Introduction to Documentary

LECTURE I

I want to welcome you all to Mass Comm 84

I'm Gary Handman

I'm delighted to be able to facilitate this class this semester…It's a unique and exciting opportunity for me…and I'm really looking forward to working and learning with you.

I want to tell you a little about my background

 I'm a film and video librarian by profession, my academic

background is in film history and visual anthropology.

 I’ve taught a number of film courses in the past several

years:

 Intro to Doc class in the Film Studies Dept as well as

 a Freshman seminar on the representation of technology

in the movies.

1  I am a regular guest lecturer on film-related classes in a

variety of classes outside of the film program.

For the past 27 or so years my day job has been as director

and curator of the Media Resources Center in Moffitt Library --

one of the largest video collections in a US academic Library…

and one of the strongest collections of documentary works on

video in the US.

 I spend a good part of my time building that collection and

assisting students and faculty in doing research in Film,

Mass Communications, and related fields of study.

 I also get to select the film and mass comm books for the

main library

CLASS INTRODUCTIONS:

NAME/Major…What was the last film you saw in a movie

theater or on DVD?

Interesting that not one of you mentioned seeing a doc?

2 Over the course of this semester I hope we can accomplish a number of things:

We'll be talking about the history and evolution of documentary film

 from the earliest attempts to film everyday life on the

streets to the

 present day experiments, deconstructions and parodies

of documentary form.

 I hope to familiarize you with the various

modes and styles of documentary film that have

developed during the past century and a quarter.

 To do this, we'll be looking at the

representative works of filmmakers who have had

significant impact on the development of the

documentary tradition.

3  We'll also be discussing the influence certain

styles and documentary strategies have exerted on the

works of succeeding generations.

 In the past twenty years in particular, the

comfortable traditional definitions of documentary film which

arose over the first half of the 20th century have increasingly

been contested and revised.

The whole notion of

 what a documentary film is,

 the relationships between film fact and film

fiction,

 how documentary films are structured, and

what functions they perform have come under intense

scrutiny…

 One of the goals of this class is to get you

thinking intensively about these questions…even if we

don't answer all of them definitively

4  Throughout the course, I hope to discuss the

issues and controversies related to documentary

representation and documentary subjects, including

 the ethics of representing others and

 the ethical implications of claiming privileged

insights and access into the real world.

 It's my hope that you'll come out of this class

with sharpened critical abilities and more questions

than you came in with.

 I also hope to make this class a place

where you can become comfortable with discussing

complex issues with colleagues, with formulating and

expressing your opinions about film.

 Finally…I want this to be a class that makes

you want to explore documentary traditions more on

your own … There are simply too many great films and too

little time to show and discuss everything I'd like to …

5 fortunately, you've got a really great collection right around

the corner at your disposal.

 Oh yeah...one major goal is to have a good time, to learn

from each other...I want this course to provide a place for

us to talk and to bat around ideas.

 I'm interested in making this a learner's class more than

a teacher's class...that means a lot of the burden of making

the class interesting and academically productive is going to

fall on your shoulders.

We'll be meeting Tuesdays from 10-noon and Thursdays, from

10 to 11 --

--Mondays will be devoted to screening and some discussion;

--Wednesdays will be devoted to continuing the discussion

about what we watched on Monday.

--In some cases, we’ll use Thursdays to screen supplementary

films related to the film under discussion.

6 The way the class will generally work:

 I'll provide a bit of background about the film or film style

we’ll be screening

 After the screening, we'll talk about the film.

I've structured the class so that most of this post-film

discussion will be lead by class members (paired into

teams of two)

 When it’s your group’s turn to lead the discussion, you’ll be

responsible for

 pre-screening the film we'll be watching (Media Center)

 developing a short list of provocative topics or

questions for discussion

 Posting the question to the class BlackBoard site

(which I’ll talk about more in a few minutes)

 Presenting the discussion topic and leading the

discussion

Expectations:

7  Again: this is a seminar…I expect every

to participate, pretty regularly…a hefty part of your grade is

based on your classroom participation…

 Barring personal disaster or general apocalypse, I'll expect

you to attend each and every class session and discussion

section… The whole point of this class is to watch films

together and discuss them with peers…the only way you can

do this is to be here…in class.

 Missing more than one class or arriving chronically late

will result in a lower grade…I'm pretty serious and pretty

non-flexible about this. I know it’s a drag, but I’ll be

taking attendance…

 I've also got a thing about starting on time… I realize this

is a big, far-flung campus, but still…I'm going to be fairly

insistent about your being here by 10 minutes after the

hour…

Another personal quirk: Crappy with names

8 Reading

In addition to screening and discussions, I’ll be asking you to do a bit

–just a bit--of background reading reading

There is one required texts for the course:

 Bill Nichols' Introduction to Documentary.

You will be expected to to the reading…because what Nichols has to say about the develop of the documentary form will inform what we discuss in class.

