Documenting The Documentary

Originally released in 1998, Documenting the Documentary responded to a scholarly landscape in which documentary film was largely understudied and undervalued aesthetically, and analyzed instead through issues of ethics, politics, and film technology. Editors Barry Keith Grant and Jeannette Sloniowski addressed this gap by presenting a useful survey of the artistic and persuasive aspects of documentary film from a range of critical viewpoints. This new edition of Documenting the Documentary adds five new essays on more recent films in addition to the text of the first edition. Thirty-one film and media scholars, many of them among the most important voices in the area of documentary film, cover the significant developments in the history of documentary filmmaking from Nanook of the North (1922), the first commercially released documentary feature, to contemporary independent film and video productions like Werner Herzog's Grizzly Man (2005) and the controversial Borat (2006). The works discussed also include representative examples of many important national and stylistic movements and various production contexts, from mainstream to avant-garde. In all, this volume offers a series of rich and revealing analyses of those "regimes of truth" that still fascinate filmgoers as much today as they did at the very beginnings of film history. As documentary film and visual media become increasingly important ways for audiences to process news and information, Documenting the Documentary continues to be a vital resource to understanding the genre. Students and teachers of film studies and fans of documentary film will appreciate this expanded classic volume.

Documentary has never attracted such audiences, never been produced with such ease from so many corners of the globe, never embraced such variety of expression. The very distinctions between the filmed, the filmer and the spectator are being dissolved. The Act of Documenting addresses what this means for documentary's 21st century position as a genus in the “class” cinema; for its foundations as, primarily, a scientistic, eurocentric and patriarchal discourse; for its future in a world where assumptions of photographic image integrity cannot be sustained. Unpacked are distinctions between performance and performativy and between different levels of interaction, linearity and hypertextuality, engagement and impact, ethics and conditions of reception. Winston, Vanstone and Wang Chi explore and celebrate documentary's potentials in the digital age.

As a central component of contemporary culture, films mirror and shape political debate. Reflecting on this development, scholars in the field of International Relations (IR) increasingly explore the intersection of TV series, fiction film and global politics. So far, however, virtually no systematic scholarly attention has been given to documentary film within IR. This book fills this void by offering a critical companion to the subject aimed at assisting students, teachers and scholars of IR in understanding and assessing the various ways in which documentary films matter in global politics. The authors of this volume argue that much can be gained if we do not just think of documentaries as a window on or intervention in reality, but as a political epistemology that – like theories – involve particular postures, strategies and methodologies towards the world to which they provide access. This work will be of great interest to students and scholars of international relations, popular culture and world politics and media studies alike.

Powerfully posing questions of ethics, ideology, authorship and form, documentary film has never been more popular than it is today. Edited by one of the leading British authorities in the field, The Documentary Film Book is an essential guide to current thinking on documentary film. In a series of fascinating essays, key international experts discuss the theory of documentary, outline current understandings of its history (from pre-Flaherty to the post-Griersonian world of digital 'i-Docs'), survey documentary production (from Africa to Europe, and from the Americas to Asia), consider documentaries by marginalised minority communities, and assess its contribution to other disciplines and arts. Brought together here in one volume, these scholars offer compelling evidence as to why, over the last few decades, documentary has come to the centre of screen studies.

Since Robert Flaherty's landmark film Nanook of the North (1922) arguments have raged over whether or not film records of people and traditions can ever be "authentic." And yet never before has a single volume combined documentary, ethnographic, and folkloristic filmmaking to explore this controversy. What happens when we turn the camera on ourselves? This question has long plagued documentary filmmakers concerned with issues of reflexivity, subject participation, and self-consciousness. Documenting Ourselves includes interviews with filmmakers Les Blank, Pat Ferrero, Jorge Preloran, Bill Ferris, and others, who discuss the ways their own productions and subjects have influenced them. Sharon Sherman examines the history of documentary films and discusses current theiroeis and techniques of folklore and fieldwork. But Sharon Sherman does not limit herself to the problems faced by filmmakers today. She examines the history of documentary films, tracing them from their origins as a means of capturing human motion through the emergence of various film styles. She also discusses current theories and techniques of folklore and fieldwork, concluding that advances in video technology have made the camcorder an essential tool that has the potential to redefine the nature of the documentary itself.

While film studies has traditionally treated the presence of the city in film as an urban text operating inside of a cinematic one, this approach has recently evolved into the study of cinema as a technology of place. From this perspective, Documenting Cityscapes explores the way the city has been depicted by nonfiction filmmakers since the late 1970s, paying particular attention to three aesthetic tendencies: documentary landscaping, urban self-portraits, and metafilmic strategies. Through the formal analysis of fifteen works from six different countries, this volume investigates how the rise of subjectivity has helped to develop a kind of gaze that is closer to citizens than to the institutions and corporations responsible for recent major transformations. Documenting Cityscapes therefore reveals the extent to which cinema has become an agent of urban change, in which certain films not only challenge the most controversial policies of late capitalism but also are able to produce spatiality themselves.

To date, there is but a handful of articles on documentary films from Taiwan. This volume seeks to remedy the paucity in this area of research and conduct a systematic analysis of the genre. Each contributor to the volume investigates the various aspects of documentary by focusing on one or two specific films that document social, political and cultural changes in recent Taiwanese history. Since the lifting of martial law, documentary has witnessed a revival in Taiwan, with increasing numbers of young, independent filmmakers covering a wide range of subject matter, in contrast to fiction films, which have been in steady decline in their appeal to local, Taiwanese viewers. These documentaries capture images of Taiwan in its transformation from an agricultural island to a capitalist economy in the global market, as well as from an authoritarian system to democracy. What make these documentaries a unique subject of academic inquiry lies not only in their exploration of local Taiwanese issues but, more importantly, in the contribution they make to the field of non-fiction film studies. As the former third-world countries and Soviet bloc begin to re-examine their past and document social changes on film, the case of Taiwan will undoubtedly become a valuable source of comparison and inspiration. These Taiwanese documentaries introduce a new, Asian perspective to the wealth of Anglo-American scholarship with the potential to serve as exemplar for countries undergoing similar political and social transformations. Documenting Taiwan on Film is essential reading for all those interested in Taiwan Studies, film studies and Asian cinema.