They were called actuality films and ran for one minute or less. Prime examples are the 1895 ground-breaking films by Auguste and Louis Lumière entitled “Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory” and “Arrival of a Train at Ciotat.” These windows to the world offered a vicarious thrill for intrigued viewers. Images captured everyday life, events, and news in real time from foreign or familiar locales. Shorts were usually strung together by an exhibitor and remained popular with audiences, even when fictional features dominated movie house screens. And they paved the way to feature-length documentaries that have evolved over the last 100 years
On June 11, 1922, filmmaker Robert J. Flaherty released what’s considered the world’s first documentary “Nanook of the North.” The story follows a hunter, Allakariallak, of the Itivimuit tribe, his wife Nyla, and their family. As mentioned in the film’s intertitles, Flaherty began shooting film in 1914 which was eventually destroyed by a fire. His editing print was saved but, as Flaherty himself commented was “…utterly inept.” He remained fascinated by the frozen landscape and way of life of the Itivimuit tribe and continued his filming which culminated in a movie with a running time of one hour and 23 minutes, clearly a feature! You can feel the unrelenting cold, and I encourage anyone to watch the film celebrating its centennial year.
Here’s the sticking point: Is “Nanook of the North” a documentary or a docudrama? A follow-up question would be: Does it matter? For some film critics and avid moviegoers the answer is: YES! It matters. Flaherty served as writer, director, cinematographer, editor and producer, like a one-man band. Many of the sequences were staged. Nyla was not Nanook’s actual wife nor was the woman who portrayed his second wife. Inuit hunters didn’t use spears as depicted in the footage. They used guns. There are other aspects of the story that seem staged but, for me, it doesn’t diminish the icy starkness and the experience of survival living in an Arctic tundra.
One particular critic mentioned how the Inuit people were basically mugging for the camera in their routine or rehearsed activities. Yet, I witnessed a similar reaction of subjects when I saw Peter Jackson’s “They Shall Not Grow Old,” a remarkable feat of film restoration showing soldiers on the frontlines and trenches of the First World War. The film was created with original footage from the Imperial War Museum’s archives, most previously unseen. Here were men facing their mortality but intrigued and preoccupied by a camera filming them. I believe it must have been the novelty of the situation. Yet, as a viewer, I wanted to see them doing what they did oblivious to a camera. Now I realize that a reaction dismissing the camera’s presence would’ve been staged because their honest reaction was to look at the camera. I get it. They were distracted. So be it. I learned a lesson of what may look real is not. If the subjects have no reaction to the camera, it’s most likely that a scene was a little rehearsed before any filming took place.
No doubt, documentaries have advanced in storytelling and remain popular on the big and small screen, like the hugely successful public television projects by Ken Burns. Docs run the gamut of style, length, subject matter and modes. Film critic and theoretician Bill Nichols proposed that there are six types: poetic, expository, reflexive, observational, performative, and participatory.
- Poetic documentaries rely heavily on striking images to tell a story as opposed to interviews, voice-over, or extensive verbal context.
- Expository documentaries utilize voice-over, footage and photos to support their general claim or story. Ken Burns’ work is an example of this film type.
- Participatory documentaries focus on interaction between the subjects and filmmaker. I’ve seen quite a few of these on the PBS Independent Lens series, notably when the filmmaker is telling the story of a family member. There’s typically a constant interaction between the director and subject.
- Observational documentaries keep the filmmaker basically out of the way of what’s unfolding in front of the camera. The goal is to discover the unadulterated truth in an event or situation.
- Reflexive documentaries center on the dynamic between the filmmaker and the audience with behind-the-scenes style footage.
- Performative documentaries, for me, seem like participatory, but there must be some differences for the style to have its own category. According to an online Master Class description, the filmmaker uses his or her own personal experience regarding a subject like Morgan Spurlock in “Supersize Me” as he chronicled the effects of eating only fast food for 30 days.
For over ten years, I’ve had a documentary on my creative plate. It’s about a blind couple raising their own sighted twins, Sean and Kelley. The kids were two years old when the project started. They are now sixteen. It’s been a tortuous journey with a handful of signed option agreements with various producers that didn’t pan out for reality tv. The reason? Too soft or too sad. But Gary, the Dad, is a comedian and could have his own show. I remember when I first knocked on their door to talk about the project. He opened the door and said, “We have a policy around here. You wake ‘em, you take ‘em.” When reality tv prospects didn’t pan out, I returned to my original idea of a doc and that’s where it sits with a revolving door of partners. Gary and I used to joke that the kids would be in college before anything actually happened beyond the teasers, character reels, etc. It’s no longer a joke. In 2021, I wrote a proposal that made the red list on Coverfly after I submitted it to a ScreenCraft competition as a film project in need of financing. And now it waits for my attention and time.
I believe there’s a documentary for everyone’s taste. I’m drawn to these stories, staged or not, because so much of the reel is in real time. Plus, I learn something about a person, place, or event. And that’s a lifelong quest!