Documentary genres
- charlotte2006lr
- Dec 18, 2023
- 11 min read
Updated: Jan 7, 2024
are often TV shows, films or radio shows (such as podcasts) that show an audience something to make them understand a new concept. This could be a culture, a group of people or a person, a new trend, a historical events and much more.
There are six different genres of documentary's. Different genres in documentary's effect how they are made and how information is shared and told to the audience.
Poetic
Poetic documentaries show a range of footage and images that is not necessarily connected. For instance, this style of documentary is used in Sans Soleil. The clips used are choppy and don't follow any form of structure.
This style/genre is used to give the audience a feeling rather than information. This can effect the audience by having more of a immersive effect as they are not being told something - they have to understand it. As the footage doesn't follow structure, the clips are often put together by voice over or text to give more context.
Sans Soleil follows the poet genre well as there is no sort of interaction between a film maker, does not feature interviews, does not have a prominent "voice of god" narration. This is often seen in other types of documentary's.
1934's "Man of Aran" is another example of a poetic genre documentary. It shows footage and describes what life is like for people on the coast of Ireland. This again follows the genre and style of poetic documentary's as it does not follow structure and necessarily explain what is being shown.
Man of Aran was one of the earliest poetic genre documentary's of its time. The first ones dating back to the 1920's and are remembered for their more artistic style - rather than being informative. Man of Aran was released in 1934, and gained a lot of attention due to its factual knowledge of life for the people living and travelling around the coast of Ireland as this related to them and shared with others what these people go through and what the face.
Paired with the choppy style, in this documentary (due to its age) its shown in black and white. This is mainly because of the lack of advance in technology but this can also add to how the filmmaker wanted the audience to feel after seeing he documentary. For example, showing the weather and the conditions in which people go out to see in mixed with the usage of black and white film footage could help the audience understand the trouble and conflict the people effected went through. Once again linking back to how poetic genre documentary's are unconventionally used and are used for creating a feeling rather than being informative.
A final example of a poetic genre documentary's would be 1982's Koyaanisqatsi directed by Godfrey Reggio.
Koyaanisqatsi follows the "messy" structure of poetic documentary's as it shows lots of different types of footage. It shows lots of different people, busy city's and its main purpose is to highlight the influence of modern technology of life. It also fits into the poetic genre as their is no dialogue or voice over, only music in which connects the shots and clips.
In the clip above we can see how the genre type is represented with the different footage used. In Koyaanisqatsi, Reggio uses a range of filming/editing techniques. In this scene we can see the use of time lapse to show what goes on in the city and the vast amounts of crowds in the area and also slow motion clips as they them emphasis on the people and the lives they live.
Once again this relates to how poetic documentary's are structured and the key features they have.
Expository
Expository documentary's can be commonly understood as the "typical documentary" - a documentary that reflects on sharing information and making points through interviews, images and videos. The documentary will go suggest a point and will spend the whole film justifying the point made. Another feature that makes expository documentary's so recognizable is that many use a "voice of god" narration. This is prominently seen in many documentary's.
We can see this in the BBCs Blue Planet and many other documentaries of David Attenborough's as his documentary's feature a voice of god narration and are well known for this.
Following the structure of expository documentary's starting out with a point and then following it up, we see this represented in the first example where Attenborough makes his point that the tide can be differently effected on rocky shores, he then goes on to explain this and show examples and explain the point he's just made.
Another example of a expository documentary would be Oasis: Supersonic. Supersonic showed the rise of the 90's band Oasis and what life was like at the peak of their success.
Supersonic is an expository documentary as it features footage from the past such as interviews, gigs and shows and videos of oasis living their lives. The point that the documentary puts forward is the success that Oasis gained. The documentary then tells the story of how the band was formed and how Oasis gained its success. With these features within the documentary we can see how Supersonic follows the expository documentary structure. However, even though the documentary follows the standard format of expository genre films, it does not feature the typical voice of god narration. Supersonic is narrated by the members of Oasis and anyone who was associated with them. This isn't typical for expository documentaries but shows a good representation of what they can look like.
A final example of a expository documentary would be 2013's Blackfish directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite which shows an excellent representation of an expository documentary.
