Documenting the Documentary

Close Readings of Documentary Film and Video, New and Expanded Edition

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Edited by Barry Keith Grant and Jeannette Sloniowski

Type: Studies
Subject: Genre > Documentary
Keywords: documentary
Publishing date: 2013
Publisher: Wayne State University Press
Collection: Contemporary Approaches to Film and Media
Language: English

Relative size

Physical desc.

Paperback • 240 pages
6 x 9 inches (15.5 x 23 cm)

ISBN

978-0-8143-3971-8

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Book Presentation:
Essays on important documentary films from a wide range of critical and theoretical perspectives.

Originally released in 1998, Documenting the Documentary responded to a scholarly landscape in which documentary film was largely understudied and undervalued aesthetically, and analyzed instead through issues of ethics, politics, and film technology. Editors Barry Keith Grant and Jeannette Sloniowski addressed this gap by presenting a useful survey of the artistic and persuasive aspects of documentary film from a range of critical viewpoints. This new edition of Documenting the Documentary adds five new essays on more recent films in addition to the text of the first edition.

Thirty-one film and media scholars, many of them among the most important voices in the area of documentary film, cover the significant developments in the history of documentary filmmaking from Nanook of the North (1922), the first commercially released documentary feature, to contemporary independent film and video productions like Werner Herzog's Grizzly Man (2005) and the controversial Borat (2006). The works discussed also include representative examples of many important national and stylistic movements and various production contexts, from mainstream to avant-garde. In all, this volume offers a series of rich and revealing analyses of those "regimes of truth" that still fascinate filmgoers as much today as they did at the very beginnings of film history.

As documentary film and visual media become increasingly important ways for audiences to process news and information, Documenting the Documentary continues to be a vital resource to understanding the genre. Students and teachers of film studies and fans of documentary film will appreciate this expanded classic volume.

About the authors:
Barry Keith Grant is a professor of film studies at Brock University and is an adjunct faculty member of the graduate program in film and video at York University in Toronto. He is the editor of The Dread of Difference (University of Texas Press,1996) and Film Genre Reader (University of Texas Press, 1995), and is the author of Voyages of Discovery (University of Illinois Press, 1992).Jeannette Sloniowski is the director of the communication studies program and assistant professor of film at Brock University.

Press Reviews:
This volume arrives as a genuine gift. Anyone seeking to study the subtleties and complexities of the documentary film will want to see as many of the best examples of this form as possible. And anyone who sees a good range of outstanding examples will want to know what others who have taken the time and effort to examine them closely can reveal about why they possess the power and fascination that they do. This new and expanded edition of Documenting the Documentary gathers together an exemplary set of essays that do exactly that. It is a great boon to teacher and student alike.
-Bill Nichols

Grant and Sloniowski have assembled a very fine collection, representing the best current scholarly writing on documentary. Since the anthology covers the full breadth of documentary films from Nanook of the North to Paris Is Burning, it consititutes a kind of critical history as well. It will be a gold mine for teachers and students and in many disciplines—as both reference and text book.
-John Hess

There is something for everyone in this text. . . . A complex collection of critical essays, a wonderful reference text, and an enjoyable read for the cinephile.
-Journal of Film and Video

Strongly recommended for students and scholars at all levels.
-CHOICE

The book is an interesting collection, and in its attention to close readings and details, it presents an alternative to many of the other documentary anthologies presently available.
-Jane Roscoe

The extremely broad range of documentary films and videos—from Nanook of the North to Paris Is Burning—makes this an extremely useful and instructive text for several communication courses.
-Communications Booknotes Quarterly

Many of the essays are conceptually rich; all are readable. This impressive collection, strongly recommended for students and scholars at all levels, is an important addition to scholarship on documentary film.
-K. S. Nolley

A gold mine for teachers and students and in many disciplines—as both reference and text book.
-John Hess

If I was suddenly asked to teach a History of the Documentary class and told that my budget would allow for the use of just one textbook, Documenting the Documentary: Close Readings of Documentary Film and Video is the one I would select. . . With this book as our guide, we will come out at the end of this exploration with "a profound appreciation of the aesthetic complexity of the documentary form."
-Cynthia Close