HISTORY AND THEORY OF THE DOCUMENTARY FILM

https://www.albany.edu/faculty/gz580/docfilmshistory

COURSE INTRODUCTION:

This course will introduce students to the history and theory of documentary cinema. We will review and analyze – through extensive readings and viewings – the evolution of the documentary film genre and the varieties of approaches adopted by non-fiction filmmakers engaged in producing films focusing on diverse political, economic, cultural, social, and historical subjects. We will systematically unravel the various elements and the techniques that contribute to the creation of informative, moving, and powerful documentary films. We'll look at the modes or styles that have evolved in the course of the genre's development: expository, observational, interactive, reflective, and assorted hybrid modes. We'll also explore a number of other important areas that are central in documentary filmmaking, including ethical and legal questions and the importance of deep and thorough research. Finally, in the second part of the course, we'll devote considerable time to exploring recent documentary work in political, biographical, autobiographical, historical, scientific/environmental, labor, and other subjects.

This course will provide students with a solid historical and theoretical foundation in documentary filmmaking and prepare them for a variety of production courses offered on campus.

ACADEMIC INTEGRITY:

The following statement of policy is required by the University at Albany: It is assumed that your intellectual labor is your own. If there is any evidence of academic dishonesty, including plagiarism, the minimum penalty will be an automatic failing grade for that piece of work. Plagiarism is taking (which includes purchasing) the words and ideas of another and passing them off as one�s own work. If another person�s work is quoted directly in a formal paper, this must be indicated with quotation marks and a citation. Paraphrased or borrowed ideas are to be identified by proper citations.

ASSIGNMENTS / GRADING:

Grades will be based on:

UNDERGRADUATES:

* class attendance, preparation, and participation -- both in class and on Blackboard (20%).
* tests/quizzes: Three (3) over the course of semester (Oct. 3, Nov. 7, Dec. 5). The best two grades out of three will count toward your final grade (40%)
* final project (40%): a documentary film proposal & treatment (10-12 pages). Due December 10. The treatment should include: 1) a thorough and well documented (and footnoted!) discussion and justification of the style/mode you intend to use, including a survey of films and filmmakers whose approach has inspired your choice; 2) an overall sketch/summary of your entire film, including: a discussion of its subject and rationale; the central characters, locales, and events it will cover; its organization; and its core story themes and segments. I will distribute and talk about several examples of film treatments in class so you will have a sense of what is expected of you; and 3) a comprehensive bibliography -- both primary and secondary sources -- which includes films, archival film/audio sources, articles, books, and archival document/photograph collections relevant to your film project.

GRADUATE STUDENTS:

* class attendance, preparation, and participation -- both in class and on Blackboard (20%).
* tests/quizzes: Three (3) over the course of semester (Oct. 3, Nov. 7, Dec. 5). The best two grades out of the three will count toward your final grade (40%).
* final project (40%): a documentary film proposal & treatment (20-25 pages). Due December 10. The treatment should include: 1) a thorough and well documented (and footnoted!) discussion and justification of the style/mode you intend to use, including a survey of films and filmmakers whose approach has inspired your choice; 2) an overall sketch/summary of your entire film, including: a discussion of its subject and rationale; the central characters, locales, and events it will cover; its organization; and its core story themes and segments. I will distribute and talk about several examples of film treatments in class so you will have a sense of what is expected of you; and 3) a comprehensive bibliography -- both primary and secondary sources -- which includes films, archival film/audio sources, articles, books, and archival document/photograph collections relevant to your film project.

 

READINGS:

• REQUIRED: (these are our core texts; they will be extensively supplemented by readings and resources on electronic and library reserve). Some changes may be made in reading assignments in the course of the semester. These will be announced well in advance and will generally take the form of substitutions or reductions in readings, and occasional additions to the "Recommended readings/media" lists.
  • Jack C. Ellis and Betsy A. McLane, A New History of Documentary Film (Continuum, 2005).
  • Sheila Curran Bernard, Documentary Storytelling: Making Stronger and More Dramatic Nonfiction Films, 3rd edition (Focal Press, 2010). [A new edition is scheduled to come during the semester.]
  • Barry Keith Grant and Jeannette Slonoiowski, eds., Documenting the Documentary: Close Readings of Documentary Film and Video (Wayne State University Press, 1998).
  • Lewis Jacobs, ed., The Documentary Tradition, Second Edition (W. W. Norton & Co., 1979)
  • Misc. journal articles, chapters, essays and media -- most will be made available on the class Blackboard site. All readings on that site are identified with "[BLS]" and may be accessed there.
    
