Documenting the Documentary: Close Readings of Documentary Film and Video

Contemporary Approaches to Film and Media

by Jim Leach (Editor), Jeanette Sloniowski (Editor), Bill Nichols (Foreword)

Originally released in 1998, Documenting the Documentary responded to a scholarly landscape in which documentary film was largely understudied and undervalued aesthetically, and analyzed instead through issues of ethics, politics, and film technology. Editors Barry Keith Grant and Jeannette Sloniowski addressed this gap by presenting a useful survey of the artistic and persuasive aspects of documentary film from a range of critical viewpoints. This new edition of Documenting the Documentary adds five new essays on more recent films in addition to the text of the first edition.

Thirty-one film and media scholars, many of them among the most important voices in the area of documentary film, cover the significant developments in the history of documentary filmmaking from Nanook of the North (1922), the first commercially released documentary feature, to contemporary independent film and video productions like Werner Herzog's Grizzly Man (2005) and the controversial Borat (2006). The works discussed also include representative examples of many important national and stylistic movements and various production contexts, from mainstream to avant-garde. In all, this volume offers a series of rich and revealing analyses of those "regimes of truth" that still fascinate filmgoers as much today as they did at the very beginnings of film history.

As documentary film and visual media become increasingly important ways for audiences to process news and information, Documenting the Documentary continues to be a vital resource to understanding the genre. Students and teachers of film studies and fans of documentary film will appreciate this expanded classic volume.

Genres: Film, Nonfiction

838 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 1, 1997

About the author

Jim Leach is professor emeritus in the Department of Communication, Popular Culture and Film at Brock University. He is the author of books on filmmakers Alain Tanner and Claude Jutra, as well as the author of British Film and Film in Canada. He has also published a monograph on Doctor Who (Wayne State University Press, 2009), co-edited a volume on Canadian documentary films, and developed a Canadian edition of an introductory film studies textbook.

Reviews

[Sarah Brienza · Rating 4 out of 5]

had to read for class. some part were more interesting than others.

[faerynde · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read Charlie Keil's American Documentary Finds Its Voice: Persuasion and Expression in The Plow
That Broke the Plains and The City in this book. Unfortunately this is the only part I could read. Hopefully I'll get around to reading the whole book one day.

Second Review

I read “It Was an Atrocious Film” from this book and it was an atrocious film (Blood of the Beasts by Franju) and I likes this article too. I hope to read more from this book.

[LSC-University Park SLRC]

Read it through Lone Star College's EBSCO Ebook Collection.