Film 305: Documentary Midterm #2

VIDEO ARRIVES

As the 1970's progressed into the 1980's, film gradually started to move into video technology.

-Video did not have to be processed
-Generally required less light
-Handled more easily in difficult locations
-It was felt to be less intrusive in cv/direct situations
-It could capture an image in a continuous shot for much longer than a load of film

A very serious disadvantage or drawback was a lesser image quality and lack of long-term archival stability

However, by the end of the 20th century, video had almost completely replaced film for most types of documentary filmmaking.

The sale and rental of 16mm films had created an economic base that from the 1950's until the early 80's generated enough money to support a group of distribution companies, which in turn returned royalties to filmmakers that helped them to continue producing documentaries...

...The profitability of this business was shattered when a film-user who had to pay $100 to rent or $800 to buy a 16mm print, could purchase a similar videotape for $29.00.

These people were ardent in their beliefs that video degraded the form to an unacceptably low level.

In fact, the only medium that has proven to last over a hundred years is film negative, stored in good conditions. For documentary, this is critical.

The growth of multiple cable, and later, satellite, television channels that began in the 70's and exploded in the 80's .

By the end of the 80's, there were specialty channels for children, every sport imaginable, animals, science, home care, history, movies and more. Documentaries became more widely seen on television than ever before.

First-person films - diaries, memoirs, home movies, travelogues - have been part of the audio-visual landscape for decades. But it was not until the mid 80's that the personal essay film became accessible.

In this genre, the narrator is a character. These films are inevitably personal.

Ros McElwee is the filmmaker perhaps most acclaimed for initiating a flood of self-reflexivity that became known in the 80's as personal diary or essay documentary.

Charles Guggenheim was one of the first to create television promotion for American political campaigns, using documentary style in groundbreaking ways.

Guggenheim sought to reveal the character of his candidates in an affirmative way, and to let the issues speak for themselves.

As often happens in documentary, the desire to impress the audience with the importance and/or urgency of the subject sometimes overrides the attention given to craft and artistry.

Exploring African-American history, he established 'Blackside, Inc in 1968, and chronicled political developments in the 20th century.

Blackside completed 60 major films, most of them exploring the worlds of the poor and disenfranchised.

DOCUMENTARY TRADITION IN THE 21 CENTURY

Herzog generally narrates his documentaries, asks questions of himself and his participants, and sometimes appears on camera.

All are 'actors' playing on a stage that Herzog creates.

He has often described his filmmaking as a quest for 'ecstatic truth'.

Morris makes films that belong in theatres. He began filmmaking in the 70's, and his body of work becomes more important with each new documentary.

It was the release of The Thin Blue Line that brought Morris wide popular recognition...

...The film follows the case of Randall Dale Adams, a man who was falsely accused of the murder of a Texas police officer. He uses repeated dramatizations of a murder, multiple points of view, visual effects, talking-head interviews, an telephone conversations to create the impression that justice was not served.

Even as women and people of color create more styles of documentary films, most of their work generally get less high-profile attention than that awarded to films made by men...

...This reflects the standard thinking of mainstream Hollywood media in which women directors and producers, along with people of color remain a minority.

THE MODES OF DOCUMENTARY FILM

The process of negotiation between filmmaker and viewer is the focus of attention for the reflexive mode. Rather than following the filmmaker in his or her engagement with other social actors, we now attend to the filmmaker's engagement with us, speaking not only about the historical world, but about the problems and issues of representing it as well.

Reflexive documentatries asl us to see documentary for what is is: a construct or representation.

These films set out to heighten our awareness of the problems of representing others as much as they set out to convince us of the authenticity or truthfulness of representation itself.

Reflexive documentaries also tackle issues posed by realism as a style. Realism seems to provide unproblematic access to the world; it takes form as physical, psychological, and emotional realism through techniques of continuity editing, character development, and narrative structure...reflexive documentaries challenge these conventions.