The Documentary Genre - Modes and Examples

 
In Bill Nichols 2001 book 'Introduction to Documentary' he explains that there are six different kinds of documentary.

- The Poetic Mode - 'reassembling fragments of the world', a transformation of historical material into a more abstract, lyrical form.

- The Expository Mode - 'direct address', social issues assembled into an argumentative frame, mediated by a voice-of-God narration.
 'Grizzly Man', a documentary about bear lover Timothy Treadwell directed by Werner Herzog, falls into this genre, simply because of Herzogs voice-over that swayed the viewer to believe that Treadwell was crazy to live with the grizzly bears, despite the message that Treadwell was trying to convey by spending all his time with the fascinating creatures. I think that Herzog created a very impressionable tone by using his 'God-like' narration.

 - The Observational Mode - as technology advanced by the 1960s and cameras became smaller and lighter, able to document life in a less intrusive manner, there is less control required over lighting etc, leaving the social actors free to act and the documentarists free to record without interacting with each other.
 "March of the Penguins" is a observational documentary, directed by Luc Jaquet with a voice over by Morgan Freeman. The film follows the emperor penguins as they embark on a journey to find a partner to mate with. The documentary includes no human participation or interuption at all, and some parts of the footage seem rushed as the film-makers try to keep up with the action.


- The Participatory Mode - the encounter between film-maker and subject is recorded, as the film-maker actively engages with the situation they are documenting, asking questions of their subjects, sharing experiences with them. Heavily reliant on the honesty of witnesses
I think that a good representation of this would be 'Bowling for Columbine' by director Michael Moore, as the narrative of this documentary really includes him in the process of the event he is documenting. This is also partly poetic, shown by the way that the storyline jumps around and goes back and forth between recorded facts and then includes Moore giving his opinion. I think that this genre isn't seen as much in the modern movie industry because it isn't very popular and is confusing for viewers unless the documentary subject is a very broad one.

- The Reflexive Mode - demonstrates consciousness of the process of reading documentary, and engages actively with the issues of realism and representation, acknowledging the presence of the viewer and the modality judgements they arrive at.
 "Man with a movie camera" directed by Dziga Vertov, is an abstract documentary featuring similar traits to "Life in a day" produced by Ridley Scott, he documents a day in the life of a soviet union worker, but also includes the editing of the film, and the film being shown to an audience, all in a silent form.He also includes several camera tricks, such as theatre seats moving by themselves and a tiny camera man, climbing onto a full life-size version of his own camera.  I think that this documentary demonstrates the reflexive mode because it shows the viewers the whole process of creating the documentary, allowing them to make their own judgements and opinions about the footage.

 
- The Performative Mode - acknowledges the emotional and subjective aspects of documentary, and presents ideas as part of a context, having different meanings for different people, often autobiographical in nature.
  Performative documentaries are considered "highly personal' and they focus more on the experiences and emotions of the subject area rather than the facts. "Dear Zachary" is a documentary by Kurt Kuenne, the tagline 'a letter to a son about his father'. Kuenne sets out to create a documentary for his best friends son 'Zachary' about his dad Andrew Bagby who was murdered by his girlfriend. 'Dear Zachary' falls under the performative genre because of the personal link that the film-maker has with the subject