Film Studies Librarian
Lucinda M. Hall
Contact:
Evans Map Room, Baker-Berry Library
Dartmouth College
25 N Main ST
Hanover, NH 03755
Dartmouth College
25 N Main ST
Hanover, NH 03755
(603) 646-0962
Website Skype Contact: d1128r8@kiewit.dartmouth.edu
The March of Time Documentary series
March of Time series by Call Number: Streaming videoThe March of Time is an American short film series sponsored by Time Inc. and shown in movie theaters from 1935 to 1951. It was based on a radio news series broadcast from 1931 to 1945.
- Time Marches ... Backward!An article by Neil Genzlinger from the New York Times about March of Time.
Internet resource(s)
- "4 top documentarians on how streaming has ‘revolutionized’ the genre" by Joyce EngStreaming has not only changed the way we produce and consume TV, but, to hear our Meet the Experts: Documentary panelists tell it, the entire documentary field in general. From GoldDerby dated 07/01/2020.
- Beat The Press - 04/02/2021In this episode, the panel discussed Ken Burns, the Hemingway documentary series and whether Ken Burns held more sway than other documentary creators. The Beyond Inclusion letter is also included in the discussion.
- Beyond InclusionBeyond Inclusion is a BIPOC-led collective of non-fiction makers, executives, and field builders. We organize for a more racially just and equitable media landscape and hold an unapologetically large vision for ecosystem-wide change. In the new normal, every staff room, C-Suite and boardroom will reflect the diverse makeup of the audiences they serve. ...
- Doculogue
Docalogue is an online space for scholars, filmmakers, and documentary enthusiasts to engage in conversation about contemporary documentaries. Each month, they feature one documentary and the conversation is initiated by two writers who have been asked to write a few words about that film. Once these initial posts are up, the site will be open for comments and discussion from the larger community. ... - DocumentaryFilms.netThis site provides documentary film information and resources to both viewers and filmmakers.
- Documentary of the week podcast
Technology has made non-fiction film easier to make, more available and more popular than ever before. Here, WNYC selects the best documentaries as they come to screens of any size. - Full Frame Documentary Film FestivalThe Full Frame Documentary Film Festival is an annual international event dedicated to the theatrical exhibition of non-fiction cinema. The Festival takes place in Durham, North Carolina.
- International Documentary Association (IDA)The mission of the International Documentary Association is to promote nonfiction film and video around the world by supporting and recognizing the efforts of documentary film and video makers; ...
Keeping up with Film Studies journal literature
Want an easy way to keep up with the journal literature for all facets of Film Studies? And you use a mobile device? You can install the BrowZine app and create a custom Bookshelf of your favorite journal titles. Then you will get the Table of Contents (ToCs) of your favorite journals automatically delivered to you when they become available. Once you have the ToC's, you can download and read the articles you want from the journals for which we have subscriptions.
You can get the app from the App Store or Google Play.
Don't own or use a mobile device? You can still use BrowZine! It's also available in a web version. You can get to it here. The web version works the same way as the app version. Find the journals you like, create a custom Bookshelf, get ToCs and read the articles you want.
A short definition for documentary film
A practice of filmmaking that deals with actual and factual (and usually contemporary) issues, institutions, and people; whose purpose is to educate, inform, communicate, persuade, raise consciousness, or satisfy curiosity; in which the viewer is commonly addressed as a citizen of a public sphere; whose materials are selected and arranged from what already exists (rather than being made up); and whose methods involve filming ‘real people’ as themselves in actual locations, using natural light and ambient sound. Although filmmaking of this type dates to the earliest years of cinema (see actualities; travel film), the term documentary was not coined until the 1920s, when the founder of the British Documentary Movement, John Grierson, defined it as ‘the creative treatment of actuality’.
Kuhn, A. & Westwell, G. (2012). "Documentary." In A Dictionary of Film Studies. : Oxford University Press. Retrieved 17 Nov. 2016.
Getting started
To find books and other resources about documentaries, use the subject heading documentary films. Use this same search to find actual documentary films located in the Jones Media Center. Other related subject headings are listed below.
- documentary filmsCall number range PN 1995.9 .D6 through PN 1995.9 .D62 on Baker Level 4.
- documentary-style filmsThis is the subject used for mockumentaries. See the separate tab above.
Introductory readings
The documentary distribution toolkit: how to get out, get seen and get an audience by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9781000477504Mapping out a diverse journey through documentary distribution, this book is a comprehensive global how-to reference guide, providing insights into the landscape of documentary distribution; targeting the right audiences to expand the reach of your documentary; and building a sustainable career. Detailing how to prepare your documentary, strategies for crowdfunding, working with documentary organizations and online platforms and outlining the channels to consider, The Documentary Distribution Toolkit demystifies the process of distributing your documentary. ...
