Documentary Genres

Documentary genre research

Through doing research I have concluded that there are six main types of documentaries. These five different types are:

Exposes
Observational
Participatory
Reflexive
Performative

An Exposing documentary is a documentary that speaks directly to the viewer; often with a voiceover of a male voice as this is deemed more authoritative (voice of God) these documentaries are used to try and persuade the viewer and usually hold strong view points. An example of this type of documentary would be ‘Americas Most Wanted’ which follows the conventions of this type of documentary.

An observational documentary in its simplest terms is one that tries to show it’s subject with a minimum of intervention. These films are often reasonably unenhanced as too much editing would compromise the very ‘real’ effect these type of documentaries try to create. These first became popular around the 1960’s when more mobile and lighter equipment became available.  This type of documentary is often nicknamed ‘fly on the wall’ as this reflects the way it has been filmed quite accurately. An example of this type of work would be a lot of Richard Leacock’s work, in particular ‘Monterey Pop’ 1968 which was essentially a concert being filmed.

The third type of documentary is the participatory type of documentary. The maker of a participatory documentary a would think it is impossible not to influence the documentary to a degree. As they think this, the camera man will often step out from behind the camera and talk in order to avoid a God like voice over such as in an Exposing documentary. A lot of the time the most critical element of this type of documentary is the interaction between the movie maker and the subject. An example of this would be Michael Moore’s ‘Rodger & Me’.

A Reflexive documentary is a sub genre with some Brechtian elements of alienation. This type of documentary seeks to be reminding the audience that what they are watching is actually constructed. The filmmaker of such a documentary would want their audience to question the very authority of the documentary they are watching. An example of a documentary from this genre would be Nick Broomfield’s ‘Biggie and Tupac’ which is about dead rap icons.

The last documentary I will be exploring is the Performative documentary. These documentaries are quite subjective and personal to the one who is making them, they can include hypothetical re-enactments of certain situations that are designed to challenge our viewpoints of things. A good example of this could be Alain Resnais’ ‘Night and Fog’ 1955. This documentary is about the holocaust but is not a factual representation, but instead from the view of a survivor named Jean Cayrol, it’s entirely subjective.