Academic literature on the topic 'Documentary criticism'

A close textual analysis of the films of Basil Wright between 1931 and 1938. This work will give a fresh perspective on the working methods of one of the senior members of the British Documentary Movement. It will also discuss the influence exerted by the leader of this group John Grierson. Seven films will be looked at in detail beginning with The Country Comes to the Town and concluding with Face of Scotland. In these detailed analyses we will discuss how the ideological thinking of the group found expression through Wright The purpose of studying an individual is to judge what measure of freedom individual members of the unit were permitted. In seven chapters we will chart the growth of the movement from Gnerson's Dnfters in 1929 to Wright's Face of Scotland in 1938. During the period the Movement went through changes in direction which had a direct bearing on the style of Wright's work. In order to understand these changes we shall chart Wright's development from cutter in late 1929 to senior member in the late thirties. Each chapter will begin with socio-historical data on the subject Wnght was filming. Also included in this section is material on key personnel and details of shooting. This is followed with a close analysis of the form and meaning of Wright's style. In the conclusions we will discuss Gnerson's reaction to the films in question as well as giving further political and historical data. The purpose of this thesis is to re-evaluate Wright's early work and to judge how much it is a reflection of the middle-opinion group whose ideas on social policy find expression in some of the films.

Debates concerning the veracity, ethics and politics of the documentary form circle endlessly around the function of those who participate in it, and the meaning attributed to their participation. Great significance is attached to the way that documentary filmmakers do or do not participate in the world they seek to represent, just as great significance is attached to those subjects whose participation extends beyond playing the part of eyewitness or expert, such that they become part of the very filmmaking process itself. This Ph.D. explores the interface between documentary practice and participatory culture by looking at how their practices, discursive fields and histories intersect, but also by looking at how participating in one might mean participating in the other. In short, the research is an examination of participatory culture through the lens of documentary practice and documentary criticism. In the process, however, this examination of participatory culture will in turn shed light on documentary thinking, especially the meaning and function of ‘the participant’ in contemporary documentary practice. A number of ways of conceiving of participation in documentary practice are discussed in this research, but one of the ideas that gives purpose to that investigation is the notion that the participant in contemporary documentary practice is someone who belongs to a participatory culture in particular. Not only does this mean that those subjects who play a part in a documentary are already informed by their engagement with a range of everyday media practices before the documentary apparatus arrives, the audience for such films are similarly informed and engaged. This audience have their own expectations about how they should be addressed by media producers in general, a fact that feeds back into their expectations about participatory approaches to documentary practice too. It is the ambition of this research to get closer to understanding the relationship between participants in the audience, in documentary and ancillary media texts, as well as behind the camera, and to think about how these relationships constitute a context for the production and reception of documentary films, but also how this context might provide a model for thinking about participatory culture itself. One way that documentary practice and participatory culture converge in this research is in the kind of participatory documentary that I call the ‘Camera Movie’, a narrow mode of documentary filmmaking that appeals directly to contemporary audiences’ desires for innovation and participation, something that is achieved in this case by giving documentary subjects control of the camera. If there is a certain inevitability about this research having to contend with the notion of the ‘participatory documentary’, the ‘participatory camera’ also emerges strongly in this context, especially as a conduit between producer and consumer. Making up the creative component of this research are two documentaries about the reality television event Band In A Bubble, and participatory media practices more broadly. The single-screen film, Hubbub , gives form to the collective intelligence and polyphonous voice of contemporary audiences who must be addressed and solicited in increasingly innovative ways. One More Like That is a split-screen, DVD-Video with alternate audio channels selected by a user who thereby chooses who listens and who speaks in the ongoing conversation between media producers and media consumers. It should be clear from the description above that my own practice does not extend to highly interactive, multi-authored or web-enabled practices, nor the distributed practices one might associate with social media and online collaboration. Mine is fundamentally a single authored, documentary video practice that seeks to analyse and represent participatory culture on screen, and for this reason the Ph.D. refrains from a sustained discussion of the kinds of collaborative practices listed above. This is not to say that such practices don’t also represent an important intersection of documentary practice and participatory culture, they simply represent a different point of intersection. Being practice-led, this research takes its procedural cues from the nature of the practice itself, and sketches parameters that are most enabling of the idea that the practice sets the terms of its own investigation.

