“The first use of the term in relation to film is generally attributed to British filmmaker John Grierson, who defined documentary as “the creative treatment of actuality” (Kerrigan and McIntyre,111). This definition attempts to reconcile the subject matter of a film — something that exists in the real world, as distinguished from fiction, wherein characters and settings are the product of a screenwriter’s imagination — and the vision of a filmmaker, whose art demands the creative interpretation of reality through the filter of a personal, subjective point of view, and whose craft requires innumerable technical decisions in the creative employment of the film medium and its production processes.”
“The cinema is an art form that requires conscious selective aesthetics judgments, but this fact shouldn’t erase the distinction between programs that depict avowedly fictional stories and those that address real-world topics without relying on the artifice of studio sets and actors’ performances. Documentary film thus enjoys a privileged status as a mediated representation of reality compared to fiction films. This distinction is not lost on viewers, who approach documentaries with a different frame of mind compared to fiction. Documentaries represent what Weik von Mosser (“Emotions,” 2014) calls “discourse of consequence,” meaning that viewers expect documentaries to potentially convey a message or have an impact on their actual lives, or at least on their understanding of the real world. This expectation is not diminished even though documentaries may evoke emotional responses in addition to presenting factual information.”
“The nature of a film’s reception depends to a great extent upon the expectations, knowledge, and values of its viewers. So a filmmaker frames her approaches to a topic based on the audience’s anticipated knowledge of and predisposition toward her topic.”
“The basic aesthetic elements of cinema may be summarised as visual composition, lighting, movement, color, direction of action, editing, sound (dialogue, sound effects, and music), and special effects. These elements of film craft may represent aspects of actual subjects in the real world, but they may also embody subjective perspective communicated by the filmmaker. For example, the angle of a shot may make a subject appear more powerful; a long take may convey a deeper sense of continuous reality than a series of quick cuts; and jux-tapositions of shots through editing may imply new associations and meanings through the comparison or contrast of images. Sound effects recorded in post production may add realism and emotional resonance to footage shot in the field without sync sound. Adding a musical soundtrack may lend an emotional tenor to a scene, reinforcing the message of the imagery. Even in direct cinema—the most pure mode of documentary style, which often relies on long takes and neutral camera angles—the filmmaker still makes decisions about where to put the camera, when to move it, and when to make the cut. There is no avoiding the conclusion that, as an art form, cinema molds its own reality as much as it presents that of the world.”
„Many documentaries engage in persuasive argument, desiring to convince the audience to adopt a particular point of view toward the subject matter. Toward this end, filmmakers employ age-old strategies of rhetorical argument to engage and persuade their audience. Following Aristotle, documentarians employ three primary rhetorical styles: (1) Logos—the use of factual evidence and reasoning—through logical argument, empirical visual representation (e.g. photographs or original footage), and statistical evidence (e.g., charts and graphs) to embody or clarify ideas; (2) Ethos—the reliance on authority, expertise, and ethical stature, established through testimony from recognized experts or those who speak from personal experience; and (3) Pathos—the appeal to values and emotions, often through cultivating an identification with sympathetic subjects, or feelings of anger toward their antagonist.“
„Documentary films certainly qualify as forms of communication or „speech“, but it is crucial to respect the difference by which a viewer receives an audio-visual presentation, in contrast to a written or spoken address. Speeches based on factual evidence or appeals to authority are primary left-brain, analytical activities. The listener weighs the evidence and reaches a conclusion, similar to the process in a jury trail. However, an image is „worth a thousand words“; it may appear to offer the strongest evidence of a state of affairs, as well as convey an emotional feeling, thus involving both analytical and intuitive mental faculties. For example, the juxtaposition of two images may establish an implicit link between them that creates a sort of „visual logic.“ The combination of an image and a musical theme may engage one‘s logical and emotional faculties simultaneously. The skilfulness of a persuasive documentarian often rests in his ability to weave these rhetorical threads together seamlessly.“
(The environmental documentary, Bloomsbury Publishing Inc, USA, 2017, John A. Duvall)
