Documentary 'mini task'

What is a Documentary?

A documentary is said to be a "representation of the truth" although, no documentary can fully tell the truth because there will always be bias in any film because the director will choose where to place the camera and how long to shoot for, etc. So that the film with see things literally from his/her point of view.

Expository Documentary.
An expository documentary tries to persuade the audience and heavily pushes its opinion on the viewers E.G. America's most wanted.

Expository Documentaries are probably closest to what people consider a documentary. A sharp contrast to poetic, expository documentaries aim to inform and/or persuade, often through omnipresent narration over footage.
Observational Documentary.



Observational Documentaries are what they say they are, they try to plainly observe the scene. Starting in the 60s they advanced in portable film equipment and had it's own style where it tries to show both or all sides of the argument by showing all point of views from all arguments.

A famous observational documentary is by Christian Frei and is called "War photographer" about a photographer named "James Nachtwey" as well as telling the story of an iconic man in the field of war photography.






Interactive Documentary.
The easiest way to identify this type of documentary is by seeing if the director is *interacting* with who/what he or she is documentary. Louis Theroux specialises in this type of film.
These documentaries can heavily sway their argument by showing only what they want the audience to see, ask questions that put their point across, etc.



Reflexive Documentary.
A reflexive documentaries are strange because they try to draw attention to the fact that they are acted out or performed, the director may do this to "defamiliarise" us from what we see or know because it makes us "question authenticity".
An example of this is "Las Hurdes land without bread" this is only a short, 30 minute film about a region of Spain that has no food.










Performative Documentary.

Performative documentaries stress subjective experience and emotional 

response to the world. They are strongly personal, unconventional and experimental/ poetic. It may include hypothetical reenactments of events make us experience the process in a certain way.