GUESS THE GENRE

DOCUMENTARY

THE SUBJECTIVE REPRESENTATION OF REALITY.

The foredoomed search for 'objective truth'

Alexander Milchev & Kristupas Zmejauskas

Introduction

• Ron Fricke's "Baraka" and "Samsara". The poetics in documentary.​

• Documentary as genre and beyond. The need to categorize​.

• Six modes, hundreds of combinations. Documentary diversity.​

• Documentary between spectators and reality. Objectivity in art. 

BARAKA (1993)

• 14 Month Production

• 24 Countries

• 6 Continents

• First film to be scanned in 8K

• Special custom 70mm cameras built for time-lapses

Baraka Film Poster (1993)

SAMSARA (2012)

• 5 Year Production

• 25 Countries

• 5 Continents

• Imagery portraying the concept of  'saṃsāra': birth, death, rebirth.

• Ron Fricke's own designed time-lapse camera

• Two custom 70mm cameras from Panavision

Samsara Film Poster (2012)

GENRE

A concept that has multiple functions, ​
considered through multiple perspectives

FIRST PERSPECTIVE

ARISTOTLE & THE CRITICS

"If all philosophy is a footnote to Plato, then all genre theory is little more than a footnote to Aristotle" - Rick Altman (1999:20)

Genre as an exploratory tool

​"Epic poetry and tragedy, comedy also and dithyrambic poetry, and the music of the flute and of the lyre in most of their forms, are all in their general conception modes of imitation." - Aristotle, "Poetics"

SECOND PERSPECTIVE

POETS/ARTISTS/CREATORS

"Poets produce by imitating a predefined original sanctioned by the literary-critical oligarchy" - Rick Altman (1999:4)

Genre as a means for belonging, as well as for pushing boundaries

"The notion of genre is now fully conscripted into the legion of techniques whereby writers are trained to respect current standards of cultural acceptability." - Rick Altman (1999:3)

THIRD PERSPECTIVE

THE SO-CALLED INDUSTRY

"By assaying and imitation the money-making qualities of their most lucrative films, studios seek to intiate film cycles that will provide successful, easily exploitable models associated with a single studio." - Rick Altman (1999:87)

Genre as a commercial validation

"Whereas the major feature film producers work hard to differentiate their products from their competitors' offerings, the independents try to fit their products into the ready-made categories applied to the only reamining exibition slots (for short films, second features or inexpensive productions)." - Rick Altman (1999:103)

FOURTH PERSPECTIVE

HM, THE AUDIENCE

"Audiences have a very special investment in genres, because genres constitute the audience's own method of assuring its unity and envisioning its future." - Rick Altman (1999:27)

Genre as a taste-forming, social phenomenon 

"Genres do not consist only of films, they consist also, and equally, of specific systems of expectations and hypothesis which spectators bring with them to the cinema, and which interact with films themselves during the course of viewing process." - Rick Altman (1999:85)

GENRE RELATES TO PERCEPTION...

...AS MUCH AS TO PRODUCTION.

ARTIST

FILM

AUDIENCE

"Lyric poetry is a type of poetry; the more types of poetry we name, the more we reinforce the existence of poetry as an independent category, with each type corresponding to a different potential aspect of poetry." - Rick Altman (1999:50)

CRITIC

DOCU

MEN

TARY

"Ironically, the audiences of this century have been unified not by face-to-face contact, but by the need of commodity producers to treat specific groups of disparate individuals, unknown to each other, as a unified market." 
 - Rick Altman (1999:184)

John Grierson

"...arrangements and rearrangements, and creative shapings of it [natural material]"

Originally mentions "documentary value", does not mention "genre".

Contradiction?

(1946:146)

Bill Nichols

"Documentary is what we might call a 'fuzzy concept'" (2001:21)

It speaks about them to us

We speak about us to them

VS

(2001:20)

6 Modes of Documentary

• POETIC

• OBSERVATIONAL

• PERFORMATIVE

• PARTICIPATORY

• REFLEXIVE

• EXPOSITORY

Dominant

"A film identified with a given mode need not be so entirely" - Bill Nichols (2001:100)

Baraka (1993) [film stills]

Secondary

"A film identified with a given mode need not be so entirely" - Bill Nichols (2001:100)

Baraka (1993) [film stills]

TOOLS

• Screenwriting

• Directing

• Cinematography

• Editing

• Grading

• Sound Design / Score

Cinematography, Editing, Writing & Score

Baraka (1993) [sequence]

Grading & Framing

Baraka (1993) [film still]

Baraka (1993) [film still]

Her (2013) [film still]

Lacoste - Timeless, The Film (2017) [fashion film still]

Directing

Baraka (1993) [film still]

Baraka (1993) [film still]

Samsara (2012) [film still]

Documentary(?)

Samsara (2012) [film still]

Samsara (2012) [behind the scenes]

Documentary(?)

Baraka (1993) [film still]

Narcos (2015-2017) [TV, gif]

https://www.barakasamsara.com/

LABELS

Documentary

Horror

Non-fiction

Fear

OBJECTIVITY?

• subjective – perceiving mind (viewer)​​

• objective - "physical extension in space and time" [Mulder 2019] (film) ​​

• inter-subjective – agreement from multiple subjects [Mulder 2019] (flat Earth)​​

• Films are, primarily, a medium of thoughts and ideas between perceiving minds.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ALTMAN, Rick. 1999. Film/Genre. London: British Film Institute.​

Aristotle. 2013. Poetics. OUP Oxford.​

MULDER, Dwayne. 2019. ‘Objectivity | Internet Encyclopedia Of Philosophy’. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy [online]. Available at: https://www.iep.utm.edu/ [accessed 10 Nov 2019].​

NICHOLS, Bill. 2001. Introduction to Documentary. Bloomington, Ind.​

PLANTINGA, Carl R. 1997. Rhetoric and Representation in Nonfiction Film. Cambridge, U.K.​

GRIERSON, J., & HARDY, F. (1946). Grierson on documentary. London, Collins.

FILMOGRAPHY

Baraka. (1993). [film] Directed by R. Fricke.

Samsara. (2012). [film] Directed by R. Fricke.

Her. (2019). [film] Directed by S. Jonze.

Lacoste (2017). Lacoste – Timeless, The Film (Director’s Cut). [video] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZC02EQqcXc [Accessed 10 Nov. 2019].

Narcos, (2015). [TV programme] Netflix.

THANK YOU

"To better understand past failures to define the documentary, it is useful to look at unsuccessful attempts to define art" - Carl R. Plantinga (1997)