A documentary film documents reality without a scripted narrative and typically includes interviews. Different types include cinema verité and the Ken Burns style. Some documentaries have become popular, such as Fahrenheit 9/11, and are cheaper to produce than commercial films. The genre’s history dates back to the first films, which were reality films, and propaganda. The low cost and online distribution have contributed to the genre’s increasing popularity.
A documentary film is a film that attempts to document reality. While the scenes are carefully chosen and arranged, usually through editing after filming, they are not scripted and the people in the film are not typically actors. Sometimes, a documentary film may rely on voice-over narration to describe what is happening in the footage; in other films the images speak for themselves without comment. A documentary often includes interviews with people in the film for additional context or information.
What makes a film a documentary?
In general, documentary films focus on real life and include footage of events as they happened. A World War II film might feature actors portraying soldiers, real or imagined, at war, recreating certain battles or events. In contrast to this, a documentary film about World War II might feature mostly newsreel footage of actual combat, with commentary from experts and veterans who were at war. It is this focus on documenting reality over drama or a fictional narrative that typically separates these films from summer blockbusters and other popular films.
Different types of documentaries
One type of documentary film that became popular in the 1950s was called cinema verité, which is French for “cinema of truth.” Cinema verité is a type of documentary film that does not include narration; the camera simply follows the subject. A famous example of such a film is Don’t Look Back, a biography of Bob Dylan’s tour of the UK in 1965. The “Ken Burns” style, named after the director who popularized the format, often includes narration of written documents from a historical period, with music and images displayed on screen to help bring the past to life for the audience.
Popularity of documentaries
At the beginning of the 21st century, the documentary film genre has become more fashionable, although in general still much less popular than action or adventure films. Many of these films included political or somewhat controversial programs, such as An Inconvenient Truth, Super Size Me and Bowling for Columbine. As of 2012, Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11, which documented the Bush family’s ties to Saudi Arabia and Osama bin Laden, was the most popular documentary film of all time, grossing over $220 million US dollars ( USD) worldwide.
Documentary films have remained pretty low on the radar for most moviegoers, but the popularity of some of these films shows that some moviegoers want to watch movies with a serious message. Because documentary films are much cheaper to produce than commercial films, especially large projects with extensive special effects, they are of low risk to studios. Many of these films also do well on public television and other television networks, where the miniseries format allows filmmakers to document much larger events.
History of documentaries
The first films of any kind were actually documentaries. They featured single shots of real events, such as a boat leaving shore, and were referred to as “reality” films. Other early forms of documentary film included propaganda, such as Leni Riefenstahl’s famous film, Triumph of the Will, which depicted Adolf Hitler as a hero to the German people. Due to the low cost of making these films and the use of the Internet as a distribution tool, documentaries in the 21st century have become increasingly popular as an online media.
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