THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE DOCUMENTARY. On Deontology of Representation and Ethics of Interpretation (original) (raw)

'The Dance of Documentary Ethics', book chapter in bfi Documentary Film Book, BFI, London (2013)

what are documentary ethics? How are they constitued and realised in the struggle for form and function; of ethics and aesthetics; artistic freedom and responsibility to individual contributors in the creation of film from actuality? Using reflexive and practice-based examples the author surveys the shifting mores of dcoumentary practice as it shifts between broadcast and gallery contexts in documentary's new decade

Ethics Reflexivity in Documentary Film: An i-doc as a model

Ethics Reflexivity in Documentary Film: An i-doc as a model, 2022

This article highlights the ethics of documentary filmmaking. It focuses on filmmakers' task to consider these ethics based on the ethical philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas in exploring the dilemmas of representation in documentaries adopted by Nash (2011), who notes that stories and ethics always go hand in hand. Determining the ethics of regulating documentary and following filmmaking's ethics. Documentary filmmakers are recommended that if they have ideological biases and solid feelings or preconceived ideas, set them aside and ethically interact with the facts they encounter while working on a documentary. Ethics risks in documentary films lie in four main determinants: the participant, the degree of social bias, the place, and the audience. Although the examples highlighted to show how a few documentary filmmakers did not commit the filmmaking ethics, other examples show how to get benefits from the experience of other filmmakers.

THE DOCUMENTARY FILM GENRE: ISSUES OF TRUTH AND PROPAGANDA

LOCATING TRANSNATIONAL SPACES, CULTURE, THEATRE AND CINEMA

Abstract The documentary film genre has established itself as a credible cinematic form over the years. It has grown to become a useful tool for driving social change, engaging people, mobilising groups as well as pushing for institutional transformations. Even though the documentary film is regarded as a presentation of truth in real life situations and circumstances, the influence of a director, cinematic techniques and technology, have been implicated as agents that may affect the concept of truth in documentaries. If a filmmaker has the liberty to apply creativity in the treatment of real-life conflicts in the documentary film process, the question to answer therefore is, to what extent does the creativity of the director and other influences allow the truth to remain untouched in the documentary film? This article adds to the debate on the issue of fact in documentary films as an art form. It attempts an assessment of some positions for and against the place of truth in the documentary film. It concludes that the documentary film, even though engineered initially to project the fact equally, has become a tool that could be used for purposes that may compromise truth. Key Words: Documentary Film, Truth, Ethics

Documentary on the verge of progress. in Studies in documentary Film. Volume 5 Issue 2-3 Cover Date: August 2011

Studies in Documentary Film, 5, 2011

Keywords development,progress,Joris Ivens,Pier Paolo Pasolini,Neorealism,realism,Italy,documentary, Abstract Despite the alarm regarding the absence of an Italian ‘engaged’ cinema that might offer resistance to the manipulative conditioning of mass media, recent years have seen the production of an impressive array of documentaries that in their urgency remind us of the lesson of Neorealism. Utilizing Pier Paolo Pasolini’s critique of a capitalist society that masked the necessary distinctions between progress and development, and through the lens of Joris Ivens’ L’Italia non è un paese povero/Italy Is Not a Poor Country (1959), this article assesses the ways in which contemporary film-makers, Matteo Garrone, Vincenzo Marra, Stefano Missio and Daniele Vicari among others, enact a ‘creative treatment of actuality’ (Grierson) free of the rhetoric of ‘realism’.

Soul of the Documentary: Framing, Expression, Ethics

2015

Soul of the Documentary offers a groundbreaking new approach to documentary cinema. Ilona Hongisto stirs current thinking by suggesting that the work of documentary films is not reducible to representing what already exists. By close-reading a diverse body of films - from The Last Bolshevik to Grey Gardens - Hongisto shows how documentary cinema intervenes in the real by framing it and creatively contributes to its perpetual unfolding. The emphasis on framing brings new urgency to the documentary tradition and its objectives, and provokes significant novel possibilities for thinking about the documentary's ethical and political potentials in the contemporary world.

Regarding the Real: Cinema, Documentary, and the Visual Arts (2016)

Regarding the real develops an original approach to documentary film, focusing on its aesthetic relations to visual arts such as animation, assemblage, photography, painting and architecture. Throughout, the book considers the work of figures whose preferred film language is associative and fragmentary, and for whom the documentary is an endlessly open form; an unstable expressive phenomenon that cannot help but interrogate its own narratives and intentions. Combining close analysis with cultural history, the book re-assesses the influence of the modern arts in subverting structures of realism typically associated with the documentary. In the course of its discussion, it charts a fascinating path that leads from Len Lye to Hiroshi Teshigahara, and includes along the way figures such as Joseph Cornell, Johan van der Keuken, William Klein, Jean-Luc Godard, Jonas Mekas and Raymond Depardon.

The filmmaker, the subject and the audience : A dialectical exploration of documentary performance

2006

Documentary filmmakers 11 engage directly in the study of the phenomena of life that surrounds us. We hold the ability to show and elucidate life as it is, considerably higher than the occasionally diverting droll games that people call theatre, cinema etc." (Vertov, 1984, p. 47). The ability to 'show and elucidate life as it is' is a controversial claim that the majority of academic documentary discussion is concerned with. I intend to add to this discussion through an exploration of performance and its pertinence to the ability of documentary to represent reality truthfully. The reception of documentary is significantly influenced by this claim and expectation of a truthful representation of the world. As O'Shaughnessy has noted, 11 documentary's special pleasures lie in its reality content, the spectacle and voyeurism involved in watching something that we know really happened" (1997, p.86). While the audience is satisfied that the film is, as it reports...

Editorial: A complicated post-documentary era

Pacific Journalism Review, 2015

SINCE early in the first decade of this century, the concept of documentary—never beyond contestation—has entered into a state of generic uncertainty. Reflecting on these developments, John Corner, in an influential article, dubbed the current context of production as ‘Post-documentary’ (Corner, 2002). In his view, the documentary tradition has always encompassed a range of approaches: 1. Documentary as social commentary seeking to inform audiences as citizens rather than consumers. 2. Documentary as Investigative Reporting, once the most extensive use of documentary methods on television. 3. Documentary as Radical Interrogation and Agit-Prop as found in the practices of independent cinema. 4. Documentary as popular ‘factual’ entertainment driven by ratings and box office.