VIEWING JOURNAL

For films we screen in class each week, you will be expected to keep an online viewing journal in bspace

The reading journal can include various things:

 A few thoughts or questions concerning the

material you're reading things you've learned from the

reading; related topics you'd like to pursue.

9  Each entry should be at least one or two

paragraphs long (although I'm much more interested in the

quality of your comments than the quantity).

 Whenever possible I would also like you to

relate your reading in Nichol’s book to whichever film you are

commenting on.

I’ll expect you to post your journal entry for a film we’ve watched by the beginning of the following week.

The viewing journal will constitute 50% of your grade

Individual class participation (30% of course grade)

Discussion Teams (20% of course grade)

10 BSPACE

Can I get a show of hands:

 How many of you do not have ready access to both a

personal computer and an internet connection.

 If so, you need to talk to me immediately after class.

Throughout this course, We'll be using a web-based learning management systems called BSPACE

HOW MANY HAVE USED BSPACE in another class?

We'll use BSPACE to post relevant course information such as the course description and objectives, the syllabus and reading list, information about Scott and my office hours.

In addition to this static information, we'll be using BSPACE as a way of communicating with each other:

11  You'll be posting entries in your weekly reading and viewing

journals to it

Your 2 person working groups will use BSPACE

 to post your questions and discussion topics.

I'll use BSPACE

 to post messages regarding the class...

G. Handman Office Hours Monday and Wednesday 3-5 Or by appt 302 Moffitt Ghandman@ library

QUESTIONS?

*******************

What are we going to be discussing and viewing?

12 The uses of motion pictures to document and engage the audience with aspects of the real world outside of motion picture theatre go back to the very dawn of the movies themselves --nearly a century and quarter ago.

As we'll discuss at some length,

 The film form which has come to be known as

DOCUMENTARY has gone through lots of different styles,

movements, and approaches over the past 100 years.

 The interesting thing about doc film is that this progression

of styles and movements has not really been

evolutionary in nature : what I mean by this is that

documentary strategies and styles haven't consistently and

logically built upon or replaced one another in some neat

evolutionary scheme.

You can find many of the modes and styles of documentary production that arose in the 1920s and 30s still being used today.

For example: Ken Burn's many PBS documentaries employ

13 compilations of archival footage and photos that are really not that dissimilar from compilation films first pioneered by Soviet filmmakers in the second decade of last century; his reliance on a disembodied, authoritative Voice-of-God narrator is pretty much the same expository style brought into fashion by British documentary filmmakers of the 1930s.

To be sure, some styles and movements have arisen at least in partial reaction to the dissatisfaction of some filmmakers with earlier styles or approaches.

Styles have also evolved in response to the specific

technological developments of a particular era... but still..none

of this has meant that the earlier approaches have died out.

In putting together this class, I've taken a fairly traditional approach:

 I've structured the class along fairly strict chronological lines.

For the first eight or nine weeks of the class we'll be looking

at the styles, trends, and issues that have arisen during

particular historical eras.

14  Almost all of the films we'll be looking at can be viewed as a

product of a particular time and place, both stylistically and

from the standpoint of the film text (that is, it's content). .

I favor the historical approach because I think it's really difficult to look at either non-fiction films or fiction films divorced from the larger historical and cultural context in which they were created.

This is particularly the case with documentary films, which are frequently direct responses to social, political, or cultural events and circumstances of the day.

While the first 2/3 of the class or so will be historical and chronological, in the last third or so we'll take a different tact.

After the 1960s, interesting things begin happening to the documentary form:

 it becomes less and less possible to characterize these latter

decades as having any one prevailing documentary style or

15  The form, cinematic strategies, and intent of earlier

documentaries began to come under intense scrutiny.

Filmmakers began experimenting, deconstructing, and

generally poking at traditional documentary forms. The

boundaries between fiction and non-fiction, between

filmmaker and film subject became increasingly fuzzier

than in the past. Many documentaries turn toward self-

reflection...that is, they include a scrutiny of the documentary

process and documentary form as a central part of the film

As we round the bend into the 70's, we'll concentrate less on movements and modes of production and more on themes, particular uses, and particular communities of filmmakers.

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I want show you a compilation of 19 film clips. In watching them I want to you to think about three deceptively simple questions:

16  What kind or kinds of films are these? Are they fiction? Non-

fiction?

 What, if anything, do they have in common?

 Who do you think the intended audience for these films is or

 Take detailed notes to help you remember what you

saw…we'll be discussing them at length next class.

What kinds of films? How would you name or characterize them?

What do they have in common? How do they differ?

--Do they share a common look?

--Other elements in common?

Relation to what's happening on the screen and the world outside of this theatre????

Who do you think the audience is?

Any sense of what the filmmaker was trying to do? Intent?

17 For Wednesdays discussion section, I'd like you to come up with your own working definition of "documentary."

After you enroll in the site, I’d like you post it to the blackboard site:

COMMUNICATION/DISCUSSION BOARD: DOC

DEFINITIONS/Add Thread

QUESTIONNAIRE online…fill out and bring to next class.