The Documentary

“Documentary film doesn’t mean avoiding fiction, for no film can avoid fiction: it means establishing a certain relationship, a certain interplay, between the documentary and the fictional aspects of film so that he documentary aspect may come forward in some significant way.” (The Material Ghost: Films and Their…

The 2001 documentary 'lift' by Marc Isaac captures the everyday life of different character types within one East London tower block, from old women moaning about life to young men in love, as well as all types of ethnicities. The 24 minute long documentary begins to create a tv show kind of feel to it as the same people regularly appear and the audience begin to learn more about them through both casual conversations as well as questions asked by Isaac. Diegetic sound is used throughout,…

Robert Flaherty is cited in creating the first documentary, with Nanook of the North, made in 1922, this film was wildly successful and generated obsession around this new genre documenting real people. Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson eventually adapted this filmic practice as a tool for documenting cultures for scientific purposes, founding the field of visual anthropology. Flaherty and Mead’s influence can be tracked to filmmaker John Marshall, who challenged the paradigms of spectacle and…

Blackfish is a documentary directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite, released in 2013. Blackfish is a documentary about a killer whale named Tilikum that has killed several individuals and the issues within keeping killer whales in captivity. The documentary is filled with experiences from former trainers that have worked with the aggressive whales in the past and several experts that have worked with orcas all of their lives. This documentary is showing that the killer whale’s aggression in SeaWorld…

I recently watched your documentary 4.1 miles and saw that your job is very hard and demanding, I really believe that you have an important job to save all of these people, and risk your own life to save thousands of refugees. In the documentary, I thought it was crazy with the number of people that get knocked off their rafts and into the deadly waters, I would have thought that if so many people get killed because they fall off the rafts people would stop trying. But since their lives are so…

After watching the documentary "The Station (part 1)", I was touch to actually hear the personal story of the individual's affected by this tragedy that could have been prevented from happening. The graphic nature of the injuries sustained by the main person in the first part of the documentary, a young woman named Gina, who suffered through her own series of injuries. Gina lost her boyfriend, who basically gave his own life through his efforts to save Gina (The Station Documentary (part 1),…

Discussion Assignment 2: FoodMatters FoodMatters was an eye-opening video that discussed and showed many concepts that have never crossed my mind. The video made me reconsider the way I am living my life. The documentary mentioned how every time we get sick, we are prescribed medication to fix our illness. I never realized how often true that statement is. For example, I went to the doctor two weeks ago and I had a simple sinus infection. I was prescribed an antibiotic. It made me realize that…

1) The HBO documentary The Fence interviewed by Rory Kennedy shows the flaws behind the U.S government’s decision to build a 700 mile fence along the Mexico border. The documentary shows the Mexicans point of view and U.S border portal and the minutemen point of view. Throughout the documentary the narrator gives facts about why the fence was build and why the fence is not working because of its flaws. The Mexican talk about how the wall has effected them trying to come to the United States and…

Slumming it By chloe Myers The documentary slumming it directed by Helen Simpson and presented by Kevin McCloud is based in Dharavi ,Mumbai ,India. This documentary follows McClouds stay in the slum. viewers watch McCloud learn how to live like the slum dwellers during there day to day lives. The health and sanitation issues in Dharavi have been showed as very poor and not very nice. In the start of the documentary we see McCloud getting immunised for the diseases in Dharavi . The swage…

The Reign of Consumerism in Fight Club: Film analysis of Fight Club Fight Club (1999) is a film directed by David Fincher based on the same name novel of the by Chuck Palahniuk in 1996. Films are not merely art form or product for consumption. They are also a form of social practice that conveys and constructs meanings for its audiences; in its narratives and meaning we can understand the ways in which our culture makes sense of itself. Fight Club hits audiences to question their habits…