IN THE MAKING OF: A documentary

Research

Origins:

• John Grierson; first to use the term to describe a film; Moana by Robert Flaherty (1926), described as "documentary value", because of the recreation of the daily life.

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Definition:

• World Union of Documentary, 1948:

"Documentaries are all methods of recording on celluloid any aspect of reality interpreted either by sincere and jusitfiable reconstruction, so as to appeal either to reason or emotion, for the purpose of stimulating the desire for and the widening of huamn knowledge and understangin and of truthfully posing problems and their solutions in the spheres of economics, culture and human relations."

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Michael Renov:

He views documentaries as; "the more or less artful reshaping of the historical world". According to him, it records, reveals or preserves, persuades or promotes, analyzes or interrogates and expresses.

Erik Barnouw:

He insisted that a documentary cannot be considered, "the truth" but rather the evidence or the testimony fo a fact or situation, within the complex historical process.