“In feature films the director is God; in documentaries God is the director.”
An art form that for more than a hundred years has represented the fortuitous romanticism, surrealism and activism of life’s journey. Extreme naturalism is the key; transcending the dilemmas of human existence, documentaries go beyond archetypal perception, unraveling the psychedelic mysteries of life, always giving a “voice to the voiceless”.
The art of documentary filmmaking dates back to before 1900, when the French coined the term to describe any nonfiction film for informational purposes. Often referred to as “news movies”, these would include very short stretches of footage, often a minute or less in length. There was no way of conceptualizing a real life event or representation of consciousness in these creations, mainly due to the technological limitations of the time. Harishchandra Sakharam Bhatwadekar (Save Dada), who in 1899 filmed a wrestling match, was probably the oldest trace of “topical” movies in the Indian film industry. He is also credited with making the first Indian newsreel in 1901 by filming the public reception of Raghjunath P. Paranjpye, who had won special distinction in Mathematics at Cambridge. Chitrapat Kaysa Taya Kartat (How Movies Are Made) (1917), directed by Dadasaheb Phalke, the “father of Indian fiction film”, is another important milestone in the Indian “reality” movie genre.
Czech filmmaker and theorist Vit Janecek was one of the first people who improvised the term “documentary film” to replace a “documentary film”, to dramatize the camera shot on location, to represent discursive interests of a cultural-social domain. The first such attempts were by the Lumiere brothers, showing short cuts of a train entering a station, factory workers leaving a plant, etc. Romanticism found its way into the first official documentary, Robert Flaherty’s Nanook of the North (1922), a contemporary look at the lives of Canadian Inuit Eskimos living in the Arctic. However, the term “documentary” was first used in a review of Flaherty’s (also known as the “father of documentary film”) Moana in 1926. Over the years, with the availability of films from cheaper 16mm and the growing political movements in Russia and the UK, documentaries gradually became a way to reach the masses. Movies were projected on the walls of factories and screens were installed in the halls of churches trying to raise awareness about unemployment, poverty and fascism. Thus we see the birth of “alternative news” in the 1930s, a generation of leftist filmmakers motivated to lead people from apathy to activism. The “news” genre was also sometimes staged, recreating some of the actual events that occurred. Dziga Vertov’s Kino-Pravda (literally translated as “cinematic truth”) newsreel series showed the everyday life of the bourgeois, trying to send a deeper message through a metaphorical montage of real-life recordings, often even using hidden cameras. This creation inspired the birth of cinema verite as another form of documentary, which used Vertov’s technique of juxtaposing scenes and non-intrusive filming techniques. This form of documentary film emphasized preserving the pristine form and authenticity of naturalism. John Grierson was the first documentary filmmaker and critic to coin the term “documentary” while reviewing Flaherty’s Moana. He also expanded on the idea portrayed by Vertov, defining the art form as a “creative treatment of the present”. This decade also saw the birth of documentary filmmaking in India with the creative acumen of Dr. PV Pathy, KS Hirlekar and DG Tendulkar.
Later, in the 1930s and 1940s, documentaries became more propagandistic in nature, emphasizing the marginalized and working-class majority of the depression and war years. This form of media assumed an activist role in its effort to understand reality and an ethical responsibility. Triumph of the Will (1934) was a masterpiece by Leni Riefenstahl, highly controversial and propagandistic in its horrifying depiction of the Nazi Party Congress rally in Nuremberg. Despite the controversy surrounding the creation, in the field of cinematography, this creation has earned unrivaled laurels from critics. The year 1940 is a major milestone in Indian documentary film making, in which the British government created the Film Advisory Board (FAB) to provide the infrastructure to drive the war propaganda effort. In 1943, Information Films of India (IFI) and Indian News Parade (INP) were formed to expand and consolidate film production and distribution units. Between 1940 and 1946, the FAB and the IFI produced more than 170 films in addition to the INP newsreels. Unfortunately, in the year 1946, government grants to these institutions were drastically reduced and there was no official film unit to record Nehru’s “appointment with destiny” speech on India’s auspicious first Independence Day. Efforts were revived in 1948, through the formation of the Film Division, the Government of India’s official vehicle for promoting the production and distribution of films and informational newscasts. The documentaries were to be released under the banner “Indian Documentary Films”.
The 1960s and 1970s saw a protest theme against neo-colonialism. La Hora de los homos (1968), The hour of the ovens, directed by Octavio Getino and Fernando E. Solanos, is a four-hour manifesto inciting a sense of revolution against imperialism and the disasters it brought to the Argentina. In addition to the portrayal of social and political issues, biographical, rock concert/music related, and nature related documentaries also made their way into the mainstream during these years. Film styling and informative reporting in documentary films have reached new levels of success with the advent of high-tech digital photographic equipment. Baraka (1992), by director/director of photography Ron Ficke, represents “the essence of life”, transcending the limits of nature and time. Without a single word narrated in the film, he is often said to have delivered a “wordless message” with his brilliant visuals accompanied by pristine musical scores.
Documentary making began with informational purposes, but has graduated over the years to reflect the persuasive creative ambition of filmmakers. Along with the aesthetic nuances of Romanticism and Surrealism, movies have become more chronological, self-reflective, and experimental. The “hot topic” children’s art form of yesteryear soon became the energetic activist that threatened to topple the hegemonic powers of oppression. The cinematographic genre has spread far beyond the etymological meaning of the term, and one of its founding authors and theorists, John Grierson, had envisioned it in a futuristic article more than seventy years old that said: “Documentary is a description clumsy, but let it rest.