    
• RECOMMENDED:
  
  • Documentary Film Network: http://www.documentary-film.net/
  • Internet Archive: www.archive.org
  • Documentary Educational Resources Web site: http://www.der.org/films/mi-chacra.html
  • Hulu - Documentaries on Line: http://www.hulu.com/documentaries

~ ~ ~

Class 1 (Monday, Aug. 29): Introduction to the Course and to Documentary Film

Overview of course
Class discussion of definitions, forms, conventions
Film selection viewing and discussion

PART I: THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE DOCUMENTARY FILM GENRE: HISTORICAL AND THEORETICAL DIMENSIONS

Class 2 (Monday, Sept. 12: Narrative and Non-narrative Filmmaking and the Origins and Early History of Documentary Films

Required Readings:

• Jack C. Ellis and Betsy A. McLane, A New History of Documentary Film (Continuum, 2005), preface, pp. 1-11.
• Sheila Curran Bernard, Documentary Storytelling: Making Stronger and More Dramatic Nonfiction Films, 2nd edition (Focal Press, 2007), pp. 15-109.
• Lewis Jacobs, The Documentary Tradition, 2nd edition, pp. 1-10.
• Freeze Frame: Eadweard Muybridge's Photography of Motion: http://americanhistory.si.edu/muybridge/index.htm. [National Museum of American History]
• The short films of the Lumi�re brothers: Extensively available on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nj0vEO4Q6s.
• G. W. (Billy) Bitzer and the Westinghouse films: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/papr/west/westhome.html.
• Ford Motor Company's Motion Picture Department (full collection now at the National Archives). Selections available at http://www.archive.org. [Search by key words, such as: "Ford Motor Company films"].
• The Battle of the Somme (British film, 1916). Sample a few minutes from this hour-long classic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpRc6lx_7wg&feature=related.
  See also: http://www.vortex.uwe.ac.uk/noman.htm for a discussion of the making of The Battle of the Somme.
• Sample some of Thomas Edison's earliest actualities and documentary-style productions, available at the Library of Congress' American Memory site: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/edhtml/edmvhm.html

Recommended Reading/Viewing:

• McKinley and the Pan-American Exposition, 1901 (Library of Congress): http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/papr/mckhome.html;
• Before and After the Great Earthquake and Fire: Early Films of San Francisco, 1897-1916 (Library of Congress): http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/papr/sfhome.html;
• Spanish-American War Films, 1898-1901: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/sawhtml/sawhome.html;
• America at Work, America at Leisure, 1894-1915 (Library of Congress): http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/awlhtml/workleistitlindex1.html [includes a wonderful 1901 film of the Albany, NY fire department on parade].
• British Path� newsreels: http://www.britishpathe.com/
• "Documentary Chronology: http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/docexhibit/docuchron.htm
• "Early Cinema Gateway:" http://earlycinema.com.

Required Readings:

Recommended Reading/Viewings:

• Paul Rotha, Robert J. Flaherty: A Biography (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983). Web version: http://astro.temple.edu/~ruby/wava/Flaherty/title.html.
• Mick Gidley, Edward S. Curtis and the North American Indian (Cambridge University Press, 1998).
• Barbara A. Davis, Edward S. Curtis: The Life and Times of a Shadow Catcher (San Francisco, 1985).
• Laurie Lawlor, Shadow Catcher: The Life and Work of Edward S. Curtis (New York, 1994).
• Nanook of the North. 1922. A film by Robert Flaherty.
• Moana. 1926. A film by Robert Flaherty. [Selections to be shown in class]
• The Shadow Catcher: Edward S. Curtis and the North American Indians. 1993. A film by T.C. McLuhan. [Selections to be shown in class].
• In the land of the war canoes: Kwakiutl Indian life on the Northwest Coast. 1914. A film by Edward S. Curtis. [Selections to be shown in class].

