A Short History of the Non-Fiction Film
The non-fiction film, or documentary, has received some increased publicity of late with Michael Moore's win at the Oscars for his film Bowling For Columbine about gun law in the US. Following on from Moore's success comes Donovan Leitch and Rebecca Chaiklin's Last Party 2000 (out now on DVD) which uses Hollywood actor Philip Seymour Hoffman to explore the American democratic process. Michael Moore even makes a guest appearance. But what of the documentary and it's recent renaissance? Flooded by reviews and information on fictional film, little comment is made in the mainstream press about the documentary. To go a very, very short way to rectify this and give some background on Last Party 2000's relations, Close-up offers this potted history of the non-fiction film.
The non-fiction or factual film has historically been associated with museum programmes, science and education or public television. Labelled artistic journalism, it first gained exposure way back in 1875 with the Lumières brothers' Arrival of a Train. Fictional film took over in popularity from 1905 but Charles Urban had some commercial success with Delhi Durbar in 1911 recording the Indian celebrations for the coronation of King George V, which lasted a mammoth two and a half hours. In 1922 came the seminal Nanook of the North by Robert Flaherty, an intimate and compelling account of a year in an Eskimo's life which set the scene for the modern documentary.
In the 1930s the idea arose in Britain and the US that the documentary was a kind of social truth-telling, and could be used as a popular educational tool. It was at this time that the documentary's somewhat dry reputation as an educator was cemented.
In the USSR Dziga Vertov was busy making films about modernity, machines and an admiration for labour in a quick edit format to reflect a new 1930s Russia full of spirit and technology. Luis Buñuel's Land Without Bread (1932) concerned the basic life of a small Spanish town. Joris Ivens' The Spanish Earth (1937) about the Spanish civil war had commentary written and narrated by Ernest Hemmingway, replacing Orsen Welles who had narrated the English version.
In Germany Leni Riefenstahl was busy making the now infamous Triumph of the Will (1935) covering Hitler's Nuremburg rallies and Olympia (1936) about the Berlin Olympics.
In the UK during the 1930s and 40s the key documentary filmmaker was John Grierson who directed Drifters in 1929 about herring fishermen and went on to produce many films for government and commercial agencies in Britain and Canada. Grierson believed that documentaries should be made in response to a social need and fulfil a public service.
The Second World War gave a huge boost to documentaries when they became effective vehicles for propaganda. Many Hollywood directors joined the war effort including Frank Capra, John Ford, William Wyler and John Huston. Capra made a series of films for the US government called Why We Fight turning the idea into entertainment for soldiers. Huston made Let There Be Light (1945) about shell-shocked soldiers in hospital. In the end it was deemed to realistic and was suppressed. Disney's animation studios also produced copious amounts of information and training films for the war effort.
By this time some common documentary characteristics began to emerge: a general rejection of artistic and political values of the commercial cinema as represented by Hollywood, an absolute belief in film as an art form, and for the most part a political bias to the left. Also after the Second World War came the introduction of lightweight 16mm equipment which made filming cheaper and more flexible to filmmakers working mostly on location.
Italian neo-realism emerged in the 1940s and 50s which classified those fictional films that were more like documentaries. These films told stories of everyday life using real settings of city streets and places of work, and used non-professional actors. They inspired new movements in filmmaking all over the world. A good example of this is Vittorio De Sica's Bicycle Thieves (1947).
At the same time in the US the docu-drama was becoming an important mode of filmmaking. This genre told true, current stories (usually spy or crime ones), used real non-studio settings and non-professional actors, sometimes even those who were involved in the original events. Examples of these are Henry Hathaway's House on 9 nd Street (1945), Elia Kazan's On the Waterfront (1954) and Hitchcock's The Wrong Man (1957).
