Documenting the Documentary: Close Readings of Documentary Film and Video, New and Expanded Edition (Contemporary Approaches to Film and Media Studies)

Documenting the Documentary features essays by 27 film scholars from a wide range of critical and theoretical perspectives. Each essay focuses on one or two important documentaries, engaging in questions surrounding ethics, ideology, politics, power, race, gender, and representation-but always in terms of how they arise out of or are involved in the reading of specific documentaries as particular textual constructions. By closely reading documentaries as rich visual works, this anthology fills a void in the critical writing on documentaries, which tends to privilege production over aesthetic pleasure. As we increasingly perceive and comprehend the world through visual media, understanding the textual strategies by which individual documentaries are organized has become critically important. Documenting the Documentary offers clear, serious, and insightful analyses of documentary films, and is a welcome balance between theory and criticism, abstract conceptualization and concrete analysis. Anthology Of Essays On The Artistic And Persuasive Aspects Of Documentary Film From A Range Of Critical Viewpoints. The Filmmaker As Hunter : Robert Flaherty's Nanook Of The North / William Rothman -- Peace Between Man And Machine : Dziga Vertov's Man With A Movie Camera / Seth Feldman -- Paradise Regained : Sergei Eisenstein's Que Viva México! As Ethnography / Joanne Hershfield -- Synthetic Vision : The Dialectical Imperative Of Luis Buñuel's Las Hurdes / Vivian Sobchack -- The Art Of National Projection : Basil Wright's Song Of Ceylon / William Guynn -- The Mass Psychology Of Fascist Cinema : Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph Of The Will / Frank P. Tomasulo -- American Documentary Finds Its Voice : Persuasion And Expression In The Plow That Broke The Plains And The City / Charlie Keil -- Men Cannot Act Before The Camera In The Presence Of Death : Joris Ivens's The Spanish Earth / Thomas Waugh -- The Poetics Of Propaganda : Humphrey Jennings And Listen To Britain / Jim Leach -- It Was An Atrocious Film : Georges Franju's Blood Of The Beasts / Jeannette Sloniowski --^ The Dialogic Imagination Of Jean Rouch : Covert Conversations In Les Maîtres Fous / Diane Scheinman -- Documenting The Ineffable : Terror And Memory In Alain Resnais's Night And Fog / Sandy Flitterman-lewis -- Making The Past Present : Peter Watkins's Culloden / John R. Cook -- Don't You Ever Just Watch? : American Cinema Verité And Dont Look Back / Jeanne Hall -- Ethnography In The First Person : Frederick Wiseman's Titicut Follies / Barry Keith Grant -- The Two Avant-gardes : Solanas And Getino's The Hour Of The Furnaces / Robert Stam -- Seeing With Experimental Eyes : Stan Brakhage's The Act Of Seeing With One's Own Eyes / Bart Testa -- A Bastard Union Of Several Forms : Style And Narrative In An American Family / Jeffrey K. Ruoff -- The Documentary Of Displaced Persona : Michael Rubbo's Daisy, The Story Of A Facelift / Joan Nicks -- Gender, Power, And A Cucumber : Satirizing Masculinity In This Is Spinal Tap / Carl Plantinga --^ Documentary Film And The Discourse Of Hysterical/historical Narrative : Ross Mcelwee's Sherman's March / Lucy Fischer -- Subjectivity Lost And Found : Bill Viola's I Do Not Know What It Is I Am Like / Catherine Russell -- Mirrors Without Memories : Truth, History, And The Thin Blue Line / Linda Williams -- Documentaphobia And Mixed Modes : Michael Moore's Roger & Me / Matthew Bernstein -- Silence And Its Opposite : Expressions Of Race In Tongues Untied / Sheila Petty -- Containing Fire : Performance In Paris Is Burning / Caryl Flinn -- Contested Territory : Camille Billops And James Hatch's Finding Christa / Julia Lesage -- Spike Lee's 4 Little Girls : The Politics Of The Documentary Interview / Paula J. Massood -- The Gleaners And Us : The Radical Modesty Of Agnès Varda's Les Glaneurs Et La Glaneuse / Virginia Bonner -- You Must Never Listen To This : Lessons On Sound, Cinema, And Mortality From Werner Herzog's Grizzly Man / David T. Johnson --^ Cultural Learnings Of Borat For Make Benefit Glorious Study Of Documentary / Leshu Torchin. Edited By Barry Keith Grant And Jeannette Sloniowski ; With A Foreword By Bill Nichols. This New Edition ... Adds Five Essays On More Recent Films--back Cover. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. Cover Half-title Title Copyright Dedication Contents Foreword to New and Expanded Edition Preface to First Edition Acknowledgments Introduction 1. The Filmmaker as Hunter: Robert Flaherty’s Nanook of the North 2. “Peace between Man and Machine”: Dziga Vertov’s Man with a Movie Camera 3. Paradise Regained: Sergei Eisenstein’s Que viva México! as Ethnography 4. Synthetic Vision: The Dialectical Imperative of Luis Buñuel’s Las Hurdes 5. The Art of National Projection: Basil Wright’s Song of Ceylon 6. The Mass Psychology of Fascist Cinema: Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will 7. American Documentary Finds Its Voice: Persuasion and Expression in The Plow That Broke the Plains and The City 8. “Men Cannot Act before the Camera in the Presence of Death”: Joris Ivens’s The Spanish Earth 9. The Poetics of Propaganda: Humphrey Jennings and Listen to Britain 10. “It Was an Atrocious Film”: Georges Franju’s Blood of the Beasts 11. The “Dialogic Imagination” of Jean Rouch: Covert Conversations in Les maîtres fous 12. Documenting the Ineffable: Terror and Memory in Alain Resnais’s Night and Fog 13. Making the Past Present: Peter Watkins’s Culloden 14. “Don’t You Ever Just Watch?”: American Cinema Verité and Dont Look Back 15. “Ethnography in the First Person”: Frederick Wiseman’s Titicut Follies 16. The Two Avant-Gardes: Solanas and Getino’s The Hour of the Furnaces 17. Seeing with Experimental Eyes: Stan Brakhage’s The Act of Seeing with One’s Own Eyes 18. “A Bastard Union of Several Forms”: Style and Narrative in An American Family 19. The Documentary of Displaced Persona: Michael Rubbo’s Daisy: The Story of a Facelift 20. Gender, Power, and a Cucumber: Satirizing Masculinity in This Is Spinal Tap 21. Documentary Film and the Discourse of Hysterical/Historical Narrative: Ross McElwee’s Sherman’s March 22. Subjectivity Lost and Found: Bill Viola’s I Do Not Know What It Is I Am Like 23. Mirrors without Memories: Truth, History, and The Thin Blue Line 24. Documentaphobia and Mixed Modes: Michael Moore’s Roger & Me 25. Silence and Its Opposite: Expressions of Race in Tongues Untied 26. Containing Fire: Performance in Paris Is Burning 27. Contested Territory: Camille Billops and James Hatch’s Finding Christa 28. Spike Lee’s 4 Little Girls: The Politics of the Documentary Interview 29. The Gleaners and “Us”: The Radical Modesty of Agnès Varda’s Les glaneurs et la glaneuse 30. “You Must Never Listen to This”: Lessons on Sound, Cinema, and Mortality from Werner Herzog’s Grizzly Man 31. Cultural Learnings of Borat for Make Benefit Glorious Study of Documentary Bibliography Contributors Index BackCover 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.