Modes of Documentaries Poetic Documentary Expository Documentary Observational

Modes of Documentaries Ø Poetic Documentary Ø Expository Documentary Ø Observational Documentary Ø Participatory Documentary Ø Reflexive Documentary Ø Performative Documentary

Poetic Documentaries ØPoetic Documentaries focus on experiences and images Øshowing the audience the world through a different set of eye Øunconventional and experimental in form and content ØThe ultimate goal is to create a feeling rather than a truth Skyscraper Symphony Night Mail

City of Gold Night Mail Expository Documentaries • Expository documentaries aim to inform and persuade • Narration holds the weight of explaining and arguing a film’s rhetorical content City of Gold • Night Mail Waiting for Fidel • .

Observational • Observe the world around them • style attempts to give voice to all sides of an issue • tend to simply observe, allowing viewers to reach conclusions • Footage appears as though the viewer is witnessing first-hand the experiences of the subject In the Room With JFK and RFK Armadillo

Participatory • Elements of Observational and Expository • Filmmaker does interact with his or her subjects rather than unobtrusively observe them • Makes explicit that meaning is created by the collaboration or confrontation between filmmaker and contributor Chronicle of a Summer Waiting for Fidel

Reflexive • Reflexive Documentaries are similar to Participatory in that they often include the filmmaker within the film • Reflexively and critically questions the observational mode • Commenting on observational techniques and their capacity for capturing authentic truths • • No Lies Lenny D

Performative • Stress subject experience and share an emotional response to the world • Connect personal accounts or experience juxtaposed with larger political or historical issues • Uses his own personal stories as a way to construct social truths • Engages the filmmaker to the story but attempts to construct truths • Called the “Michael Moore” style

A Presentation by Prof. Subhash Dhuliya Culture and Media Studies Central University of Rajasthan