During the 1950s and the following decades a new experiment in film was undertaken called cinema-verité which recorded real life people and events using handheld cameras and natural sound with minimal editing. It is widely attributed first to Jean Rouch's Chronicle of a Summer (1961) concerning the lives of Parisians but can also be traced back to Lindsay Anderson's Everyday Except Christmas (1957) about night and early morning at Covent Garden Market.
Cinema-verité received a shot in the arm with the plethora of government funded films in the US in the 1960s and 70s. The main features were the Drew Associates' Primary (1960) and Crisis (1963) showing government and campaigning in everyday action, Richard Leacock and D A Pennebaker's Don't Look Back (1967) about Bob Dylan, Albert and David Maysles' Salesman (1969) about door to door bible selling and their Grey Gardens (1976) about well-bred women living in squalor in their run down Long Island mansion.
Interview films have been said to be the most important contribution of cinema-verité, such as Rouch's Chronicle of a Summer and Shirley Clarke's Portrait of Jason (1967) about a middle aged black male prostitute whose composure deteriorates as he talks on into the camera.
This mode of filmmaking influenced many fictional filmmakers in the 1960's and 70's who began using cinema-verité's techniques of the handheld camera, natural light, accidental sounds and staying for a long time with a mundane subject. The main protagonists were Robert Altman and John Cassevetes.
Frederick Wiseman also contributed greatly to the US documentary tradition with his many films about American institutions, including High School (1968) and Welfare (1975), where his style included no commentary and letting the subject lead.
The 1970's to 1990's saw many personal development or autobiographical works by documentary filmmakers on subjects like marriage, marriage crisis, children being born and parents dying.
War still occupied the minds of documentary makers way into the 1970s and 80s. Marcel Orphus made The Sorrow and The Pity (1970) which was a reconstruction of everyday life in occupied France. He also made Hotel Terminus (1987) about Klaus Barbie's brutality in Lyon and the protection given to him by the CIA after the war. The Vietnam War also produced Pierre Schoendorffer's Oscar winning The Anderson Platoon (1967).
Mike Wadleigh's Woodstock (1970) mixed cinema-verité photography with fluid editing techniques to begin a trend for films of rock concerts.
More recently left-leaning films on public issues have become most prevalent in the documentary genre, gaining much commercial success and credibility. These include Michael Moore's Roger and Me (1989) about labour policies at General Motors, Barbara Kopple's American Dream (1990) about a strike at a Minnesota meatpacking plant, and Errol Morris' The Thin Blue Line (1988) about a Texas murder case which was reopened after the film was released and the accused man freed. Susan Meiselas, Richard Rogers and Alfred Gazzetti's Pictures From a Revolution (1992), concerning the Nicaraguan revolution and life in the following ten years has also received much critical acclaim. D A Pennebaker's The War Room (1993) about the managing of Bill Clinton's presidential campaign can be said to be a direct predecessor of Last Party 2000.
Nick Broomfield is one of the UK's most well-known documentary makers and has received notoriety for his insightful films on a huge range of subjects including The Leader, His Driver and the Driver's Wife (1991) about self-styled racist South African Eugene Terre Blanche, Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer (1992), Tracking Down Maggie: The Unofficial Biography of Margaret Thatcher (1994), Heidi Fleiss: Hollywood Madam (1995), Kurt & Courtney (1998), and his follow-up study from 1992 on the disturbing treatment of a death row inmate Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer (2003).
Nowadays the number of documentary films produced by far outstrips that of fictional films, and it is clear from this potted history how deeply the documentary has influenced the style and content of so many fictional films, whether it is the plethora of Vietnam reenactions or the handheld video diary of The Blair Witch Project. But the documentary goes even further. Michael Moore has challenged accepted attitudes to gun law in America with Bowling For Columbine, and who can forget Ken Loach's compelling Cathy Come Home (1966) which led to the founding of the charity Shelter and the subsequent change in housing laws in the UK. These are but a few of the documentaries that have been most influential over the years, there are many more, but these handful act well as a glimpse into this non-fictional world.
Rebecca Kemp
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