Documentary Defined

[Charlatan]

LINK

There has been a lot of back and forth in various threads about what defines a documentary. Many are sticking to the definition found in many dictionaries where a documentary is defined as "A film or television or radio program that gives factual information about a subject."

This definition has obvious problems. Using this definition, James Cameron's "Titanic" is a documentary.

Here?s another dictionary?s definition: "A non-fiction narrative without actors. Typically, a documentary is a journalistic record of an event, person or place."

This is helpful, but doesn?t really get us there. Errol Morris' "The Thin Blue Line" has actors and re-creations. The TV series, "Cops" does, as do many of the historical programs on A&E, The History Channel and The Learning Channel.

Another definition is based on what the audience thinks it is seeing: "A film that is perceived as signifying what it appears to record."

Clearly the boundaries of what defines a documentary are elusive. Perhaps the genre is best defined by that old maxim, "I can?t tell you what it is, but I know it when I see it." For our purposes, documentary is defined in its broadest form. It includes news, informational programs, "reality" programs, instructional and how-to programs and anything that more or less fits under the umbrella non-fiction.



As you can see a strict definition of the word just does not work. I draw on this example only to underscore that people who are upset by filmmakers who win awards for films that are not documentaries by the strictest of definitions. The definition is not that strict.

Argue about content but the definition of documentary? Time to movve on to something worth of your argumentative sweat.

[analog]

Mod Warning: This is not turning into another Michael Moore thread. If it does, I will string it up by its thumbs and beat it like a piñata until it dies.

[tecoyah]

Bravo, you are my new hero analog.

[wonderwench]

When one beats a piñata, one gets rewarded with goodies and treats.

Certainly the definition leaves much gray area. Saying one "knows it when one sees it" makes it a subjective genre.

[cthulu23]

Originally posted by wonderwench
When one beats a piñata, one gets rewarded with goodies and treats.

Certainly the definition leaves much gray area. Saying one "knows it when one sees it" makes it a subjective genre.

Documentarians are under no ethical obligation to remain objective. It's filmmaking, not journalism.

[wonderwench]

Yes, it is filmmaking - not an encyclopedia entry. The factual presentation should be judged according to the credibility / agenda of the filmmaker.

[cthulu23]

Originally posted by wonderwench
Yes, it is filmmaking - not an encyclopedia entry. The factual presentation should be judged according to the credibility / agenda of the filmmaker.

A film should be judged on it's contents, not by the politics of it's creator.

[wonderwench]

If the film is about the creator's politics - then they are one in the same.

But I fear we are treading into verboten territory.

[cthulu23]

I'm talking about aesthetic and intellectual traditions. I would use these same arguments if we were talking about "Jingle All the Way."

Divorcing an artist from his work is the first action that someone must take when analyzing any art. Preconceived notions about the value of a work will only cloud the viewers perception of it. You cannot presuppose your reaction to something that you have not yet experienced.

[apeman]

hey this is fun, it's like watching two people trying to waltz on a highwire

i think a hypothetical film is documentary if it's mainly factual and doesn't try to appeal to emotions rather than rationality... if it's got lots of cuts from subject A to subject B that are designed to make you happy/unhappy/pissed off/whatever then it's starting to wander away from the whole documentary area

having said that, it's all subjective

[Charlatan]

Thanks Analog... I was going to say that in my original post but wanted to avoid saying his name...

I have noticed a trend in all the MM thread where some are using a dictionary definition of documentary like crutch... That definition does not apply, it is too strict and useless for *any* documentary (except perhaps the most driest of the genre).

Today's documentary is a many headed beast and full of sub-genres... from Reality and Lifestyle Television to Political and Social commentaries... A documentary is a work of non-fiction.

Go to your local bookstore or library and look in the non-fiction section... you will find a plethora of sub-genres: histories, how-to, science journals, political commentary, etc. Documentary filmmaking is no different.

[the_marq]

I don't see why everyone gets so upset when a documentary or news report shows signs of bias. People have bias, people make documenatries and new reports, it's pretty tough to keep bias out of the equation.

Charlatan is right in his definition; A documentaryis non-fiction filmmaking.

All this hubbub about leftwing or rightwing bias is beside the point.

[roachboy]

documentaries are arguments about the world presented in film form.

they are not, have never been, about the fiction of obectivity.

people get tricked because they think that film footage documents exactly what is filmed. and in a world that involved no editing, no framing, no cropping, no assemblage maybe that would be true--but even if it was true, you as a viewer would still get no access to that objectivity when you watched the film.
its the nature of the medium.

it is better to look at a history of the documentary film to see how it came to be defined than it is to read a dictionary definition.

[Macheath]

I agree, it's hard to define.

Partly it is stylistic, but in terms of the content the closest I could come to a definition is the director has a particular thesis, argument or exploration of a phenomenon.

A film with "Cops"-like footage of a drug bust could be called a documentary if they then delved deeper and interviewed the police captain and the academic and the drug user about the drug phenomenon in the area.

An entomologist who does a "Jackass"-like stunt of allowing some nasty little insect to bite them crosses the line into documentary when he then describes the biological effect of the bite on his body.

It's like writing an essay. When I write something about East Timor or James Madison, on the one hand I'm not gushing about the exploits of great and evil men like some kind of "based on real life" biopic. Nor am I saying "this happened, then this, then this - but I'm not interested in exploring the connections between these events" like a footage show.

[kutulu]

Here is a comment from Ebert about documentaries in response to someone protesting the use of the word documentary to describe the film:

http://www.suntimes.com/output/eb-fe...r-moore18.html

That's where you're wrong. Most documentaries, especially the best ones, have an opinion and argue for it. Even those that pretend to be objective reflect the filmmaker's point of view. Moviegoers should observe the bias, take it into account and decide if the film supports it or not.