Required Readings/Viewings:

• Ellis and McLane, A New History of Documentary Film, pp. 27-43.
• The Man with the Movie Camera. 1929. Dziga Vertov. [Available through link at the bottom of this page.]
• Seth Feldman, "'Peace between Man and Machine': Dziga Vertov's The Man with a Movie Camera," in Barry Keith Grant and Jeannette Sloniowski, eds., Documenting the Documentary: Close Readings of Documentary Film and Video (Detroit, 1998). pp. 40-54.
• Lewis Jacobs, ed., The Documentary Tradition, 2nd edition, [pp. 29-42 and 53-59]
• Annette Michelson, ed., Kino-Eye: The Writings of Dziga Vertov (Univ. of California Press, 1984), Read the introduction, pp. 6-21 & pp. 40-50 (skip the rest). [Available through link at bottom of page].
• Jonathan Dawson on Vertov (from Sense of Cinema, an online journal devoted to the serious and eclectic discussion of cinema): http://archive.sensesofcinema.com/contents/directors/03/vertov.html
• Graham Roberts, Forward Soviet!: History and Non-fiction Film in the USSR (St. Martin's Press, 1999), ch.3 ("Esfir Shub and the Great Way Forward"). [See link to this reading at bottom of this page.]

Recommended Readings/Films:

• The Fall of the Romanov Dynasty. 1927. Esfir Shub. [Selections to be viewed in class].
• Mark Daniel, "The man with the movie camera. Speed of vision, speed of truth?": http://www.25hrs.org/vertov.htm.
• Web sites on Sergei Eisenstein: (1) Dan Shaw on Eisenstein (from Sense of Cinema, an online journal devoted to the serious and eclectic discussion of cinema): http://www.sensesofcinema.com/2004/great-directors/eisenstein/ (2) Greg Severson on Eisenstein: http://www.carleton.edu/curricular/MEDA/classes/media110/Severson/eisenste.htm.

EXAM #1 Scheduled. Multiple choice, short answer, and fill-in exam. Will cover all material up to this date, including below assignments.

Required Readings:

Recommended Readings/Films:

• Land Without Bread. 1932. Luis Buñuel. [Selections to be viewed in class].
• William Rothman, Documentary Film Classics (New York, 1997), pp. 21-38 (Chapter 2, "Land Without Bread"). [BLS]
• The Bridge. 1928. Joris Ivens.
• Rien que les heurs [Nothing But the Hours]. 1926. Alberto Cavalcanti.
• H2O. Ralph Steiner (1929).
• Mannahatta. Charles Sheeler and Paul Strand. 1921.

Class 6: (Monday, Oct. 10): Social Documentary and the Anglo-American Documentary Movements of the 1930s

Required Readings:

• Ellis and McLane, A New History of Documentary Film, pp. 57-104.
• David Davidson, "Depression America and the Rise of the Social Documentary Film." Chicago Review 34.1 (Summer 1983): 69-88. [BLS]
• Charlie Keil, "American Documentary Finds Its Voice: Persuasion and Expression in The Plow That Broke the Plains and The City," in Barry Keith Grant and Jeannette Sloniowski, eds., Documenting the Documentary: Close Readings of Documentary Film and Video (Detroit, 1998), pp. 119-135.
• Selections from Lewis Jacobs, ed., The Documentary Tradition, pp. 64-65; 101-115; 123-125.
• The Plow that Broke the Plains (Film: Pare Lorenz, 1936). Available at www.archive.org: http://www.archive.org/details/gov.archives.arc.13595.dup
• The City (1939) Available at: http://www.archive.org/details/CityTheP1939 (part 1) and http://www.archive.org/details/CityTheP1939_2 (part 2).
• John Corner, “Coalface and Housing Problems (1935)” in The Art of Record (Manchester and New York: Manchester UP, 1996), 56-71. [BLS]

Recommended Readings/Films:

• The River [Film. Pare Lorentz, 1937]. Available on www.archive.org: http://www.archive.org/details/RiverThe1937 (part 1) and http://www.archive.org/details/RiverThe1937_(part 2).
• People of the Cumberland (Elia Kazan and Ralph Steiner, 1938).
• Native Land (Leo Hurwitz and Paul Strand, 1939).
• And So They Live (John Ferno and Julian Hoffman, 1940).
• Brian Winston, “The Tradition of the Victim in the Griersonian Documentary” New Challenges for Documentary, ed. Alan Rosenthal (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1988), 269-287. [BLS]
• Web site on John Grierson: Biography from the British Film Insititute' Screenonline Web site (www.screenonline.org): http://www.screenonline.org.uk/people/id/454202/
• Web site on Basil Wright: Biography from the British Film Insititute' Screenonline Web site (www.screenonline.org): http://www.screenonline.org.uk/people/id/454662/.
• Web site on Harry Watt: Biography from the British Film Insititute' Screenonline Web site (www.screenonline.org): http://www.screenonline.org.uk/people/id/548238/.
• Depression Era Documentaries: "A New Frontier for Documentaries": http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA01/Huffman/Frontier/frontier.html.
• Ian Aitken, The Documentary Film Movement (Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 1998), 1-68.
• Drifters (John Grierson, 1929)
• Housing Problems (Arthur Elton and Edgar Anstey, 1935)
• William Stott, Documentary Expression and Thirties America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986), 18-45.
• Robert L. Snyder, “The Plow that Broke the Plains” (21-49) and “The River” (50-78) in Pare Lorentz and the Documentary Film (Reno and Las Vegas: University of Nevada Press, 1994.
• Carl R. Plantinga, “Exemplars and Expression” Rhetoric and Representation in Nonfiction Film (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 26-39.
• Sound track/script for Pare Lorentz's The River.
• Film sound track script for The Plow that Broke the Plains: http://newdeal.feri.org/nchs/doc01.htm
• Night Mail by W. H. Auden. This poem was written for the film Night Mail.
• National Film Preservation Foundation ~ film preservation basics: http://www.filmpreservation.org/] A great resource on film preservation.
• Screenoline Web site on Man of Aran: http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/480287/

