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CHAPTER 8
DOCUMENTARY FILMS: REPRESENTING THE REAL
KEY OBJECTIVES
• Recognize that documentary films are best distinguished as cultural practices.
• Describe how documentary films employ nonfictional and non-narrative images and forms.
• Identify how documentary movies make and draw on specific historical heritages.
• Explain the common formal strategies and organizations used in documentary films.
• Summarize how documentary films have become associated with cultural values and traditions from which
we develop filmic meaning.
CHAPTER OVERVIEW
Chapter 8 is the second chapter in the section dealing with movie genres and narrative, documentary, and
experimental films. This chapter is devoted to documentary film, a term that was first coined in 1926 to describe the
visual and auditory representation of real events and actual experiences. The chapter begins with a short historical
overview of documentaries, from the traveling exhibitions of the 1890s to the digital documentaries of today. It then
TEACHING THE OPENING VIGNETTE
Zero Days offers students an opportunity to consider the ways in which documentary filmmakers have engaged
creatively and imaginatively in their practice. While students may not associate these terms—“creative” and
“imaginative”—with documentary films, Gibney’s film demonstrates how vital creativity and imagination are to the
practice of documentary filmmaking. Errol Morris uses dramatic reenactments in provocative and illuminating ways
in his acclaimed documentary The Thin Blue Line (1988); and while computer generated imaging is a late twentieth
and early twenty-first century development, the use of optical effects was an essential component of Dziga Vertov’s
The Man with the Movie Camera (1929). Some traditions in documentary filmmaking stress an objective non-
engagement with events (cinema verité and direct cinema), but it might be instructive to remind students of the
section in Chapter 2 on Soviet Silent Films (pp. 62). While Vertov was committed to non-fiction filmmaking, he
understood that “cinema elicits different ideas and responses according to how images are structured and edited.”
Compare the opening moments from The Man with the Movie Camera with some of the fast-paced montage
sequences of cityscapes in Zero Days. Consider, too, the self-reflexive moments of the latter, particularly Gibney’s
voiceover in which he expresses frustration in his efforts to solicit answers from military personnel.
TEACHING THE CHAPTER
Documentary cinema has generated numerous and complex traditions, from the many types of social
documentaries to the many kinds of ethnographic films. As a form, it sometimes overlaps and exchanges tactics with
narrative cinema, but documentary films emphasize the educational pleasure of obtaining new information or insight
about events, people, and even ideas. The strategies and formal features that these films use include expositional
organizations that contrast, accumulate, or develop facts and figures. In addition, documentaries can occupy any
number of rhetorical positions to explore, analyze, persuade, or even “perform” the world. Documentaries provoke
us to see the world with fresh eyes.
To teach this chapter, draw parallels between documentary’s educational and intellectual objectives with the
way in which this course also aims to lead students’ intellectual activities down new paths. Members of the class are
more knowledgeable about documentary cinema than they may realize. Emphasize that many of the broadcasts on
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From a Historical Perspective
1930–1945: The Politics and Propaganda of Documentary: Consider comparing Triumph of the Will with U.S.
propaganda films like the Why We Fight series (1943–1945) or even certain racist and nationalistic Warner Bros.
cartoons, such as Herr Meets Hare (1945).
From a Formal Perspective
A fun way to explain exposition to students is to look at the character Basil Exposition from Austin Powers:
International Man of Mystery (1997) and discuss his role in providing the movie’s backstory.
Teaching Technical Vocabulary and Key Concepts
One way to evaluate students’ comprehension would be to administer short quizzes after screenings. Ask
students to name the major and minor characters in the film, describe the organizational patterns, list the narrative
time and locations, and identify the kind of narration or rhetorical position used. Ask students to use as much
technical vocabulary as possible to describe what new or ignored realities the film reveals and what assumptions and
opinions it confronts.
TEACHING THE VIEWING CUES
Nonfiction and Non-Narrative, p. 292
Is the film you have just seen in class best described as nonfiction or non-narrative? What elements helped you
decide which categorization was more appropriate?
Assign this Viewing Cue to students to complete after your screening to guide post-film discussion, or use it as an
exam question. Alternatively, consider screening an excerpt from a documentary like Planet Earth (2006), which uses
voiceover narration and music to sculpt narratives around images of nature. Ask students whether a documentary that
contains stories but does not truly tell a story is nonfiction or non-narrative.
Expositions: Organizations That Show or Describe, p. 295
Examine carefully the organization of this clip from The Cove (2009). Does it follow a clear formal strategy?
Persuasive Positions, p. 298
Watch this clip from He Named Me Malala (2015). Describe the presiding voice or attitude with as much detail as
possible. How does the dominant rhetorical argument position the subject it addresses? Can you imagine another
way of filming this subject? Explain.
This Viewing Cue is a good candidate for prompting discussion of the Film in Focus movie Man of Aran
(1982). Ask students what the film would be like without its “voice-of-God” narrator or a different score, or even a
more straightforward ethnographic approach.
