Documentary is a film and television art form that takes real life as the creative material, real people and real events as the performance objects, and artistically processes and displays them. Its essence is to show the truth and use it to arouse people's thinking. The core of documentary is truth.

Related schools

The word documentary was first put forward by john grierson of Britain, who was a disciple of Flahardy, the father of documentary. However, he did not give a perfect definition of documentary, and many famous artists have had differences around this issue.

The founders of documentary aesthetics: Wiltoff and Flahadi. Among them, Wiltoff initiated the "Movie Eye School", which advocated that the camera should "catch life by surprise" like the human eye, and opposed artificial performances, even films (feature films) with performances. And Flahardy's pioneering work in the north, Nanaok, was played by Nanaok's Truth, and finally returned to the original life by modern civilization.

Nuuk even died for lack of winter food. As pioneers of documentaries, their styles are very different, which will become the source of documentary genre disputes in the future.

Documentary Movement in 1950s: The trend of documentary creation that began in the late 1950s actually includes two major documentary movements, namely, the documentary of summer1961represented by French director Jean Rush and the "salesman/"represented by American Messos Brothers.

The real film is a participatory film, which allows the director to intervene in the filming process of the documentary and incite the development of some plots. Direct cinema is an observational film, which tries to avoid interfering with the course of events and requires the director to take a strict and objective position so as not to destroy the natural tendency of the object.

Extended data

American scholar Bill Nickalls believes that documentaries can be divided into the following six types:

Poetic documentary (poetic documentary)

Poetic documentary appeared in the 1920s. The representative is "rain" as JorisIvens. This type of documentary does not emphasize narrative, creation of specific time and space, and coherent editing. It focuses on the creation of rhythm and the juxtaposition of different spaces, with the aim of conveying emotions and emotional appeal.

Explanatory documentary (explanatory documentary)

Explanatory documentaries also appeared in the 1920s. /kloc-China documentaries before the "New Record Movement" in the 1990s (whether this concept is valid or not may be doubtful) mostly belong to this category. The propaganda intention of this documentary is very clear, and the creator relies on the power of explanation to convince the audience to accept his own views. The typical features in form are "Voice of God", evidence editing and omniscient viewpoint.

Observation documentary (observation documentary)

Observation documentary appeared in the 1960s, and its technical basis lies in the appearance of portable cameras and tape cameras. This kind of documentary gives up understanding and acting, and the documentary director becomes a "fly on the wall".

In recent years, many documentaries of this type have appeared in China, such as Duan Jinchuan's 16, Barkhor Street and Jianning Kang's Yin and Yang. This kind of documentary is good at expressing the real world, but it is difficult to deal with historical themes. Because of giving up understanding and subtitles, the expression of images can easily become tedious and boring.

Participatory documentary (participatory documentary)

Participatory documentaries appeared in the 1960s. The representative works are The Chronicle of Summer by Jean Rouch and edgar morin. This type of documentary does not hide the director's presence, on the contrary, it deliberately emphasizes the interaction between the director and the subject. The work Looking at the Great Wall, which marks the new stage of China's documentary creation, has this feature.

Reflection documentary

Reflective documentaries appeared in the 1980s. His masterpiece is The Surname of Yue Ming Nan. The remarkable feature of this kind of documentary lies in the reflection on the social and historical process of documentary presentation itself.

Like other types of documentaries, reflective documentaries attach importance to the expression of the real world, but more importantly, the director also expresses his reflection on the documentary creation itself. This kind of film is often abstract and difficult to understand. For the documentary creators and audiences in China, this type of documentary is still relatively unfamiliar.

Performance documentary (performance)

Documentaries that express behavior subjectively magnify real events and deviate from the realistic style. Emphasize the subjective expression of the creator. Marlon Rogers's masterpiece "Tongue Untie" and so on. This type of documentary is often very close to avant-garde.