Stories We Tell Flashcards
What are the two Specialist Study Areas?
Critical debates: The Significance of Digital Technologies
Filmmaker’s Theories: Watkins and Broomfield
What is Nick Broomfield’s style?
Why does he use this approach?
Participatory and Self-reflexive, highly post-modern work.
His work acknowledges the intrusion of the filmmaker into the scene, underlining the idea that documentary is still a mode of representation as opposed to unmediated reality. - Gives the audience greater autonomy to interpret the events of the film as they see what lead to the onscreen revelations.
What is Peter Watkin’s style?
Why does he use this approach?
Experimental, provocative, polemical. Pioneered the ‘docudrama’ style; blurring the line between fact and fiction.
Questioning of the role of mass media’s supremacy in thematically intense, demanding cinema with an interest in our historical and political reality.
What makes the significance of digital technology relevant to Stories We Tell?
What are the thematic implications?
Polley’s use of both Digital and Analogue.
The faking of analogue stock footage.
The reflexive use of recording equipment in MES.
The use of NLE techniques.
Polley uses the blend of Dig./Ana. and Real/Fake to evoke the theme of memory and blur the lines between past, present, falsehood and truth.
List some documentary techniques.
Montage - compress narrative
Handheld Camera - authentic
Reconstruction - re-enactments
Actuality footage - genuine documentation
Voiceover - voice of god
Interview - talking heads
What docu. styles does the Opening use?
The opening sets up an honesty that we’d expect from documentary.
* Participatory and reflexive styles mesh together in order to draw us into Polley’s world - the world of the story AND the world of the author.
What does the Ending achieve?
Performative and emotionally compelling, Polley looks to those around her to tell the story of HER life, acknowledging that her identity exists beyond her own experience.
Analyse this shot from the opening:
Reconstruction of family life using actors
Voice of God V.O.
Handheld Camera
Analogue footage
Non-Linear Editing and opening Montage
Non-diegetic score
What are the 6 Modes of Documentary? Who Proposed these categories?
Poetic // Expository // Performative
Reflexive // Participatory // Observational
Bill Nichols
What is a Performative Documentary?
A docu. that uses the filmmaker’s own, personal, experience as a jumping off point for the story. This can make them feel more subjective.
E.g. In SWT, the search for Polley’s identity serves as the basis for the story
What is Participatory Documentary?
A docu. that involves the filmmaker; we may see them ask questions or interact with subjects. Generally speaking this is the opposite of Observational docu. i.e. the storyteller is seen having an influence on the shape of the story.
What is Reflexive Documentary?
Refl. docu. tend to expose the artificiality of the genre by lifting the curtain on the film’s production
