Historical overview

1. Intro to Documentary

2. • What is a documentary?
• What does it attempt to do? (Consider its name).
• How many documentaries have you seen?

3. Origin of the term
• The Scottish film-maker John Grierson (1898-
1972) first coined the term ‘documentary’ in 1926,
after completing a research paper into the
psychology of propaganda.
• He used the term to describe a film’s ability to
produce a visual document of a particular event.
John Grierson

4. 5:16
https://youtu.be/cCY-4NxXCU8?t=316

5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dgLEDdFddk
Train Pulling into a Station is an 1896 French short black-and-white silent documentary film
directed and produced by Auguste and Louis Lumière.
This film is interesting because it contains the first example, of several, now common, cinematic
techniques: camera angle, long shot, medium shot, close-up, and forced perspective.

6. Nanook of the North (1922), directed by Robert J. Flaherty, is
considered the first feature-length documentary film.
The documentary follows the lives of an Inuk, Nanook, and his
family as they travel, search for food, and trade in the Ungava
Peninsula of northern Quebec, Canada. Nanook; his wife, Nyla; and
their family are introduced as fearless heroes who endure rigors
"no other race" could survive. The audience sees Nanook, often
with his family, hunt a walrus, build an igloo, go about his day, and
perform other tasks.
As the first "nonfiction" work of its scale, Nanook of the North was
ground-breaking cinema. It captured many authentic details of a
culture little-known to outsiders, and was filmed in a remote
location. Hailed almost unanimously by critics, the film was a box
office success in the United States and abroad.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3F0G3IZA6OI

7. Flaherty has been criticized for deceptively portraying staged
events as reality.[9] "Nanook" was in fact named Allakariallak
(pronounced [al.la.ka.ɢi.al.lak]), while the "wife" shown in the film
was not really his wife.
According to Charles Nayoumealuk, who was interviewed
in Nanook Revisited (1990), "the two women in Nanook - Nyla
(Alice [?] Nuvalinga) and Cunayou (whose real name we do not
know) were not Allakariallak's wives, but were in fact common-law
wives of Flaherty."
And although Allakariallak normally used a gun when hunting,
Flaherty encouraged him to hunt after the fashion of his recent
ancestors in order to capture the way the Inuit lived
before European influence. On the other hand, while Flaherty made
his Inuit actors use spears instead of guns during the walrus and
seal hunts, the prey shown in the film were genuine, wild animals.
Flaherty also exaggerated the peril to Inuit hunters with his claim,
often repeated, that Allakariallak had died of starvation two years
after the film was completed, whereas in fact he died at home,
likely of tuberculosis.

8. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tphbEpVfv24
In the 1930s, documentaries began to use synchronous sound. During this period the
voice-over became a staple convention of the documentary genre.
The advent of synchronous sound presented technical problems to documentary
films as the cost and the size of the equipment both caused difficulties. During this
period sound was often voice over narration, music and sound effects. This partly
accounts for the often omniscient narration in documentaries from this period.

9. As technology improved and both sound and camera kit got smaller and lighter it
became possible to for a reduction in the number of people needed in a film
crew. In the 1960s it was possible to use a small 16mm handheld synch camera to
film on location and with minimal crew members. The filmmakers of the French
New Wave had also taken advantage of the new lighter weight kit to make their
films.
This technological shift allowed documentary filmmakers to produce more
observational ‘fly on the wall’ work that later became known as ‘Direct Cinema’.
From the 1960s onwards filmmakers begun to mix styles to suit their needs and
aesthetic. Contemporary documentaries have adopted a much more fluid
approach to their construction, borrowing techniques and styles from a range of
film genres and forms including large budget Hollywood productions to
animations.

10. Fictional filmmaking aligns the spectator with characters, whereas
documentary filmmaking aligns the spectator with a particular argument.
This is sometimes because the documentary has a polemic argument to
make. What is the argument of this documentary?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLOeH-Oq_1Y
What about...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1UDS2kgqY8

11. Even if documentaries don’t have voice-over narration and are simple the
presentation of sounds and images, they are still putting forward ideas.
This footage from Koyaanisqatsi contains a montage of candid shots of real
NYC dwellers with no voice-over, no diegetic sound and Philip Glass’ score in
the background.
What is your reading of it? Considering the selection of shots (their subjects),
the choice of non-diegetic sound and the cinematography, what ideas could
it be putting forward?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woSbHbHd-EY