit, so that the viewer's
attention is focused on both the resource and the effect. This mode includes the news
documented in Russia in the early years of the twentieth century (the ideological
objective in documentary film, led by Dziga Vertov) and some more contemporary
authors such as Jill Godmilow and Raul Ruiz, among others (Nichols, 1991:93-114 and
Nichols, 2001:125-130).
4. The observational mode. This mode is represented by the French Cinema Verite and
the American Direct Cinema film movements, which despite their major differences,
both benefited from technological developments (portable, lightweight and synchronous
equipment) in the early 1960s. Together with a more open and coherent set of filmic
and narrative theories, these enabled a different approach to the subject matter, and the
directors prioritized a spontaneous and direct observation of reality. It arose as a result
of disagreement with the moralizing aim of the expository documentary. This mode
allowed the director to record reality without becoming involved in what people were
doing when they were not explicitly looking into the camera. Of particular interest in
this category are the Cinema Verite movement in France, the Direct Cinema movement
in the U.S.A. and Candid Eye in Canada (the sociological focus of the documentary
film, led by Jean Rouch, Edgar Morin and Mario Ruspolli, among others) (Nichols,
1991:66 and Nichols, 2001:109-115).
5. The participatory mode (in its interactive origins). This mode was mainly used in
ethnographic film and in social theories of participatory investigation, and presents the
relationship between the filmmaker and the filmed subject. The director becomes an
investigator and enters unknown territory, participates in the lives of others, and gains
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direct and in-depth experience and reflection from the film. This mode of representation
is present in films such as Celovek kinoapparatom (Vertov, 1929) and Chronique d'un
été (Rouch and Morin, 1960). The observational mode limited the director to the present
and required a disciplined detachment from events. The participatory documentary
makes the director's perspective clearer, involving him/her in the discourse that is being
produced. The directors wanted to make contact with individuals in a more direct way,
without returning to the classical exhibitory format, and this led to interview styles and
various interventionist tactics, which enabled the producer to participate more actively
in the events. He could also become the narrator of the story, or explain what happened
by means of witnesses and/or experts. These comments were often added to archive
footage to facilitate reconstructions and to prevent endless and omniscient commentary.
The outstanding figures were Jean Rouch, Emile de Antonio and Connie Filed, among
others (Nichols, 1991:78-93 and Nichols, 2001:115-125).
6. The performance mode. The final mode introduced by Nichols, which appeared
relatively recently, calls into question the foundations of traditional documentary film
and raises doubts about the boundaries that have traditionally been established by the
genre of fiction. It focuses interest on expressiveness, poetry and rhetoric, rather than on
the desire for realistic representation. The emphasis is shifted to the evocative qualities
of the text, rather than its representational capacity, and once again focuses on more
contemporary artistic avant-gardes. This new mode of representation emerged from the
previous modes and the shortcomings or flaws in the classic modes, according to
various authors. An obvious example is the American director Michael Moore, among
others (Nichols, 1994:92-106 and Nichols, 2001:130-138).
In short, Nichols says that each mode uses the resources of narrative and realism in a different
way, and uses common ingredients to produce different kinds of text with ethical issues, textual
structures and standard expectations among the viewers. The following overview (Table 3.1)
provides a comparison of the main features of the classifications by the three authors studied,
plus those by Crawford (1992) and Ardèvol (1995 and 1996).
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3.1 EQUIVALENCES BETWEEN THE VARIOUS CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE
DOCUMENTARY GENRE
BILL NICHOLS
Modes of
representing reality
ERIK
BARNOW
Historical
modes (social
functions
and/or tasks)
Prophet
Explorer
Reporter
Advocate
Bugler
Prosecutor
Chronicler
Promoter
Painter
POETIC
Poet
Reporter
REFLECTIVE
Contemporary
Observer
OBSERVATIONAL
Catalyst
Guerilla
EXPOSITORY
PARTICIPATORY
(INTERACTIVE)
PERFORMANCE
Contemporary
(The
movement)
Contemporary
(The
movement)
MICHAEL
RENOV
Modes of
desire
PETER L.
