Introduction to Documentary

1. Documentary's Core Identity: Representation, Not Reproduction

But documentary is not a reproduction of reality, it is a representation of the world we already occupy.

Defining documentary. Unlike fiction films that create imagined worlds, documentaries engage with the historical world we inhabit. They are not mere copies of reality but rather carefully constructed representations that offer a particular view or perspective. This distinction is crucial because it shapes how we judge them—not by their fidelity to an original, but by the value of the insight, knowledge, or orientation they provide.

Beyond simple facts. While photographic images and sound recordings possess an extraordinary fidelity to what they capture, this "indexical" quality alone doesn't define a documentary. The raw footage, like a fingerprint, bears the physical imprint of its source, but a documentary transforms this raw material into something more. It organizes these elements to convey meaning, hint at symptoms, and express values, moving beyond simple factual reporting to offer a distinct point of view.

Audience expectations. Viewers approach documentaries with the fundamental assumption that the sounds and images originate from the shared historical world. This belief in authenticity, or "indexical whammy," is powerful, even if the representation itself can be subtly or overtly fabricated. Documentaries activate a "desire to know" (epistephilia) about the world, promising information, insight, and awareness that pertains to our collective reality.

2. Ethics: The Filmmaker's Responsibility to Social Actors

What responsibility do filmmakers have for the effect of their acts on the lives of those filmed?

Social actors, not performers. A central ethical dilemma in documentary filmmaking revolves around the treatment of "people." Unlike actors in fiction, individuals in documentaries are "social actors" who continue to live their lives, their value to the filmmaker residing in their authentic behavior and personality. This raises profound questions about the filmmaker's impact on their subjects' lives, as the act of filming can inadvertently alter behavior or reveal unforeseen aspects of their existence.

Informed consent complexities. The principle of "informed consent," common in fields like anthropology and medicine, is difficult to apply perfectly in documentary. Filmmakers must consider what consequences or risks they should disclose to subjects, and to what extent they can honestly foretell the actual effects of a film. The line between observation and manipulation can blur, as seen in cases where subjects' behavior might be influenced by the camera's presence or where deceptive practices are employed to make a point, as in No Lies.

Filmmaker-subject dynamics. The relationship between filmmaker and subject is often one of unequal power, leading to ethical tensions. Filmmakers, representing institutions or their own artistic vision, may exploit subjects for a compelling narrative. Ethical considerations become a measure of how negotiations about this relationship impact both subjects and viewers. The film's "voice" itself can betray the filmmaker's engagement, revealing a willingness to acknowledge or disguise the reality of the moment.

3. Voice: The Filmmaker's Expressive Engagement with Reality

The voice of documentary, then, is the means by which this particular point of view or perspective becomes known to us.

Beyond spoken words. The "voice" of a documentary is not limited to verbal commentary but encompasses all the means at the filmmaker's disposal: the selection and arrangement of sound and image, editing choices, camera angles, use of music, and adherence to or departure from chronology. This voice reveals the filmmaker's distinct form of engagement with the historical world, imbuing the film with ethical and political accountability. It's "style plus" a sense of responsibility.

Explicit vs. implicit voice. A documentary's voice can be explicit, as in "voice-of-God" or "voice-of-authority" commentary that directly addresses the viewer and lays out a clear argument. Alternatively, it can be implicit, conveyed through perspective where the filmmaker's viewpoint is embedded in the selection and arrangement of images, inviting the audience to "see for yourself" and infer meaning. Both approaches aim to shape the viewer's understanding, but with different levels of directness.

Oratorical purpose. Ultimately, the voice of documentary is often oratorical, aiming to take a position on a contentious aspect of the historical world and persuade the audience of its merits. This involves making choices about:

• Framing and composition: Close-ups, long shots, angles, lighting.
• Sound design: Synchronous sound, voice-overs, music, effects.
• Editing: Juxtaposition, chronology, archival footage.
• Mode of representation: Poetic, expository, observational, participatory, reflexive, performative.
  These choices collectively embody the film's argument and its unique way of speaking to the audience.

