The History of the Genre of Documentary - Report Example

s The History of the Genre of Documentary The history of documentary is as old as the history of cinema- in fact the first moving film was actually a documentary, which originated in France in the form of silent films. “Since the early days of motion pictures, when the Lumiere brothers challenged the world in 1895 with the inventions of the Cinematographe, France has frequently been at the cutting edge of film production.” (Lanzoni, 17) In this regard, documentary is the oldest genre of television and cinema. It is different from other genres of television media because it is based on knowledge, facts, testimony and observation of the people that have witnessed or experienced a historical, social, or political event. The subject matter of documentaries is varied and so are the ways to make them and to present them. “Corner distinguishes four main uses to which documentary have been put that may help with a definition: exposition, testimony, observation and diversion.” (Chapman, 18) In the exposition phase, the subject of the documentary is revealed by the narrator(s). This prepares the audience for the upcoming revelations about an event, person, place etc. The exposition usually consists of all the available facts and historical background of the subject matter. As documentaries are non-fiction, therefore it is important to reveal as much information about the subject matter as possible, in order to present a solid case about something. The audience may be introduced to the main characters or the causal factors of event being documented. One of the main aims of the exposition phase is also to inform and educate the audience about something that happened in reality; while testimony establishes the truth about the findings investigated and presented in a documentary. Testimonies may be recorded as interviews, or recollections of the people that are directly or indirectly involved in the case being documented. Thus the audience gets to know about it from different perspectives of different people. This way, the audience is also given a chance to look at a matter from their personal approach instead of forcing an opinion upon them. Observation is also a fundamental aspect of documentary as it conveys to the audience the personal perspectives of people that witnessed or experienced something. While observation and testimony are closely related, observation gives a wider scope to the subject being documented because different people observe things in different ways and based on their observations, reenactments can be produced in a more life-like manner. In the earlier documentaries, the feature of diversion did not exist; but with the evolution of this genre, documentarians began to use diversion as an entertaining tool, which helped in creating interesting angles in a documentary. Diversion in documentary refers to “…popular entertainment, voyeuristic reality shows, or fast-moving coverage of incidents or situations…” (Saunders, 26) Thus, diversion is a recent development in the genre of documentary which adds an entertaining element to it. Perhaps, this feature was introduced to attract more audience and to compete with other genres of television that are based on fiction. Interesting aspects of the subject being documented help in creating greater viewership. It also allows more flexibility in the presentation of facts, observation and testimony in a documentary. Mere factual presentation of events may be boring for many people; therefore, diversion in documentary is an important tool to entertain the audience while conveying important facts. While the primary aim of a documentary is to inform or to educate the audience; diversion makes it entertaining so as to compete with other entertaining genres, thus taking the genre of documentary to another level. The first documentaries produced were mere video shots of events that actually happened. The moving images conveyed the whole story behind the documentary without any sound. The era of silent films led to further development and advancement in media technologies, which gradually added other features like voice-over and re-enactment. The sound effect had a great impact on the way documentaries were presented and how they were perceived by the audience. The voice-over format introduced one or more narrators, or characters that explained the whole story to the audience. The typical film of advocacy was shot like a silent film, with ‘voice-over’ narration added. This had almost become the standard documentary form… In the voice-over format, some narrators were characterized but most were abstract voices. Some were calm but most were resonant with authority, and backed by impressive music. These were becoming documentary clichés. (Eric, 131) The voice-over format added an element of drama in documentary and prophesied further innovations within this domain. The moods of the different parts of the documentary were conveyed to the audience by generating audio effects. Music was also used as a powerful tool to create drama in documentary films. Thus, the effect created by the audio-visual techniques was profound on the audience, and this is how the foundation of such documentary clichés was laid. Different human voices with different tones help in narrating the case of a documentary because it conveys different emotions or opinions. Thus, the audience can see through a wide spectrum of human experiences regarding an event. The first official documentary or non-fiction narrative film was Robert Flahertys Nanook of the North (1922), an ethnographic look at the harsh life of Canadian Inuit Eskimos living in the Arctic, although some of the films scenes of obsolete customs were staged. Flaherty, often regarded as the "Father of the Documentary Film," also made the landmark film Moana (1926) about Samoan Pacific islanders. (Filmsite.org) The subject matter of Nanook of the North (1922) was the harsh life of the Eskimos living in the Arctic. Though most of the film was shot at the actual place, yet certain scenes like the obsolete customs had to be staged, which was not possible to shoot in real time. Perhaps this was done to give fine detailing to the documentary and to present such scenes to the audience that were essential to the documentary. Thus, the feature of reenactment in documentary films was introduced in the very first film and this tradition strengthened with the passage of time. It was an optimal solution for presenting such scenes that could not be recorded on site for any reason. The fact that the first two documentaries by Flaherty were about the lives of the people living in remote places like the Arctic and the Pacific islands points to the fact that his main aim was to inform and to educate the audience about the actual facts about life. The way documentaries are being made and presented is constantly evolving; in fact, its sub-genres: travel shows and Reality TV, have also emerged over the time. Travel shows are mostly shot at original locations and give an insight about a country’s political, social, international, and cultural aspects from different points of view. The approach of presenting documentaries has also changed over the time. Initially, it focused on the external motives of an event but lately, documentaries are more about personal outlooks on a particular event. This is a drastic shift in the history of documentary films because the entire perspective of presenting the facts is altered. Bill Nicholas said, 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. (Bruzzi, 103) In the early years of documentary-making, it was believed that documentary was supposed to bring the complete picture to the audience. Whatever was brought forward consisted of facts based on observation and experiences; hence it was considered complete. The aim of documentaries was to answer all the questions in the minds of the audience, and to present all the available facts in order to reach a conclusion; thus, hardly anyone ever doubted about the explanations presented in a documentary. It was often supposed to give a final verdict about an event. However, as time passed by, documentary film makers started leaving some open ends, so that it may lead to further investigations in the future, if required. Moreover, in many instances, the events recorded are not the actual events that happened but a reenactment based on the available facts on that matter. Thus, documentary is no longer about the actual facts but a recollection of the persons that witnessed it. It is more about how people perceived it from their personal experiences rather than the causal factors that made a specific event happen in time. This shift from the social to personal perspective is a significant development of the genre of documentary, which initially developed merely to present actual scenes from real life in the form of moving images to the audience. Documentary is a popular genre of television media as it brings the facts of life to the people in an entertaining and informative way, while following the current trends of television media. Work Cited Bruzzi, Stella. New Docmentary: A Critical Introduction. London: Routledge, 2000. Print. Chapman, Jane. Issues in contemporary Documentary. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2009. Print. Eric, Barnow. Documentary: A History of the Non-Fiction Film. (2nd Ed.) New York: OUP, 1974. Print. Lanzoni, Remi. French Cinema: From It’s Beginning to the Present. New York: The Continuum International Publishing Group Inc., 2005. Print. Saunders, Dave. Documentary. Oxon: Routledge, 2010. Print. “Documentary Films”. Film Site. Web. 14 Dec. 2012. http://www.filmsite.org/docfilms.html Read More