Modes of Documentary

1
Modes of Documentary

• Bid-bid

2
Reflective Documentary

• Makers of Reflective documentaries consider the
  quality of the documentary, they consider its
  process and its implications on their audiences.
• For example In Dziga Vertovs Man with a Movie
  Camera (1929,)
• He has footage of his brother and wife
  shooting footage and editing, respectively. The
  goal of shooting these images was, to increase
  the audiences understanding of the process of how
  film is constructed.
• Another example is Ruby Mitchells ...No
  Lies (1974,)
• which was different to Dzigas man with a
  movie camera, as it questioned the
• observational mode, Rubys no lies
  commented on observational techniques and their
  capacity for capturing authentic truths. In this
  way, the reflexive mode of documentary often
  functions as its own regulatory board, policing
  ethical and technical boundaries within
  Documentary film itself.

3
Reflective Mode

• (Vertov, Godmilow, Raul Ruiz) 
•   Reflective mode makes the convention
  representation more obvious and apparent, it also
  challenges the impression of reality which other
  three modes normally conveyed unproblematically. 
  
•   Reflective mode is the most self-aware mode -
  its reflexivity helps audience acknowledge how
  other modes claim to construct "truth" through
  documentary practice.
•   It uses many of devices of other modes but sets
  them on edge so viewer attends to device as well
  as the effect. 

4
Performance Mode

• (Resnais, Julien, Riggs)
• 1.Performance mode is like a Reflexive
  Documentary, it also raises questions about
  knowledge
• 2. Performance mode emphasizes personal
  experience (in tradition of poetry, literature)
• 3. Performance mode tries to show the
  audience how understanding such personal
  knowledge can help us understand more general
  processes of society
• 4. performance mode mixes elements of
  different documentary modes to achieve a link
  between subjective knowledge/understanding of the
  world, and more general understandings, i.e.
  historical ones.