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An incredibly broad category of cinematic expression, traditionally, the only common characteristic to all documentary films is that they are meant to be non-fiction films. The French used the term to refer to any non-fiction film, including travelogues and instructional videos; the documentarian and film critic John Grierson argued in one of his essays that Robert Flaherty's film Moana had "documentary value," and put forward a number of principles of documentary. The earliest "moving pictures" were by definition documentary. They were single shot, moments that were captures on film. Whether it be a train entering a station, a boat docking, or a factory of people getting off work, early film (pre-1900) was dominated by the novelty of showing an event. These short films were called "actualities." Very little storytelling took place before the turn of the century, due mostly to technological limitations. |
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An incredibly broad category of cinematic expression, traditionally, the only common characteristic to all documentary films is that they are meant to be non-fiction films. The French used the term to refer to any non-fiction film, including travelogues and instructional videos. The earliest "moving pictures" were by definition documentary. They were single shot, moments that were captures on film. Whether it be a train entering a station, a boat docking, or a factory of people getting off work, early film (pre-1900) was dominated by the novelty of showing an event. These short films were called "actualities." Very little storytelling took place before the turn of the century, due mostly to technological limitations. |
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The newsreel tradition is another important facet of documentary film; newsreels were also sometimes staged but were usually reenactments of events that had already happened, not attempts to steer events as they happened. For instance, much of the battle footage from the early 20th century was staged--the cameramen would usually arrive on site after a major battle and reenact scenes to film them. Dziga Vertov was involved with the Russian Kino-Pravda newsreel series ("Kino-Pravda" means literally, "film-truth," and would later influence the [cinema verite]? movement). |
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The newsreel tradition is an important tradition in documentary film; newsreels were also sometimes staged but were usually reenactments of events that had already happened, not attempts to steer events as they were in the process of happening. For instance, much of the battle footage from the early 20th century was staged--the cameramen would usually arrive on site after a major battle and reenact scenes to film them. Dziga Vertov was involved with the Russian Kino-Pravda newsreel series ("Kino-Pravda" means literally, "film-truth," a term that was later translated literally into the French [cinema verite]?). Frank Capra's "Why We Fight" series was a newsreel series in the United States, commissioned by the government to convince the U.S. public that it was time to go to war. |
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In the 1930s, documentarian and film critic John Grierson argued in his essay "First Principles of Documentary" that Robert Flaherty's film Moana had "documentary value," and put forward a number of principles of documentary. These principles were that cinema's potential for observing life could be exploited in a new art form; that the "original" actor and "original" scene are better guides than their fiction counterparts to interpreting the modern world; and that materials "thus taken from the raw" can be more real than the acted article. In this regard, Grierson's views align with Dziga Vertov's contempt for dramatic fiction as "bourgeois excess," though with considerably more subtlety. |
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Denis Arkadievich Kaufman Denis Abramovich Kaufman |
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