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- Assignment: Documentary and The Truth
Although it’s impossible to characterize postwar American documentary filmmaking in a single way, one recurring theme that emerges is the filmmakers’ grappling with the truth and reality. This struggle occurs in several ways. Some examples we’ve covered:
- In All My Babies, George Stoney staged many of the midwife scenes to produce a realistic representation of what midwife needs to know for her role delivering babies.
- The Children Were Watching advocates for the Civil Rights movement and school integration through one week in 1961 that depicted the segrationists terrorizing the integrationists.
- Neighbors is an experimental, animated film that acts as a parable to advocate for peace among nations in the postwar era.
- No Lies is a fiction film that appropriates the documentary form to show the reality of women who survived a sexual assault but were then probed by those disbelieving their accounts.
- Chronicle of a Summer pioneers the interview as an investigatory tool for the anthropological study of Parisians in 1961 and the cinema vertié movement.
- The Salesman and Don’t Look Back and High School deploy the obversational mode to document the reality of remarkable individuals and of individuals in the context of institutions.
- In the Year of the Pig and Atomic Cafe appropriate existing footage to produce antiwar documentaries about Vietnam and the Cold War.
- Who Killed Vincent Chin? and Tongues Untied recount stories of people and communities that would have been silenced or marginalized out of public view.
- Harlan County, USA documents a prolonged coal miners’ strike in eastern Kentucky in the 1970s to tell a story about US labor and one that portrays the rich energy companies as antagonists, whereas such a company might have produced documentaries in the past.
Of course, this is not an exhaustive list but they should help you brainstorm how documentaries variously represent truth and reality.
In this writing assignment, compare/contrast how two documentary films we’ve studied after the midterm exam represent truth and reality, either similarly or distinctly. Your analysis should concentrate on one scene from each film and analyze the scenes’ use of one or more of the following stylistic techniques:
- narration, the process of revealing and concealing story information through the plot. Some key terms include story, plot, causality, and flashbacks. Note that this is different than voiceover narration, which is part of sound design.
- mise-en-scène, the process of placing props, costumes, performances, and settings in a scene. Some key terms include profilmic space, location filming, shadows, lighting, aperture framing, and gestures.
- cinematography, the process of using a camera and applying optical and chemical effects to create an photographic image. Some key terms include framing, shallow focus, contrast, slow motion, and angle of framing.
- editing, the process of selecting, cutting, and stitching together camera footage. Some key terms include cut, fade, flashbacks, elliptical editing, shot-reverse-shot.
- sound design, the sonic elements that complement or undermine the image. Some key terms include diegetic sound, voiceover narration, and offscreen sound.
Your analysis should also consider the context of the overall film and the motivations of the filmmaker in documenting the subject as truth or reality. Because this is a short assignment, you should avoid summarizing the plot of the film so that you may be detailed in your descriptions. Do not summarize the plot.
You don’t need to do any outside research for this assignment, but if you do use any bibilographic souces, you will need to cite those. Please remember to italicize the title of the films—don’t put the title in quotes.
Your paper should be about 1,200 words in length and is due in class on the date specified on the syllabus. Please do not email me your paper. Bring a hard copy to class.