Class 7 (Monday, Oct. 17): Documentary Filmmaking and the Rise of Fascism in the 1930s

Required Readings/Viewings:

• Frank P. Tomasulo, �The Mass Psychology of Fascist Cinema: Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will,� in Documenting the Documentary: Close Readings of Documentary Film and Video, ed. Barry Keith Grant and Jeanette Sloniowski, (Detroit, Michigan: Wayne State, 1998), 99-118.
• Thomas Waugh, "'Men Cannot Act Before the Camera in the Presence of Death:' Joris Ivens's The Spanish Earth in Documenting the Documentary: Close Readings of Documentary Film and Video, ed. Barry Keith Grant and Jeanette Sloniowski, (Detroit, Michigan: Wayne State, 1998), 136-153.
• Selections from Lewis Jacobs, ed., The Documentary Tradition, pp. 136-180.
• The Spanish Earth (Joris Ivens, 1937).
• Triumph of the Will (Leni Riefenstahl, 1936).

Recommended Readings:

• David B. Hinton, �The Nuremberg Trilogy,� The Films of Leni Riefenstahl (Lanham,Maryland: Scarecrow, 2000), 19-46. [BLS]
• Richard M. Barsam, "Leni Riefenstahl: Artifice and Truth in a World Apart," in Barsam, Nonfiction Film Theory and Criticism (New York, 1976), pp. 250-262. [BLS]
• The Wonderful Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl (Film, 1994)
• Manohla Daris, �Leni Riefenstahl, Art, and Propaganda,� in Kevin Macdonald and Mark Cousins, eds., Imagining Reality (Boston and London: Faber and Faber, 1996), 129-135.
  
  

Class 8 (Monday, Oct. 24): Documenting War in Canada, Great Britain, and the U.S.: World War II and the Post-War Era

Required Readings:

Recommended Readings/Viewings:

Required Readings:

• Ellis and McLane, A New History of Documentary Film, pp.167-195.
• Selections from Lewis Jacobs, ed., The Documentary Tradition, pp. 327-333.
• Keith Beattie, “The Evening Report: Television Documentary Journalism,” Documentary Screens: Non-Fiction Film and Television (New York: Palgrave, 2004): 161-181. [BLS]
• Jeffrey K. Ruoff, “'A Bastard Union of Several Forms,' Style and Narrative in An American Family," in Documenting the Documentary: Close Readings of Documentary Film and Video, ed. Barry Keith Grant and Jeanette Sloniowski, (Detroit, Michigan: Wayne State, 1998), 286-301.
• Thomas Rosteck, See It Now Confronts McCarthyism: Television Documentary and the Politics of Representation (Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 1994), chapters 1 and 6 [“McCarthyism, the Red Scare, and the Television Industry” (11-24) and “Argument and the News Documentary: ‘A Report on Senator Joseph R. McCarthy’” (112-141)]. [BLS]
• Richard J. Schaefer, “Reconsidering Harvest of Shame: The Limitations of a Broadcast Journalism Landmark,” Journalism History 19.4 (1994). [BLS]
• Harvest of Shame [TV CBS Reports documentary, 1960; Edward R. Murrow]. [BLS]

Recommended Readings/Viewings:

Class 10 (Monday, Nov. 7): Direct Cinema and Cinema Verité

EXAM #2 Scheduled. Multiple choice, short answer, and fill-in exam. Will cover all material up to this date, including below assignments.

