8.3 A LECTURE/P- DOCUMENTARY Types of Movies

Continuing on from Narrative....

Types of Movies:
1)Narrative
2)Documentary
3)Experimental

Notes from Anna:
Narrative movies – movies that are directed toward fiction or fictionalized stories DONE

Documentary movies – movies with an allegiance to nonfiction but which still employ movie storytelling and dramatization

Experimental movies– movies that push the boundaries of what most people think movies are or should be

Documentary
Documentary movies – movies with an allegiance to nonfiction but which still employ movie storytelling and dramatization

Four Documentary Approaches
1)Factual
2)Instructive
3)Persuasive
4)Propaganda

 

Documentary Concerns:
1)The recording of reality
2)Education of the viewer
3)Presentation of political or social analyses

Documentary Types:
Factual Films

Notes:

Presents people, places, or processes in straightforward ways meant to entertain and instruct without unduly influencing audiences

Robert J. Flaherty’s Nanook of the North (1922). A pioneering nonfiction film using narrative film techniques.

Others:

Lumière brothers’ 10 short films (1896) 

Luc Jacquet’s March of the Penguins (2005) 

Patrick Creadon’s Wordplay (2006)

 

CREDIT: Nanook of the North, © 1922 Pathe Exchange

 

Documentary Film Style:
Direct-Cinema

Notes:

These documentaries avoid interviews and limit the use of narrators

Involves the placement of small portable camera and sound recording equipment in an important location for days or weeks, recording events as they occur

This process may not actually remove the narrative, and its editing may exclude materials; juxtapose people, events, and ideas; and arrange and order reality

Grey Gardens (1975). Ellen Hovde, Albert Maysles, David Maysles, Muffie Meyer, directors. Direct-cinema documentaries attempt to immerse the viewer in an experience as close as is cinematically possible to witnessing events as an invisible observer.