Documentary film: a very short introduction by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9780195182705Documentary film can encompass anything from Robert Flaherty's pioneering ethnography Nanook of the North to Michael Moore's anti-Iraq War polemic Fahrenheit 9/11, from Dziga Vertov's artful Soviet propaganda piece Man with a Movie Camera to Luc Jacquet's heart-tugging wildlife epic March of the Penguins. In this concise, crisply written guide, Patricia Aufderheide takes readers along the diverse paths of documentary history and charts the lively, often fierce debates among filmmakers and scholars about the best ways to represent reality and to tell the truths worth telling. ...
Documentary film from the Encyclopedia of International Media and Communications by Call Number: eBookThe origins of the film and video documentary can be traced back to the period of the European Enlightenment when artists, followed later by photographers, began using visual documentation to support scientific projects, notably land and seaborne expeditions of exploration and discovery. Their efforts predate the invention of the motion picture camera, which appeared in the last decade of the 19th century. ...
Encyclopedia of the documentary film by Call Number: Baker-Berry Ref. PN 1995.9 .D6 E53 2006 v.1-3ISBN: 9780415976398This encyclopedia examines individual films and the careers of individual film makers, it also provides overview articles of national and regional documentary film history. It explains concepts and themes in the study of documentary film, the techniques used in making films, and the institutions that support their production.
Introduction to documentary by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9780253026903Publication Date: 3rd ed.The third edition of Bill Nichols's text provides an up-to-date introduction to the most important issues in documentary history and criticism. A new chapter, "I Want to Make a Documentary: Where Do I Start?" guides readers through the steps of planning and pre-production and includes an example of a project proposal for a film that went on to win awards at major festivals. Designed for students in any field that makes use of visual evidence and persuasive strategies, Introduction to Documentary identifies the genre's distinguishing qualities and teaches the viewer how to read documentary film. ...
Selected book title(s)
The art of the documentary: fifteen conversations with leading directors, cinematographers, editors, and producers by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9780321981929Publication Date: 2nd ed.Documentary filmmaking is a powerful and vital element to our society, and those who are responsible for bringing real stories and issues to a creative medium often have an uncanny ability to make a deep connection to us with their art. Legendary directors and cinematographers such as the Maysles brothers, D.A. Pennabaker & Chris Hegedus, Errol Morris, or Ken Burns have vividly made their marks in recent decades and continue to inspire those who enter the field. Inexpensive video camera equipment and video editing software have helped fuel a new wave of truth-tellers, bringing the tools of the craft within reach of amateurs and students, as well as independent journalists and filmmakers on a budget. In The Art of the Documentary, the directors, editors, cinematographers, and producers behind today's most thought-provoking nonfiction films reveal the thought processes, methods, and collaborations that have guided their efforts- from project conception to developing, producing, shooting, editing, and releasing some of the finest documentary films of recent decades. ...
Candid eyes: essays on Canadian documentaries by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1995.9 .D6 C362 2003ISBN: 9780802082992Beginning in 1922, when Robert Flaherty filmed Nanook of the North in Canada's Arctic, and encouraged by John Grierson and the federal government in 1939 when they created the National Film Board of Canada (NFB), documentaries have dominated Canada's film production and, more than any other form, have been crucial to the formation of Canada's cinematic identity. Surprisingly, there has been very little critical writing on this distinguished body of work. Candid Eyes: Essays on Canadian Documentaries not only addresses this oversight in the scholarly literature, but in doing so, it presents an exceptional collection of essays by some of Canada's best known film scholars. ...
Challenge for change: activist documentary at the National Film Board of Canada by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1995.9 .D6 C53 2010ISBN: 9780773536630Pioneering participatory, social change-oriented media, the program had a national and international impact on documentary film-making, yet this is the first comprehensive history and analysis of its work. The volume's contributors study dozens of films produced by the program, their themes, aesthetics, and politics, and evaluate their legacy and the program's place in Canadian, Québécois, and world cinema. An informative and nuanced look at a cinematic movement, Challenge for Change reemphasizes not just the importance of the NFB and its programs but also the role documentaries can play in improving the world.
The documentary handbook by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1995.9 .D6 L384 2010ISBN: 9780203867198The Documentary Handbook is a critical introduction to the documentary film, its theory and changing practices. The book charts the evolution of documentary from screen art to core television genre, its metamorphosis into many different types of factual TV programme and its current emergence in forms of new media. It analyses those pathways and the transformation of means of production through economic, technical and editorial changes. The Documentary Handbook explains the documentary process, skills and job specifications for everyone from industry entrants to senior personnel, and shows how the industrial evolution of television has relocated the powers and principles of decision-making. ...
