by valerie.schwarz - Media Design -

Defining Documentaries

“docere”
– meaning “to teach” in Latin is the root of the word “document”, leading to “documentary”, a term John Grierson first used in 1926 (Jack, 2005). And although he already provided a definition for this new film genre almost 100 years ago when he described it as “a creative treatment of actuality”, there has been a continuous effort to find a more precise, less vague definition ever since (Plantinga, 2005).

But why do we so desperately need to define what makes a documentary? Why do we keep searching?
Well, names carry meanings. They build expectations and they create responsibility.
This is especially impactful for the documentary genre where many movies communicate a – either very obvious or rather subtle – call to action to their viewers (Aufderheide, 2007).
The label “documentary” suggests to the viewers a certain level of accuracy, truthfulness and trustworthiness. How issues and topics are portrayed in documentaries can significantly shape the public’s perception of reality and impact how they act (Aufderheide, 2007).

And while many might just define documentaries as a genre simply “documenting reality”, this is not and can never be the case. Not with any type of medium, because as soon as we try to capture reality, we inherently change it. And this also rings true for documentaries. They are not real life, they merely use real life as a basis, from which they construct a story they intend to tell. During the process of selectively recording certain scenes, then editing them, arranging them and sorting through the footage, the documentary’s creators already manipulate the story at heart and thus change our perception of reality (Juel, 2006).

Now that we know that stories can never be told without manipulating them to a certain extent, an important question arises: How much manipulation is allowed in documentaries? This question has been around since the first American feature-length documentary movie “Nanook of the North”. In the movie created by Robert Flaherty, the portrayed Inuit were in fact directed heavily by Flaherty, like actors in a fiction movie. They were portrayed acting naive and ignorant about things they actually knew and they were shown acting in ways they no longer did in real life. At some point during the movie “Nanook”, which also was not his real name, bites into a gramophone record, pretending to not understand such modern technology, even though he routinely helped Flaherty with his camera equipment. Moreover, the Inuit in the movie were often compared to animals, living closed off from civilisation when that was far from the truth (Wikipedia – Nanook of the North, 2024). It remains difficult to determine, how much manipulation is acceptable, especially because some form of manipulation is already happening through the mere presence of a camera team which will influence people’s behaviour one way or another.

What remains important though is that documentaries have the responsibility to fulfil viewers’ expectations concerning truthfulness. Issues do not have to be portrayed objectively, as that is nearly impossible, and documentaries do not have to show the whole truth, but what viewers do expect is an honest and fair representation of real life. This agreement made with the audience is one that every film maker has to keep in the back of their mind (Aufderheide, 2007).

Another important aspect in defining documentaries is the purpose they follow. Unlike many fiction movies, documentaries aim to achieve something. That something might be a change in how the audience views certain topics or acts on certain issues. This is where the aforementioned “call to action” comes into play. Many documentaries aim to bring difficult topics to light. They want to show the public sides of a story they had not seen before and thus make them change their view. This brings incredible power and influence to documentaries but also comes with a lot of responsibility (Jack, 2005).

Now, all of these aspects of documentaries mostly focus on ethics, content and purpose. There are of course also a lot of technical aspects that play into making and defining documentaries. I will however, get back to the technicalities of documentaries at a later point.

To briefly conclude what we know about documentaries and their definition: not very much, but also quite a lot at the same time. Documentaries can be described as portraying reality without claiming to be real, they promise truthfulness without having to tell the whole truth and they may or may not openly admit to wanting to change and influence their audience.
As one can see, trying to define this genre will remain complicated and confusing, but at the same time incredibly important.

Literature:

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