4. Rhetoric: Persuading Audiences on Contested Social Issues

Documentary work does not appeal primarily or exclusively to our aesthetic sensibility: it may entertain or please, but does so in relation to a rhetorical or persuasive effort aimed at the existing social world.

Addressing the undecidable. Documentaries frequently tackle issues that defy scientific proof or universal agreement, such as social policies, historical interpretations, or moral assessments. In these contested terrains, rhetoric—the art of persuasion—becomes indispensable. Documentaries aim to convince, persuade, or predispose audiences to a particular view of the actual world, activating social consciousness alongside aesthetic awareness.

Classic rhetorical divisions. The topics documentaries address often align with three classic divisions of rhetoric:

• Legislative/Deliberative: Encouraging or discouraging public action, focusing on future policy (e.g., Housing Problems, Why Vietnam?).
• Judicial/Historical: Evaluating past actions, seeking truth or justice (e.g., Shoah, The Thin Blue Line, The Fall of the Romanov Dynasty).
• Ceremonial/Panegyric: Praising or blaming, establishing attitudes toward people or accomplishments (e.g., Nanook of the North, Paris Is Burning).
  These divisions highlight how documentaries engage with public debates, shaping values and beliefs.

The power of metaphor. Documentaries often use metaphors to describe complex concepts like love, war, or family, enriching dictionary definitions with moral, social, and political coloration. By showing specific instances—such as images of dead bodies as a metaphor for "war is hell" in The Battle of San Pietro—films create a sensuous, immediate experience that also functions as a powerful metaphorical representation. This oscillation between the specific and the general allows documentaries to convey profound meaning and persuade audiences of a particular orientation or assessment of an issue.

5. Origins: A Confluence of Documentation, Poetry, Narrative, and Oratory

The recognition of documentary as a distinct film form becomes less a question of the origin or evolution of these different elements than of their combination at a given historical moment.

Beyond early cinema's allure. While early cinema, exemplified by Louis Lumière's films, showcased an "uncanny ability to capture life as it is" and a "cinema of attractions" delighted in spectacle, these alone did not constitute documentary. The capacity for rigorous documentation also served scientific purposes, which often minimized the filmmaker's voice. Documentary proper emerged when these foundational elements combined with more expressive and persuasive forms.

Four pillars of documentary's rise. Documentary found its distinct voice in the 1920s and early 1930s through the integration of four key elements:

• Display and Documentation: The camera's ability to record and present aspects of the real world.
• Poetic Experimentation: From the modernist avant-garde, emphasizing the filmmaker's unique way of seeing and transforming raw material (e.g., Joris Ivens's The Bridge, Dziga Vertov's The Man with a Movie Camera).
• Narrative Story-telling: Refined techniques for plot, character, and editing, applied to historical events (e.g., Italian neo-realism's influence).
• Rhetorical Oratory: The deliberate effort to speak about the historical world from a particular perspective and persuade an audience.
  This synthesis allowed for complex films that went beyond mere recording or entertainment.

Institutionalization and political purpose. Key figures like Dziga Vertov in the Soviet Union and John Grierson in Britain were instrumental in establishing documentary's institutional base and defining its social purpose. Vertov's "kino-eye" aimed to construct a new Soviet society through cinematic truth, while Grierson championed government-sponsored films to foster national identity and address social issues. This period solidified documentary as a genre with a distinct voice, capable of framing national agendas and proposing courses of action, often with a didactic or ameliorative intent.

6. Six Modes: Diverse Approaches to Representing the World

Each mode possesses examples that we can identify as prototypes or models: they seem to give exemplary expression to the most distinctive qualities of that mode.

A flexible framework. Documentary filmmaking is characterized by six primary modes of representation: poetic, expository, observational, participatory, reflexive, and performative. These modes function like sub-genres, offering distinct conventions and audience expectations. While they emerged chronologically, they are not evolutionary steps; all modes remain available to filmmakers today, often mixed and matched within a single film.