Blackfish makes the point that Orcas (killer whales) are only dangerous when they are kept in captivity at facilities such as sea world. Keeping to the typical structure of an expository documentary, the documentary the depicts that point and explains the logic and background behind it. It tells the audience about the excitement of getting Tilikum the Orca at Orlando sea world and how he spent 33 years there before his death. In these 33 years he lived in captivity and due to being alone in a small enclosure he was said to have been left in a "psychosis" leading to the death of two sea world trainers and 1 death of a trespasser in the park. The documentary uses footage, interviews and voice overs to explain the story and suggest what the reasons for the deaths could have been and how they could have been avoided.
In the trailer for Blackfish we can see interviews from former trainers and sea world employees as well as people who were involved in Tilikum being held in captivity. Interviews and voice overs from interviews are commonly used in expository documentary's and move the story along. In Blackfish they show the timeline by adding dates and times paired with footage during the editing process, this again is commonly used in expository genre documentary's. In my opinion Blackfish shows a good range of features seen in expository documentary's.
Observational
Observational documentary's are good for showing uninterrupted reality of peoples lives, events and situations. They are commonly described as "fly on the wall" documentary and allows the camera to capture the honest truth of what is going on for the people involved.
A example of a observational documentary could be 1994's "Hoop dreams". Hoop Dreams follows the story of Arthur Agee and William Gates who are two students who both have a dream of becoming stars of the NBA (National Basketball Association). Hoop Dreams shows how the two boys go to a predominantly white high school but are apart of the schools basketball program. The documentary follows the boys lives and their family's battle with poverty. In this clip we see Earl Smith, who was a talent scout, go to watch some boys (including Arthur) play basketball. He spots potential in Arthur and takes him and his family to go and see a high school were Isiah Thomas played so that the coaches at the high school could se Arthur play and give him a chance at being picked up. We watch Arthur, Earl, Arthurs family and the film maker travel to the high school and Arthur expresses his feelings to moving schools for basketball. In the next scene we see Arthur and his family discussing grades and the effort that will need to be made to join the team, this conversation is with the head coach at St Joe's. This shows a good example of being an observational documentary as it shows what Arthurs life is currently like and how that changes, we watch the changes be made and whilst the people involved are receiving questions from the film maker it is kept in a conversational form, as if the camera was just spectating what was going on, like a "fly on the wall".
The next example of a observational documentary would be "Salesman" directed by Albert Maysles, David Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin in 1969. Salesman shows four salesman who go door to door trying to sell expensive bibles. In this trailer, the audience see one of the sellers winning an award for selling the most bibles and give a speech to the other salesmen. We then see the other salesmen go out and attempt to make more sales. This is a great example of a observational documentary as there is no interaction between the film makers and the people involved and the audience simply watch the salesmen go about their duties.
The final example of a observational documentary would be "The War Room" which shows the presidential campaign and election of Bill Clinton. In this trailer for The War Room we can see the team behind the campaign for Bill Clintons presidency in 1992. We see them make decisions into how to widen Bill Clinton and the democratic party market. This means that we see their discussions and meetings without being interrupted by the camera or the filmmaker. This is what makes it a good example of a observational documentary.
Participatory
Participatory documentary's are used to break the fourth wall by having the film maker and the subject of the documentary interact.
"Supersize me" follows Morgan Spurlock who only ate McDonalds food for 30 days to see the effect it had on his health. In this clip from supersize me, we see Lisa Young a professor of nutrition, discuss portion size and the calories that those portion sizes hold. This is carried out through interview format, showing a feature that is kept in participatory documentary's. We then see Morgan, who is the film maker, at McDonald's drive through (which is the subject) ordering his meal. He explains the size of the food he is eating and the danger of this size food is emphasized due to the interview with Lisa prior. This shows the participatory role that the film maker has with the subject of the documentary.
The next example of a participatory documentary is "Exit through the gift shop" which is directed by Banksy and features footage of street artists but the footage was lost and was put back together. It showed how the way of urban street culture has changed and how this changed graffiti in the city. Exit through the gift shop shows how a french shop keeper named Thierry Guetta following street artists creating art. Banksy then took the footage and changed it into the documentary that it is through editing after criticizing how much footage they had and how much was actually usable. This is a good representation of a participatory documentary as it was made by someone who found interest in street art and wanted to understand and be apart of the process.