Debates concerning the veracity, ethics and politics of the documentary form circle endlessly around the function of those who participate in it, and the meaning attributed to their participation. Great significance is attached to the way that documentary filmmakers do or do not participate in the world they seek to represent, just as great significance is attached to those subjects whose participation extends beyond playing the part of eyewitness or expert, such that they become part of the very filmmaking process itself. This Ph.D. explores the interface between documentary practice and participatory culture by looking at how their practices, discursive fields and histories intersect, but also by looking at how participating in one might mean participating in the other. In short, the research is an examination of participatory culture through the lens of documentary practice and documentary criticism. In the process, however, this examination of participatory culture will in turn shed light on documentary thinking, especially the meaning and function of ‘the participant’ in contemporary documentary practice. A number of ways of conceiving of participation in documentary practice are discussed in this research, but one of the ideas that gives purpose to that investigation is the notion that the participant in contemporary documentary practice is someone who belongs to a participatory culture in particular. Not only does this mean that those subjects who play a part in a documentary are already informed by their engagement with a range of everyday media practices before the documentary apparatus arrives, the audience for such films are similarly informed and engaged. This audience have their own expectations about how they should be addressed by media producers in general, a fact that feeds back into their expectations about participatory approaches to documentary practice too. It is the ambition of this research to get closer to understanding the relationship between participants in the audience, in documentary and ancillary media texts, as well as behind the camera, and to think about how these relationships constitute a context for the production and reception of documentary films, but also how this context might provide a model for thinking about participatory culture itself. One way that documentary practice and participatory culture converge in this research is in the kind of participatory documentary that I call the ‘Camera Movie’, a narrow mode of documentary filmmaking that appeals directly to contemporary audiences’ desires for innovation and participation, something that is achieved in this case by giving documentary subjects control of the camera. If there is a certain inevitability about this research having to contend with the notion of the ‘participatory documentary’, the ‘participatory camera’ also emerges strongly in this context, especially as a conduit between producer and consumer. Making up the creative component of this research are two documentaries about the reality television event Band In A Bubble, and participatory media practices more broadly. The single-screen film, Hubbub , gives form to the collective intelligence and polyphonous voice of contemporary audiences who must be addressed and solicited in increasingly innovative ways. One More Like That is a split-screen, DVD-Video with alternate audio channels selected by a user who thereby chooses who listens and who speaks in the ongoing conversation between media producers and media consumers. It should be clear from the description above that my own practice does not extend to highly interactive, multi-authored or web-enabled practices, nor the distributed practices one might associate with social media and online collaboration. Mine is fundamentally a single authored, documentary video practice that seeks to analyse and represent participatory culture on screen, and for this reason the Ph.D. refrains from a sustained discussion of the kinds of collaborative practices listed above. This is not to say that such practices don’t also represent an important intersection of documentary practice and participatory culture, they simply represent a different point of intersection. Being practice-led, this research takes its procedural cues from the nature of the practice itself, and sketches parameters that are most enabling of the idea that the practice sets the terms of its own investigation.

This thesis discusses the relationship between mockumentaries and the music industry. Because this subject has yet to be studied in depth, the original contribution to knowledge is to further examine this relationship. To do so, a literature review documenting what has thus far been written about mockumentaries is provided. This audiovisual strategy is also contextualized within contemporary practices. In the next section, the music industry is discussed in broad terms. Firstly, the relationship between cinema and music is addressed. Then, music is depicted as a cultural phenomenon, with recent issues also being brought to light. In the last chapter, four music-related mockumentaries are analysed. Then, extensive conclusions are drawn.<br>Esta tesis analiza la relación entre la industria de la música y los falsos documentales. Teniendo en cuenta que esta cuestión todavía no se ha estudiado en profundidad, la contribución original al conocimiento es centrarse en el análisis de esta relación. Para ello, una revisión de la literatura se proporciona, discutiendo lo que hasta ahora se ha escrito acerca de falsos documentales. Esta estrategia audiovisual también se estudia en el contexto de otras prácticas audiovisuales contemporáneas. En la siguiente sección, la industria musical es tratada en términos generales. En primer lugar se aborda la relación entre la música y el cine. A continuación, la industria de la música es analizada como un fenómeno cultural, y además se abordan cuestiones actuales. En el último capítulo cuatro falsos documentales relacionados con la música son analizados y por último se presentan una serie conclusiones.

The first Englishmen to write about the city-state of Venice were the pilgrims passing through on their way to the Holy Land. Their impressions are recorded in the travel diaries and collections of advice for prospective fellow pilgrims between the early fourteenth and early sixteenth centuries, the most substantial being those of William Wey, Sir Richard Guylforde and Sir Richard Torkington, who visited Venice in 1458 and '62, 1506, and 1517 respectively. In the 1540s arrived the men who saw Venice as part of the new Europe--Andrew Borde and William Thomas. Thomas's study of the Venetian state emphasized the efficiency of its administration, seeing it as an example of constructive government, where effective organisation for the common good led directly to national stability and prosperity. The mid-sixteenth century saw the beginnings of Venice as a tourist centre; the visitors who came between 1550 and the end of the century described the sights and the people, the traditions and way of life. Fynes Moryson's extensive account details what could be seen and learned in the city by an observant and enquiring visitor. In addition to information available in first-hand accounts of Venice, much could be learned from the work of the late sixteenth-century English translators. Linguistic, cultural, geographical, historical and literary translations yielded further knowledge and, more importantly, new perspectives, Venice being seen through the eyes of Italians and, through Lewkenor's comprehensive work, The Commonwealth and Government of Venice, of Venetians themselves. Finally, to assess the general impressions of Venice and the Venetians, we consider the literature of the turn of the sixteenth-seventeenth century; what, and how much, of the three-hundred year accumulation of knowledge of the city and people of Venice had most caught the attention and imagination of the English mind, and how close was the relationship between the popular impression and the documentary information from which it had largely developed.

This study sets out to explore the representations of disability in documentary films. Its starting point is that when such representations of disability films are under examination, one needs to take into consideration a level of complexities that come with disability, the construction and functionalities of representations, and more particularly the impact of documentary films on understanding disability. In order to address this issue, I draw upon disability theory and disability aesthetics, crip theory and crip willfulness, as well as practices of good looking, synthesising in this way a theoretical framework that responds to matters of intersectionality and criticality in relation to the analysis of representations of disability. To this end, I employ a mixed method design, which is based on participant observation, the methods of the written festival and a critical disability studies (crip) analysis for examining selected documentary films alongside a thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews that were conducted with disabled viewers who attended the Emotion Pictures – Documentary and Disability Film Festival in Athens, Greece. Its findings indicate that representations of documentary films familiarise viewers with disability. This familiarisation and the development of political engagement by depicting crip killjoys are the key elements that create representations of a different context and meaning in comparison to those produced by media and fiction films. My analysis reveals that depictions of crip killjoys who are conscious of their political identity, speak out and take action are depictions that ask for political engagement. As such, they can produce good staring. Visibility and social dialogue are two of the benefits of disability film festivals that are highlighted by disabled viewers.