The Performative Documentary

1. The Story of a Rebel and His Mike
TH E PE R F O R MATI V E D O C U M E N TAR Y
Harrison Golden

2. Bill Nichols
Introduction to Documentary, 2001

3. Nichols’s Approach
“The performative mode raises questions about what
knowledge actually amounts to. What counts as understanding or
comprehension? What besides factual information goes into our
understanding of the world?”
“The world as represented by performative documentaries
becomes, however, suffused by evocative tones and
expressive shadings that constantly remind us that the world is
more than the sum of the visible evidence we derive from it.”
“[This] calls for an emotional responsiveness from that
acknowledges how understanding this event within any
preestablished frame of reference is an utter impossibility.”

4. Performative vs. Participatory
Participatory mode engages the filmmaker
to the story but attempts to describe
universalized truths.
Performativemode engages the filmmaker
to the story but constructs the filmmaker’s
openly subjective truths.

5. Stella Bruzzi
New Documentary, 2000

6. Bruzzi’s Approach
“Within such a realist aesthetic, the role of performance
is, paradoxically, to draw the audience into the reality
of the situations being dramatized.”
“The traditional concept of documentary as striving to
represent reality as faithfully as possible is predicated
upon the realist assumption that the production
process must be disguised, as was the case with
direct cinema.”

7. Bruzzi’s Approach
“Culminating in the recent work of
filmmakers… documentary has an
established tradition of the performer
director.”

8. Who is the Performer-Director?
An auteur filmmaker who combines personality
and technology. From both sides of the
camera, the stories he/she tells are deeply
personal and incorporate outlook and voice in
ways never before seen in the world of cinema.
The performer-director exemplifies the notion
that life is one of those things that is greater than
the mere sum of its parts.

9. “What is a documentary but a dialogue
between a filmmaker, a crew, and a
situation that… has irrevocably been
changed by that arrival?”

10. “The films of
Broomfield, Moore, and others
have sought to accentuate, not
mask, the means of production
because they realize that such a
masquerade [of finding one
universal truth] is impossibly
utopian.”
- Stella Bruzzi

11. Michael Moore
Roger & Me, 1989

12. Roger & Me
After a major General Motors plant closes in his
hometown of Flint, Michigan, filmmaker Michael Moore
travels around the country to meet with then-CEO
Roger Smith in order to find out his thoughts on how the
shutdown will affect working families.
He chronicles his search for Smith and his dream to
confront him in person.
In the process, he finds men, women, and children
caught in a storm of debt, unemployment, and
hardship.

13. Nick Broomfield
Kurt & Courtney, 1998

14. Kurt & Courtney
Following the death of Nirvana lead singer, Kurt Cobain, many
sought to make sense of the ambiguities associated with the April
1994 tragedy.
Many are still unsure whether Cobain committed suicide or if his
wife, Hole frontwomanCourtney Love, murdered him.
Director Nick Broomfield not only creates a portrait of the
musical legends, but also opens up about his own
personality, one of curiosity and hunger for confrontation.
With his signature boom micand a mind full of questions, he is
not afraid to open up about his own thoughts and his methods
of production.

15. Concluding Thoughts…
The key element
is honesty.

16. Concluding Thoughts…
In a world flooded with information
(Internet, TV, print, radio), filmmakers and viewers alike must
stop and analyze how the news affectsinteractions with
people.
The only way to do that is to interact with people and listen
to their words, their instincts, and what they are feeling.
Our minds must continue navigating. We must continue
listening to our own beliefs and the very connections that
define our outlook.
Embrace the journey!