Required Readings:

• Ellis and McLane, A New History of Documentary Film, pp. 196-226.
• Lewis Jacobs, ed., The Documentary Tradition, 2nd ed., 367-382; 400-429; 437-443; 459-461; 477-482; 492-499.
• Barry Keith Grant, “Ethnography in the First Person: Frederick Wiseman’s Titicut Follies,” in Barry Keith Grant and Jeanette Sloniowski, eds., Documenting the Documentary: Close Readings of Documentary Film and Video, ed. (Detroit, 1998), 238-253.
• Jeanne Hall, "'Don't You Ever Just Watch?' American Cinema Verité and Don't Look Back," in Barry Keith Grant and Jeanette Sloniowski, eds., Documenting the Documentary: Close Readings of Documentary Film and Video, ed. (Detroit, 1998), 223-237.
• WATCH Titicut Follies (1967). Sample one or more of the below, available in our library and in many regional libraries.
  • Robert Drew, et al., Primary (1960).
  • D. A. Pennebaker, Don't Look Back (1966).
  • Albert and David Maysles, Salesman (1969).

Recommended Readings/Films:

• M. Ali Issari and Doris A. Paul, What is Cinema Verite (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow, 1979): pp. 3-31 & 67-104.
• Jean Rouch, Cine-Ethnography, Ed. and trans. Steven Feld (Minneapolis: Minnesota UP, 2003), selections; 29-46; 229-265; 275-329.
• Carolyn Anderson and Thomas Benson, “Direct Cinema and the Myth of Informed Consent: The Case of Titicut Follies,” in Larry Gross, John Stuart Katz, and Jay Ruby, eds., Image Ethics: The Moral Rights of Subjects in Photographs, Film, and Television (New York: Oxford UP, 1988), 58-90.
• Erik Barnouw, “Guerilla” (262-293), Documentary: A History of Nonfiction Film (New York: Oxford UP, 1993).
• Jeanne Lynn Hall, “Realism as a Style in Cinema Verite: A Critical Analysis of Primary,” Cinema Journal 30(4): 24-50.
• Stella Bruzzi, “The President and the Image: Kennedy, Nixon, Clinton” New Documentary: A Critical Introduction (New York: Routledge, 2000), 127-152.
• Stephen Mamber, “Direct Cinema and the Crisis Structure,” Cinema Verite in America: Studies in Uncontrolled Documentary (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT, 1974): 115-140.
• Carolyn Anderson and Thomas Benson, Documentary Dilemmas: Frederick Wiseman’s Titicut Follies (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1991).
• Jean Rouch, Chronicle of a Summer (1961) [See, as well, some of Rouch's West African and French ethnographic films, such as Jaguar, The Lion Hunters, and Cocorico, Monsieur Poulet]
• Shawn J. Parry-Giles and Trevor Parry Giles, “Meta-Imaging, The War Room, and the Hypperreality of U.S. Politics,” Journal of Communication 49:1 (1999): 28-45.

PART II : THE RANGE OF RECENT AND CONTEMPORARY
DOCUMENARY FILMMAKING

Class 11 (Monday, Nov. 14): Documenting Protest / Protesting with Documentary

Required Readings:

• Ellis and McLane, A New History of Documentary Film, pp. 227-292.
• Sheila Curran Bernard, Documentary Storytelling: Making Stronger and More Dramatic Nonfiction Films, 2nd edition (Focal Press, 2007), pp. 113-174.
• Lewis Jacobs, ed., The Documentary Tradition, 2nd ed., 514-576.
• Matthew Bernstein, "Documentaphobia and Mixed Modes: Michael Moore's Roger and Me," in Barry Keith Grant and Jeanette Sloniowski, eds., Documenting the Documentary: Close Readings of Documentary Film and Video, ed. (Detroit, 1998), 238-253.
• Roger and Me (Michael Moore, 1989). [BLS]
• Harlan County, USA (Barbara Kopple, 1976). [BLS]
• Liz Stubbs, Documentary Filmmakers Speak, 209-220.

Recommended Readings/Viewings:

Class 12 (Monday, Nov. 21): Self and Society: The Autobiographical Documentary

Required Readings:

Class 13 (Monday, Nov. 28): Political, Historical, and Investigative Documentaries

Required Readings:

Class 14 (Monday, Dec. 5): Narrative and Non-narrative Approaches in Science, Nature, and Ethnographic Documentary Filmmaking

EXAM #3 Scheduled. Multiple choice, short answer, and fill-in exam. Will cover all material up to this date, including below assignments.

Required Readings:

December 12: FINAL PROJECT DUE [submit project electronically as an email attachment or through Blackboard. I'll acknowledge receiving it with an email response.]