Making Sense of Documentary Films, p. 300
What makes a documentary film you have recently seen meaningful? How does it achieve its aims and make its
values apparent?
This Viewing Cue would make an excellent essay question on an in-class or take-home exam, allowing the
students to demonstrate their mastery of the vocabulary and the concepts covered in this chapter.
TEACHING HISTORY CLOSE UP, p. 304
As scholar Michael Robert Evans has noted, Inuit art is among the fastest growing forms in terms of global
recognition and popularity. Consider his recent book Isuma: Inuit Video Art (Montreal: McGill – Queen’s
University Press, 2008) a useful resource. A particularly strong feature of Inuit culture is video art, and it competes
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TEACHING THE FORM IN ACTION
The Contemporary Documentary: What Happened, Miss Simone? (2015), p. 308
In recent years, the music documentary has become one of the most engaging and popular types of
documentaries. One critic has suggested it is one of the fastest-growing genres in recent years (see Simon Reynolds,
“Tombstone Blues: The Music Documentary Boom,” Sight & Sound, Vol. 7, no. 5, May 2007). What makes What
Happened, Miss Simone? especially engaging is that its subject, the musician and activist Nina Simone, is an artist
of her turbulent times. In this way, the film is about the complex relationship between music, culture, race, and
politics. While the “Form in Focus” refers to Simone’s performance of “Backlash Blues,” consider screening her
TEACHING THE FILMS IN FOCUS
Nonfiction and Non-Narrative in Man of Aran (1934), p. 294
Man of Aran employs a cumulative organizational pattern.
Discussion Question 1: What are the tasks in which the Aran islanders engage on a daily basis?
Discussion Question 2: How do human rhythms coordinate and clash with natural rhythms? Replace the film’s
soundtrack with contemporary music to draw out the patterns and repetitions—the Velvet Underground’s Live
MCMXCIII works surprisingly well.
Additional Suggestions: Contrast the staged shark hunt in Man of Aran with the seal hunt in Robert Flaherty’s
Nanook of the North (1922), the short documentaries of Sicilian life that Vittorio De Seta shot in the 1950s, or the
“Four Men on a Raft” sequence in Orson Welles’s unfinished documentary It’s All True (1993).
ADDITIONAL SUGGESTIONS
Alternative Activity
Ask students to identify and research two or three documentaries dealing with their academic major, career
plans, place of birth, or a course they’re currently taking. For example, a student from Abbeville, South Carolina,
“birthplace of the Civil War,” might look at Ken Burns’s work. Another student interested in the mental health field
could learn about the legal battles surrounding Titicut Follies (1967). A veterinary science major could examine the
ethics of raising a chimpanzee among humans as depicted by Project Nim (2011). A film studies major could learn
about the history of film criticism in the United States in For the Love of Movies (2010). Have them write up their
findings, using as many relevant vocabulary terms from the chapter as possible to describe what kinds of approaches
different filmmakers have taken.
FILMS CITED
American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs (2013)
Apropos of Nice (1930)
Atanarjuat (The Fast Runner) (2001)
Atomic Cafe (1982)
Baseball (1996)
The Battle of Algiers (1966)
Borat (2006)
Born into Brothels (2004)
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Dogtown and Z-Boys (2001)
Don’t Look Back (1967)
Drifters (1929)
The Fall of the Romanov Dynasty (1927)
F for Fake (1974)
Fog of War (2003)
56 Up (2012)
Gimme Shelter (1970)
Grey Gardens (1975)
Grizzly Man (2005)
A Healthy Baby Girl (1996)
Hearts and Minds (1974)
Heaven (1987)
The Hour of the Furnaces (1968)
If God Is Willing and da Creek Don’t Rise (2010)
An Inconvenient Truth (2006)
Japanese Relocation (1943)
Jungle Adventures (1921)
Manufacturing Dissent: Uncovering Michael Moore (2007)
Man with a Movie Camera (1929)
Moana (1926)
Moi un noir (1958)
The Motion Picture Camera Goes to War (1898)
My Father’s Camera (2001)
Nanook of the North (1922)
Night and Fog (1955)
Night Mail (1936)
Of Great Events and Ordinary People (1979)
Paris Is Burning (1990)
Planet Earth (2006)
President McKinley’s Funeral Cortege at Buffalo, New York (1901)
Primary (1960)
Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer (2013)
The Queen (2006)
Rain (1929)
The River (1937)
Rough Sea at Dover (1896)
Salesman (1968)
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Sunless (1982)
Super Size Me (2004)
Surname Viet Given Name Nam (1989)
Tabu: A Story of the South Seas (1931)
Take This Waltz (2011)
The Thin Blue Line (1988)
Thirty-Two Short Films About Glenn Gould (1993)
This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
The Times of Harvey Milk (1984)
Titicut Follies (1967)
Triumph of the Will (1935)
The Up series (1964–2012)
The War (2007)
The War Room (1993)
Waste Land (2010)
The Watermelon Woman (1996)
When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts (2006)
Who Killed Vincent Chin? (1988)