Evolution and critique. Each mode often arose from a perceived dissatisfaction with previous approaches, driven by technological advancements or changing social contexts. For example:

• Poetic (1920s): Emphasizes mood, tone, and subjective impressions, transforming historical material aesthetically (Rain, Free Fall).
• Expository (1920s): Directly addresses issues with verbal commentary and argumentative logic, using images to illustrate (Why We Fight, The City).
• Observational (1960s): Captures events as they happen with an unobtrusive camera, minimizing filmmaker intervention (Primary, High School).
• Participatory (1960s): Features direct interaction between filmmaker and subject, often through interviews, highlighting the encounter itself (Chronicle of a Summer, Harlan County, U.S.A.).
• Reflexive (1980s): Questions documentary form and representation, making the audience aware of the film's constructedness (The Man with a Movie Camera, Surname Viet Given Name Nam).
• Performative (1980s): Stresses the subjective and expressive aspects of the filmmaker's engagement, often autobiographical, to evoke emotional understanding (Tongues Untied, Night and Fog).
  Each mode offers a unique way to engage with and interpret the historical world.

Beyond "better" to "different." New modes don't necessarily represent an "improvement" but rather a different set of emphases and implications. They signal a new dominant for organizing a film, a new ideology for relating to reality, and new issues to preoccupy an audience. This dynamic interplay ensures documentary remains a lively and vital genre, constantly adapting to represent the world afresh.

7. Politics: From National Identity to Hybrid Identities

The politics of documentary film and video addresses the ways in which documentary helps give tangible expression to the values and beliefs that build, or contest, specific forms of social belonging, or community, at a given time and place.

Community and ideology. Documentaries are deeply intertwined with the construction of community and national identity. Early Soviet cinema, for instance, aimed to forge a "new man" and a unified culture through revolutionary narratives. Similarly, John Grierson's British documentaries sought to build national consensus around government policies. However, this often came at the cost of suppressing alternative values and portraying marginalized groups as passive "victims" awaiting amelioration, as critiqued by Brian Winston.

Contesting the status quo. An alternative tradition of politically engaged documentary emerged to challenge dominant narratives. Groups like the Workers' Film and Photo Leagues in the 1920s and 30s, and later Newsreel in the 1960s and 70s, produced films from the perspective of the working class and social movements. These films, often participatory and collective, aimed for empowerment and radical social change, directly opposing government policies and fostering community from a grass-roots level.

Identity politics and hybridity. The late 20th century saw a shift towards "identity politics," where documentaries gave voice to suppressed minorities—women, ethnic groups, LGBTQ+ individuals. These films recovered lost histories and proclaimed identities, often using performative and reflexive modes to explore subjective experiences and challenge stereotypes. More recently, filmmakers like Chris Marker and Trinh T. Minh-ha have explored "hybrid identities" and the experience of diaspora, questioning the stability of categories and acknowledging the fluid, provisional nature of identity in a complex, globalized world.

8. The Personal and the Political: Intertwined Perspectives

The political voice of these documentaries embodies the perspectives and visions of communities that share a history of exclusion and a goal of social transformation.

Two lenses on reality. Documentaries often navigate a spectrum between emphasizing broad "social issues" and focusing on "personal portraiture." Social issue documentaries, like Why We Fight, use individuals to illustrate larger societal problems, while personal portrait documentaries, such as Nanook of the North or Silverlake Life, explore social issues through the intimate experiences of individuals. Both approaches aim to engage viewers, but from distinct angles.

Bridging the divide. The most compelling documentaries often reveal the profound interconnections between individual lives and larger political structures. Films like Hoop Dreams or Tongues Untied build outward from central characters to illuminate broader issues of race, class, and sexuality, demonstrating how personal experiences are shaped by, and in turn challenge, societal norms. This approach animates the personal, making it a powerful entry point to understanding the political.

Beyond explanation to understanding. Documentaries serve a dual purpose: to explain aspects of the world through concepts and categories, and to foster deeper understanding through empathy and insight. While explanations drive action and problem-solving, understanding acknowledges the complexity of human experience and the values at stake. By engaging with both the individual and societal dimensions, documentaries move us to confront questions of power, hierarchy, and ideology, ultimately striving to effect change in the world we inhabit.

Last updated: January 9, 2026