CLAIMING THE REAL II tells the story of the emergence, development and current state of documentary film emerged and addresses the social, political, industrial and ethical factors that have determined documentary production, esepcially in the English-speaking world.
John Grierson's definition of the documentary as 'the creative treatment of actuality' appears increasingly inadequate in the face of theoretical sophistication, ethical quagmires and digital's undermining of the photographic image's intrinsic claim on the real. Documentary forms are proliferating. No longer does the 'fly-on-wall' direct cinema style – creative treatment's purest form – sum up the documentary. Diverse forms such as agitprop and advocacy, animated documentary and CGI, satire, poetry and pictorialism, docusoaps, dramadocs and documusicals, excluded feminist, minority and other marginalised voices and first person documentaries, mockumentaries and rockumentaries, never mind 'reality' television – all assert their documentary status.
Brian Winston's illuminating history of the documentary is interwoven with considerations of ethical and theoretical concerns. This revised and updated edition includes a restructured last section on 'The Post-Griersonian Documentary'; addresses the issues raised by the richness of recent work, and offers a new definition of documentary that responds to its current abundance.
Preface I
Preface to the 2nd edition
PART I: THE CREATIVE TREATMENT OF ACTUALITY
The Documentary and CGI
The Documentary Film in 1914
The Documentary as the Creative Treatment of Actuality
PART II: CREATIVE: DOCUMENTARY AS ART
Photography as Art
The Documentarist as Explorer/Artist
The Griersonian Artist
Documentary Film and Realist Painting
The Politics of Realism
Running Away from Social Meaning
Poor, Suffering Characters: Victims and Problem Moments
Serious-Minded Chaps: Politics and Poetics
He Never Used the Word Revolution
To Command, and Cumulatively Command, the Mind of a Generation
Running Away from Social Meaning in America
Staatspolitisch Besonders Wertvoll
To Win New Comrades for the Cause
A Curious Comment
PART III: TREATMENT: DOCUMENTARY AS DRAMA
Life as Narrativised
Chrono-Logic
Non-Narrative: Works Better in the Head than on the Screen
Sincere and Justifiable Reconstruction
PART IV: ACTUALITY: DOCUMENTARY AS SCIENCE
Photography as Science
Science as Inscription
Evidence in the Law
Technologising the Documentary Agenda
Documentary as Scientific Inscription: Film as Evidence
Moments of Revelation
This Objective–Subjective Stuff Is a Lot of Bullshit
Kinopravda
Film as Ethnography
Film as Truth
The Principles of Visual Anthropology
Flies in the Soup: The Influence of Cinéma Vérité
Flies on the Wall: The Influence of Direct Cinema
PART V: THE POST-GRIERSONIAN DOCUMENTARY?
The Naturalistic Illusion
The Battlefields of Epistomology
The Difference that Makes a Difference
What Constraints?
The Voluntary Consent of the Human Subject
What Interests the Public
The Nadir of Human Achievement
The post-Griersonian Documentary: a tour d'horizon
The post-Griersonian Documentary: The Farther Shore
Do Not Be Afraid….
Envoi
Notes
Bibliography
Index
BRIAN WINSTON is the Lincoln Professor of Communications at the University of Lincoln, and has been involved with documentary since 1963. He has an Emmy for documentary scriptwriting; has taught documentary in both the US and the UK; and has long been involved with many international documentary film festivals and the Visible Evidence conference series. Winston first wrote about documentary in 1978. He is the author of a number of books, including Media, Technology and Society: A History, from the Telegraph to the Internet (1998), a volume on "Fires Were Started–" (1999) in the BFI Film Classics series, Lies, Damn Lies and Documentaries (2000) and Messages: Free Expression, Media and the West, from Gutenberg to Google (2005).
Description
CLAIMING THE REAL II tells the story of the emergence, development and current state of documentary film emerged and addresses the social, political, industrial and ethical factors that have determined documentary production, esepcially in the English-speaking world.
John Grierson's definition of the documentary as 'the creative treatment of actuality' appears increasingly inadequate in the face of theoretical sophistication, ethical quagmires and digital's undermining of the photographic image's intrinsic claim on the real. Documentary forms are proliferating. No longer does the 'fly-on-wall' direct cinema style – creative treatment's purest form – sum up the documentary. Diverse forms such as agitprop and advocacy, animated documentary and CGI, satire, poetry and pictorialism, docusoaps, dramadocs and documusicals, excluded feminist, minority and other marginalised voices and first person documentaries, mockumentaries and rockumentaries, never mind 'reality' television – all assert their documentary status.
Brian Winston's illuminating history of the documentary is interwoven with considerations of ethical and theoretical concerns. This revised and updated edition includes a restructured last section on 'The Post-Griersonian Documentary'; addresses the issues raised by the richness of recent work, and offers a new definition of documentary that responds to its current abundance.
Contents
Preface I
Preface to the 2nd edition
PART I: THE CREATIVE TREATMENT OF ACTUALITY
The Documentary and CGI
The Documentary Film in 1914
The Documentary as the Creative Treatment of Actuality
PART II: CREATIVE: DOCUMENTARY AS ART
Photography as Art
The Documentarist as Explorer/Artist
The Griersonian Artist
Documentary Film and Realist Painting
The Politics of Realism
Running Away from Social Meaning
Poor, Suffering Characters: Victims and Problem Moments
Serious-Minded Chaps: Politics and Poetics
He Never Used the Word Revolution
To Command, and Cumulatively Command, the Mind of a Generation
Running Away from Social Meaning in America
Staatspolitisch Besonders Wertvoll
To Win New Comrades for the Cause
A Curious Comment
PART III: TREATMENT: DOCUMENTARY AS DRAMA
Life as Narrativised
Chrono-Logic
Non-Narrative: Works Better in the Head than on the Screen
Sincere and Justifiable Reconstruction
PART IV: ACTUALITY: DOCUMENTARY AS SCIENCE
Photography as Science
Science as Inscription
Evidence in the Law
Technologising the Documentary Agenda
Documentary as Scientific Inscription: Film as Evidence
Moments of Revelation
This Objective–Subjective Stuff Is a Lot of Bullshit
Kinopravda
Film as Ethnography
Film as Truth
The Principles of Visual Anthropology
Flies in the Soup: The Influence of Cinéma Vérité
Flies on the Wall: The Influence of Direct Cinema
PART V: THE POST-GRIERSONIAN DOCUMENTARY?
The Naturalistic Illusion
The Battlefields of Epistomology
The Difference that Makes a Difference
What Constraints?
The Voluntary Consent of the Human Subject
What Interests the Public
The Nadir of Human Achievement
The post-Griersonian Documentary: a tour d'horizon
The post-Griersonian Documentary: The Farther Shore
Do Not Be Afraid….
Envoi
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Authors
BRIAN WINSTON is the Lincoln Professor of Communications at the University of Lincoln, and has been involved with documentary since 1963. He has an Emmy for documentary scriptwriting; has taught documentary in both the US and the UK; and has long been involved with many international documentary film festivals and the Visible Evidence conference series. Winston first wrote about documentary in 1978. He is the author of a number of books, including Media, Technology and Society: A History, from the Telegraph to the Internet (1998), a volume on "Fires Were Started–" (1999) in the BFI Film Classics series, Lies, Damn Lies and Documentaries (2000) and Messages: Free Expression, Media and the West, from Gutenberg to Google (2005).
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