Documentary

Abstract

This essay aims to describe the six major types of documentary. The purpose here is to highlight types of documentary and to discuss three documentaries including spellbound, talhotblond, and surprise me. The essay aims to categorize these three documentaries according to the types of documentary, and the characteristics that they possess. Further, the essay also includes discussions regarding Passos, BBC documentary 'Welcome to Lagos', and the rhetorical dimensions of documentary.

Introduction

There is a certain distinct voice of every documentary. The same manner in which each speaking voice has its own grain or style, similarly, every cinematic voice also has its own style that serves as a fingerprint or signature for it. It also serves as an attesting element for the individuality of the director or filmmaker, or numerous times to the determining power of a controlling organization or a sponsor. Television news also has its own voice just like Chris Marker, Fred Wiseman, Marina Goldovskaya, and Esther Shub does. Moreover, the auteur theory of cinema is lent by individual voices, whereas, the genre theory of cinema is lent by shared voices. Genre study focuses on the qualities that aim to characterize numerous groupings of films and filmmakers. Thus, one can divide documentary films and videos in six basic types or six modes of representation. These modes serve the function of sub-genres of the documentary film genre. These modes are expository, poetic, participatory, reflexive, observational, and performative.

Discussion

The six modes of documentary tend to establish a framework of affiliation in which individuals can work. Moreover, these modes also set up the conventions that a particular film may adopt, and provide specific expectations that the viewers anticipate to be fulfilled. Every mode also possesses all the examples that an individual can identify as models or prototypes. These models seem to provide an exemplary expression to the particular qualities of that specific mode. The six modes of documentary cannot be copied; rather they can be challenged or competed by other filmmakers in their own voices for the purpose of representing numerous aspects of the historical world in the light of their own perspectives (Nichols, pp. 32-75).

The order in which these modes are presented depends roughly on the chronology of their introduction in the history of documentary. Thus, it is also important in this regard to lime light the history of documentary as well. Moreover, a film that is characterized according to a particular mode of documentary does not necessarily relate entirely to that mode. This means that if a documentary is categorized under reflexive mode, then it can also contain some portions of participatory or observational footage as well, or an expository documentary can include some segments of performative or poetic mode (Silko, pp. 72-73). However, the basic characteristic of the given mode functions as a dominant element in that particular documentary film. Thus, categorizing documentaries in a basic mode serves its role in giving a structure to the overall film, but it does not determine or dictate each and every aspect of the film's ...