documentary

what is documentary?

• to record, reveal, or preserve

• to persuade or promote

• to analyze or interrogate

• to express

triumph of the will: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHs2coAzLJ8

Year of Production - 1935

Director - Leni Riefenstahl

Synopsis (use IMDb)

what type of documentary is triumph of the will?

promotional but in the style of a observational piece.

What seems to be the purpose of the film?

the film was nazi propaganda meant to promote the nazi party in a good light will also giving them a look into the perspective of german citizens and how they viewed hitler and the nazi party. the film looks to promote the war effort and seems to make the war effort look like happy and fun filled effort.

What different approaches can you identify?

the narrative seems to be nonexistent as it jumps from place to place with no narrative reason. but i felt the perspective of the film was largely from the citizens perspective which is very interesting to see because when we learn about history we learn it from the important people involved in the large events of history but never from the bystanders of the every man.

What do you notice about the editing of the extract?

It follows the 1934 Nazi Party Congress in Nuremberg, which was seen live by more than 700,000 Nazi supporters. the native feels like it starts when hitler lands then we follow along with large amounts of propaganda then we finally reach the speeches from many nazi leaders that is what i got out of what I'm going to call the first act of this documentary. but the rest feels very hard to find any narrative structure because it is edited in this very repetitive way of just showing us things and not really highlighting the important stuff, some

may say its all important but watching hitler wave for five

minutes does not feel very crucial to what ever story is trying to be told here.

documentary categories:

Poetic: poetic documentary is when a documenter wants to push their own agenda or message but in doing so takes things a little out of context.

expository: this is when you expose something like a lie or a cover up. a good example of this would be making a murderer.

participatory: this is when the film make them selfs get involved with the documentary.

observational: this is a style of documenting where you would never interact with what your documenting, just observe it.

reflexive: this is usually associated with experimental documenter so there is nothing to specific on it.

performative: this is when the documenters would recreate something to give the audience visual context.

examples of early documentaries:

Extract from Man of Aran (1934) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIWYXnxz968

synopsis: In this blend of documentary and fictional narrative from pioneering filmmaker Robert Flaherty, the everyday trials of life on Ireland's unforgiving Aran Islands are captured with attention to naturalistic beauty and historical detail.

A Day in the Life of a Coal Miner (1911) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D581TDHFpmE

synopsis: A coal miner says good-bye to his wife and children, and heads off to work. He reaches the mine, prepares his lamp, and then descends into the mine along with some other workers. As he and the others work inside the mine, the coal is sent to the surface, where others at the mining site are ready to process the coal and to prepare it for shipping.

Night Mail (1937) -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7SD6qt0EFI

synopsis: Shows the special train on which mail is sorted, dropped and collected on the run, and delivered in Scotland overnight.

Direct Cinema vs Cinema Verite

article link: https://www.nyfa.edu/student-resources/cinema-verite-vs-direct-cinema-an-introduction/

the two different styles have one massive difference. direct cinema is completely unbiased because he film makers are just watchful eyes on a situation that they do not influence or get involved in what they are filming, i like this approach because we are not seeing events through tinted glass we see things clearly. the cinema verite is different in so far as the film maker gets involved in the situation this can give a very biased perspective on the situation and it can be used to make something look good or make something look bad, i don't exactly approve of this style because it could be used to maybe sell the audience on something that isn't true.

titicut follies:

video link: https://vimeo.com/22027387

synopsis: Banned for 20 years, filmmaker Frederick Wiseman exposes conditions at a Massachusetts hospital for the criminally insane.

the pros and cons of the direct cinema: the pros of this style of filming is that the audience gets to see everything as they are presented to any other audience that just came to watch we never really go deeper then he surface but we are still getting reality when we see these shots. a con of this is that we don't get interviews or commentary to the documentary and i think you loose a layer of information.

synopsis of my own documentary:

the documentary will be in direct cinema style this will allow me to give a clear and focused perspective on my subject. my documentary will be about growing up in the 21st century as a boy. i will follow around my friends and family for one day each to give my audience a sense of how living and growing in the 21st century and how it has its ups and its downs.