JRN572A - Lecture One

JRN 572 - Researching & Writing
the News Documentary
Rich Hanley, Associate Professor
Lecture One

JRN 572 - News Documentary
Lecture Topics:
• Documentary Film, Defined.
• Documentary Film History.
.

Documentary Film, Defined
• “An advanced form of social
education.” Edgar Antsey (d. 1987)
• Antsey produced several classic
documentary films on the working
class of the U.K., including Granton
Trawler about a fishing vessel in
1934.

• “The use of the film medium to
interpret creatively and in social
terms the life of the people as it
exists in reality.” Paul Rotha (d.
1984)

JRN 572 - The News Documentary
• Antsey’s and Rotha’s definitions distill the definition to
the following:
1. Factual
2. Not staged
3. Socially relevant

• Over the past 90 years, the definition has broadened as
new generations approach the genre from the
perspective of entertainment in the form of reality
programming.
• But for our purposes, we will maintain the original
definition as factual work expressed in a creative way.

• It is as this point the definition and history converge, in
the person of John Grierson.
• Grierson was born in Scotland in 1898. He received a
graduate degree in moral philosophy at the University of
Glasgow, focusing on propaganda and later on film
which he first approached as a critic.

Documentary Film History
• Grierson was the first to use the
word “documentary” to describe films
based on an objective, factual
observation of a piece of the world
as it exists.
• He first deployed the term in a 1926
New York Sun newspaper review of
Moana by Robert Flaherty.

• Moana followed Flaherty’s ground-
breaking film Nanook of the North in
1922 that stood as the first of its
kind.

• Robert J. Flaherty spent a year with
Inuit hunter Nanook and his family in
northern Quebec region as they
struggled to survive harsh conditions.

• The silent film Nanook of the North
was released in 1922 to great
acclaim and wide interest.
• The film showed it was possible to
create an entire feature-length film
from observation for the first time.

• Flaherty certainly staged some of the
activities.
• Yet his work launched a genre.

• Flaherty’s influence on Grierson
cannot be understated.
• Grierson saw Nanook of the North as
an essential exercise in revealing the
world as it is to an audience.
• It wasn’t, Grierson said, a “synthetic
story.”

• Instead, it was a story about “an
Eskimo fighting for food.”
• That led to his argument that the
documentary could not deploy
filmmaking conventions of the time
and hence his invention of the word
“documentary” just four years after
Nanook’s release in theaters.

• Grierson said, “idyllic and the idyllic
form won’t comprehend the unidyllic
work” that represents the lives of
most people.

• Grierson’s work and that of his early
colleagues in the United Kingdom
illustrate his point.
• It focused on ordinary people
engaged in work, such as the
fishermen aboard the Granton
Trawler in Antsey’s work.

• Beginning in the late 1920s and
continuing for decades, working
class people were no longer
projected as the “comic figures” that
populated fictional works.

• His point was clear: documentary
makers could present factual
information and experiences in
dramatic form as a “way of
illuminating the modern world.”

• The next slide is a 45-minute tribute
to Grierson by Alfred Hitchcock.
• It includes clips from seven films,
directed by Grierson (Drifters) or
produced or inspired by him.
• Please watch it to learn more about
Grierson before continuing.

• Grierson’s philosophy toward
documentary filmmaking is central to
the biographical film that is assigned
for this week (see the module link).
• Make sure to watch that film and pay
close attention to his views as these
serve as foundational elements of
the craft of documentary filmmaking.

• Grierson founded the National Film
Board of Canada in 1939 as his
influence spread globally and
documentaries took root as a critical
media genre for information.

• In the United States, Franklin Delano
Roosevelt’s New Deal helped to
make documentaries an important
element in the information
ecosystem.

• The Resettlement Administration,
established to provide aid to farmers,
moved to sponsor documentaries to
transmit its message to a wider
audience.
• It worked.

• Classic American documentaries
such as The Plow That Broke the
Plains, The City, and The River all
were made by filmmakers working
for the Resettlement Administration
and released commercially and to
schools.

• The importance of documentary
filmmaking became clear at the
onset of hostilities in World War II.
• In Germany, Triumph of the Will
(1935) was made to promote the
Nazi Party’s standing through
stunning shots of large crowds.

• In the United States, Frank Capra’s
Why We Fight (1942-45) was
produced to show U.S. soldiers the
reason why they were at war over
seven episodes.

• After the war, the documentary genre
held firm as newly emerging
television networks in the U.S.
produced both series and specials
such as Victory at Sea, which
recounted the U.S. Navy experience
during the conflict.

• CBS showed a particular interest in
producing documentaries within a
series format.
• CBS Reports was broadcast from
1959 through the 1990s, featuring
investigative reports that illuminated
the condition of Americans otherwise
ignored on nightly television news.

• In 1960, CBS broadcast Harvest of
Shame, which exposed deplorable
conditions in migrant camps during
harvests.

• CBS also produced The Twentieth
Century, a series that ran from 1959
to 1970 and was known for inserting
interpretation of events within its
documentaries.
• The series was changed to The
Twenty First Century in 1967.

• PBS became the focus of
documentary films in the 1980s and
later, as commercial networks moved
away from the genre.
• Films such as The Civil War (1990)
by Ken Burns resuscitated the genre
and led to a surge of new works.

• By the first decade of the 21st
century, filmmakers Errol Morris
(Thin Blue Line), Michael Moore
(Bowling for Columbine), Laura
Poitras (Citizenfour) and many
others produced work of the highest
order and found significant
audiences for the genre on HBO and
in theaters.

• Meanwhile, sports documentaries
ascended on the strength of ESPN’s
30 For 30 series, which featured
work by top writers and film directors.

• Among the best? Ghosts of
Mississippi, written by Wright
Thompson about Mississippi football
in the 1960s, and The U by Billy
Corben.

• As the second decade of the 21st
century deepened and the 100th
anniversary of Nanook of the North
approached, it was clear the genre
had achieved John Grierson’s goal of
illuminating modern life.

• But could not have imagined the
distribution sources presently
available to documentary filmmakers.
• He also could not have anticipated
the variety of ideas, film run times
and other elements made possible
by the emergence of cable TV and
the internet.

• In the U.S., film distribution had its
limitations prior to the 1990s:
- Four television networks
(ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS)
- Theaters
- Schools, rented halls, etc.

• Cable television open new channels
devoted to factual filmmaking, at first
headed by The History Channel, or,
as it was known when first launched,
the Hitler Channel because of its
reliance on World War II
documentaries.

• The History Channel spawned
similar cable channels that featured
factual programming, including The
Smithsonian channel, National
Geographic channel and, of course,
the Documentary Channel.

• The influence of this period is
remarkable and evident in late 20-th
century and early 21st television
comedies such as The Office, which
mimicked the documentary style to
tell fictional stories.

• Today, of course, documentary
filmmakers distribute their work
online in a variety of ways, including
YouTube and, most importantly,
Vimeo.
• News organizations such as The
New York Times post short films as
well, with the Times screening the
work under its Op-Docs section.

JRN572A - Lecture One

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JRN572A - Lecture One