Documentary as a Creative Treatment of Actuality

Documentary as a concept is hard to fully define. This is in most part due to the varied history through which the artform has evolved over the years. Many documentary filmmakers often adapt a certain ‘voice’ to their films that is unique and intrinsic to their body of work, which further adds complexity to the definition. Scholars have since landed on roughly defining the genre as “the creative treatment of actuality”. Because the making of non-fiction film is often so personalized and different in its communication modes, it is hard to say that any documentary is fully, 100% representative of an event or experience. This then raises the question to what extent might a documentarian’s personal vision and experience affect the attempted portrayal of reality, and how far can personal overreach affect the integrity of a documentary in representing actuality before the film veers into fictional territory.

To answer this question, perhaps the best place to start is to look at two important pieces of documentary cinema and compare them to see how the artistic voice impacted the final product. Those are Nanook of the North (1922) and Man with a Movie Camera (1929). On the surface, these two films seem to be on the opposite ends of representing actuality, as Nanook is well renowned for its embellishing of the truth, sharing its story akin to a narrative form. Whereas Movie Camera takes on a more observational role with an implicit voice, utilizing montage to convey its information. However, both are similar in their supposed indirect voice approach and veering into the realm of exploitation (Nichols, 66). As mentioned previously, Flaherty, the director of Nanook, was known for embellishing the truth of the lifestyle these indigenous people lived. For example, It has been revealed that the “family” showcased on screen were actors who were hired to portray such a lifestyle, and the clothing worn would have been far outdated at that point in history due to westernization efforts (Nichols, 21). And yet, in spite of these changes, the film is still considered a documentary. Due to the practices having some basis in reality from the history of the people.

In different vein, Man with a Movie Camera elects to take a much more observational approach, with the images and visuals being overall more representational of real life. However, to a certain extent, this film does also suffer from a degree of the exploitation of its subjects. There are multiple extended shots that objectify women or the woman’s form, which aren’t applied to the men featured in the film. While it’s hard to say whether or not this was the intention of the director, it still raises the questions of how a filmmaker’s personal voice and choices when making a documentary might affect the extent to which it truly represents reality. Additionally, there are many scenes throughout that call attention to the ‘film’, through which we see the filmmaker in the act of gathering footage or the editor as she cuts together a scene. This choice is intriguing artistically, as it heightens the audience’s awareness, but it also reminds viewers that what they are watching isn’t real, and the choices made are deliberate.

As exemplified, the definition of documentary is still flexible to this day, in large part due to the artistic inclination of cinema as an artform overall. Filmmakers, even documentarians each have a specific voice that they bring to their projects that ultimately impact the skew of their work. Specific examples through history indicate there are times when a filmmaker's voice may veer too far into overreaching control and alter the true authenticity of films. But as long as audiences apply due diligence and critical thinking, documentaries can retain their integrity as a powerful tool to convince or inform the masses, and in fact, treat and represent actuality with a flair of creativity.

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