"The Yes Men" follow two men named Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno who are activists that impersonate corporate spokespeople as "pranks" but also to raise attention to global and social issues. The documentary shows a range of protests and groups wanting to overthrow systems and following true participatory documentary get the film makers themselves involved.
Reflexive
Reflexive genre of documentary's are used to make the audience question the authenticity of the bog standard documentary. One very popular form of reflexive documentary's would be the mockumentary. These are used to "mimic" the standard documentary and replace it with humor for a more comedic approach.
The first example of a mockumentary would be the TV program "Cunk on Earth" which follows the same structure as expository documentary's or participatory documentary's by showing interviews and clips of the location or people involved but the film maker Philomena Cunk (Diane Morgan) uses comedy to make it a mockumentary. For instance in the first 2 minutes we can see the features of a regular documentary, having the point of the documentary being made and then it being depicted throughout the rest of the documentary however Diane Morgan purposely makes the dialogue poor to play with comedy and give "Cunk on Earth" more of a mockumentary feel.
The next example of a reflex documentary would be the film "This Is Spinal Tap". The mockumentary follows the story of the heavy metal British band spinal tap and their first American tour. In this clip we can see how the film would be structured to look like a classic documentary, featuring the film maker asking one of the "band members" Nigel about his guitar collection, conducting an interview. Nigel explains to the camera (and the audience) about his guitar, like he would if it was a formal interview or documentary. However in this example again comedy is used to mimic the classic structure of a expository documentary.
A final example of a reflexive documentary would be "Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends" which follows Louis Theroux travelling all over the world looking at different people and their lives and events in their lives that may be odd. In this example of a reflexive documentary, the process of making a documentary is really emphasized. In this scene we hear Louis use a voice over ( like expository documentary's typically do ) showing the same features but the formality of regular documentary's is lost as (as the title of the show says) the subject is "weird" behavior so it becomes more comedic causing Louis' group to begin laughing. This would try to be avoided in regular documentary's to keep it formal.
Performative
The final genre of documentary is Performative. Performative documentary's are used to emphasis the relation between the film maker and the subject and how they interact throughout. This could be by the film maker learning about the subject experiences and the seeing what that would be like or even following their day to day lives. The film maker remains on screen for majority of the documentary rather than just being heard off screen, like in documentary's such as participatory.
In this clip from Louis Theroux on Gambling, he plays Blackjack with two men who spend a lot of their time and money gambling. Louis addresses the audience explaining that he was only going to spend $500 of his own money and didn't want to spend anymore. Then in conversation with the two men they explain that he should keep on playing with his winnings instead of stopping and taking his winnings. It soon becomes apparent the confidence level of Louis but also of the two men who took gambling extremely seriously. Louis is shown on screen is essentially every shot and is a key feature in how the performative documentary works. The use of the filmmaker being actively on screen and taking a role in the documentary itself could be related to how "voice of God" narration works in expository documentary's, both are certain features that work extremely well in their genre.
1989's "Tongues Untied" by Marlon Riggs shows the lives and experiences of African-American gay men. Marlon Riggs took an active role in being in the film due to voicing issues about politics, race, sexuality, class and religion. In this scene from Tongues Untied we hear the voice of Marlon sharing story's and dialogue written by other men, allowing them to have a "voice" to share and raise attention to their story's. As the film maker Marlon Riggs was able to get involved in the process and share the experiences and thoughts they all share it is a great example of performative documentary's.
The final example of a performative documentary would be Michael Moore's "Bowling for Columbine" which features the film maker Michael Moore finding out about gun policies and violence in America and how it can lead to shootings such as the Columbine High School Massacre in 1999. In this scene from the documentary, Michael Moore goes to a bank where you can open an account and receive a gun. Following performative documentary structure Michael Moore is on screen and takes part in the documentary first hand rather than having other people be the face of the documentary. This could mean that he is in control of the way the audience see the documentary. Michael Moore is strongly left wing and this can really be seen in these types of documentary as he criticizes the system and even says to the bank employee "Well here's my first question. Do you think it's a little dangerous handing out guns in a bank". This can show her performative documentary's are good for emphasizing the views of the film maker and showing their involvement in the process.
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