CRAWFORD
Visual
anthropology
modes
Record
Reveal
Preserve
Perspicuous
Mode
ELISENDA
ARDÉVOL
Historical
movements
and a
combination
of filming
factors,
collaboration
models and
filming
Explanatory
cinema
Persuade
Promote
Express
Analyze
Interrogate
Analyze
Interrogate
Evocative
Mode
Experiential
Mode
Express
Experiential
Mode
Evocative
Mode
Experiential
Mode
Express
Reflexive
cinema
Observational
cinema
Cinema Verité
Direct cinema
Participatory
cinema
Evocative Deconstructionist
3.1 Equivalences between the various classifications of the documentary
3.3.4 Critical definitions
It is quite clear that the categories studied by Barnouw, renew and Nichols are incomplete and
present problems, as is the case with any classification that one attempts to establish.
As we have seen, the documentary has been a vaguely defined genre since its beginnings. In
the documentary genre, reality is apparently transparent, pure, without any manipulation, in
contrast to the fiction film. The coexistence of documentary and fiction in modern cinema has
15
crossed the ethical and aesthetic boundaries of both genres, and has now reached the point
where the boundaries between reality and fiction are unknown. An example of this concept (in
the present day) is the mockumentary, one of the latest manifestations of the convergence
between the documentary and fiction. The case of the mockmentary is interesting: it is based on
a series of false events, using the techniques and mechanisms typical of the documentary genre,
which sometimes leads to intelligent parodies that question the objectivity and the essential
characteristics of the genre itself. The mockmentary is one of the more obvious manifestations
of debatable boundaries between genres, and creates some uncertainty at macrogenre level, as
regards where the boundaries between reality and narrative structures lie. It is something else
that must be added to this period of overall mistrust or suspicion period. However, the
conventional proposals for classification of the documentary examined above, while useful, and
even educational in some cases, have some problems and limitations that should be borne in
mind.
The grouping of documentaries by social function proposed by Barnouw may have been useful
for the pedagogical structuring of his book, and indeed the merit of having compiled, described
and exemplified the main stages in the history of the genre should be attributed to him. In
addition, the book eschews academicism and a rigid indexing structure, as in the case of the
book by Richard M. Barsam, Nonfiction Film: a Critical History (1992), and presents the
history as if it were a story, with a narrative style that seems to have come from a good novel, in
an enjoyable way with anecdotes that give it a tone of originality. However, the chapters (seen
in terms of phases or categories that are broken down) present problems in terms of an in-depth
analysis, as centering and focusing the genre on the subordination of a series of functions means
that other important issues must be left to one side. With this classification system, Barnouw
creates a type of sealed compartment which includes various directors and films, and by doing
so he rejects the interconnectedness between individuals and movements and the many
possibilities deriving from them (Cock, 2006:14). From this standpoint, the classifications
created by other authors, such as Nichols and Barsam, are much more illuminating and
comprehensible: Nichols presents fewer modes and describes them in depth, and Barsam
focuses on historical periods, and makes a distinction between the two World Wars and the
interwar and postwar periods (and thereby creates partitions in chronological time, which is a
way of clearly defining different periods). However, Barsam offers no clear categorization, but
simply sets out the history and the most important movements.
According to Cock (2006) Renov's categories are not exclusive or closed and can be
extrapolated to other areas, which sets his argument apart from the theoretical approach
advocated by Barnouw. However, the shortcomings in Renov's analytical model are quite
similar to those of Barnouw. Renov says that his categorization is not chronological or
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evolutionary, in an indirect criticism of Nichols, and yet he constantly directly associates part of
his categories with historical documentary movements and makes judgments that demonstrate a
scale of values between the function deemed the most basic (to record, reveal and preserve) and
the most complex (to analyze, interrogate and express). This categorization limits the use of
non-fiction films, which can be as varied as the uses of fiction films or of human
communication itself. (Cock, 2006:16)
As for Nichols, although there is a consistent linear chronology and an implicit trend towards a
complexity and multiplicity of modes, in reality many of these modes have potentially been
available since the birth of documentary film and the history of independent film. Each mode
has experienced a period of dominance in particular regions or countries, but the modes also
tend to combine and change within specific films. Today, the oldest and most traditional
approaches are not disappearing, but are instead coexisting with new ones that emerge. What
works at a particular time and what counts as a realistic representation of the historical world is
not simply a matter of progress toward a definite form of expressing the truth, but rather of
struggles for power and authority within the historical context itself (Nichols, 1991:67).
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