Documentary time: film and phenomenology by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1995.9 .D6 W24 2008ISBN: 9780816649693Finding the theoretical space where cinema and philosophy meet, Malin Wahlberg's sophisticated approach to the experience of documentary film aligns with attempts to reconsider the premises of existential phenomenology. The configuration of time is crucial in organizing the sensory affects of film in general but, as Wahlberg adroitly demonstrates, in nonfiction films the problem of managing time is writ large by the moving image's interaction with social memory and historical figures. Wahlberg discusses a thought-provoking corpus of classical and recent experiments in film and video (including Andy Warhol's films) in which creative approaches to the time of the image and the potential archive memory of filmic representation illuminates meanings of temporality and time experience. ...
Japanese documentary film: the Meiji era through Hiroshima by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1995.9 .D6 N59 2003ISBN: 9780816640461Among Asian countries--where until recently documentary filmmaking was largely the domain of central governments--Japan was exceptional for the vigor of its nonfiction film industry. And yet, for all its aesthetic, historical, and political interest, the Japanese documentary remains little known and largely unstudied outside of Japan. This is the first English-language study of the subject, an enlightening close look at the first fifty years of documentary film theory and practice in Japan. ...
Realer than reel: global directions in documentary by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1995.9 .D6 H56 2006ISBN: 9780292712607Television and globalization have transformed the traditional documentary almost beyond recognition, converting what was once a film genre devoted to public service and education into a popular televisual commodity with productions ranging from serious public affairs programming to TV "reality" shows and "docusoaps." Realer Than Reel offers a state-of-the-art overview of international documentary programming that investigates the possibilities documentary offers for local and public representation in a global age, as well as what actually constitutes documentary in a time of increasing digitalization and manipulation of visual media. ...
The rhetoric of the new political documentary by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9780809328369The Rhetoric of the New Political Documentary explores the most visible and volatile element in the 2004 presidential campaign--the partisan documentary film. This collection of original critical essays by leading scholars and critics--including Shawn J. and Trevor Parry-Giles, Jennifer L. Borda, and Martin J. Medhurst--analyzes a selection of political documentaries that appeared during the 2004 election season. The editors examine the new political documentary with the tools of rhetorical criticism, combining close textual analysis with a consideration of the historical context and the production and reception of the films. ...
Shooting the truth: the rise of American political documentaries by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1995.9 .D6 M38 2006ISBN: 9780275987602Political documentaries are more popular now than ever -- Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004), the top-grossing documentary film of all time, is one of many such recent films. In this incisive book, James McEnteer parses the politics of nonfiction films of recent decades, which together constitute an alternative history to many official stories offered by the government and its media minions. ...
The subject of documentary by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1995.9 .D6 R44 2004ISBN: 9780816634415The documentary, a genre as old as cinema itself, has traditionally aspired to objectivity. Whether making ethnographic, propagandistic, or educational films, documentarians have pointed the camera outward, drawing as little attention to themselves as possible. In recent decades, however, a new kind of documentary has emerged in which the filmmaker has become the subject of the work. Whether chronicling family history, sexual identity, or a personal or social world, this new generation of nonfiction filmmakers has defiantly embraced autobiography. In The Subject of Documentary, Michael Renov focuses on how documentary filmmaking has become an important means for both examining and constructing selfhood. ...
Other library resource(s)
Documentary film from Oxford Bibliographies Online by Call Number: Electronic resourceISBN: 9780199791286Since the 1990s, there has been a veritable explosion of documentary films and digital media productions accompanied by a correspondingly large number of books and articles dedicated to contextualizing and interpreting them. The documentary film form itself is not new, of course. It dates from the 1920s, cinema’s fourth decade, and has long been a realist form associated with state education and political communication. ...
Colonial film database: moving images of the British Empire by Call Number: Streaming videoThe catalogue covers all those countries that were within the British Empire until the date of their independence or the achievement of self-government as a Dominion. Over 6,000 films are cataloged, but you can only view 150 of those titles.
A short, selected list of documentary films
To find more documentaries, search the library's online catalog.
Bakhtiari migration: "the sheep must live" by Call Number: Streaming videoDescribes the largest yearly movement of nomadic people in the world, the Bakhtiari migration in southern Iran which takes about five weeks and covers 200 miles. Points out the hazards of the migration.
Before the flood by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #20657A documentary presenting a riveting account of the dramatic changes occurring around the world due to climate change, as well as the actions individuals and society can take to prevent catastrophic disruption of life on this planet.
Black is-- black ain't: a personal journey through black identityCall Number: Streaming videoAmerican culture has stereotyped black Americans for centuries. Equally devastating, the late Marlon Riggs argued, have been the definitions of "blackness" African Americans impose upon one another which contain and reduce the black experience. In this film, Riggs meets a cross-section of African Americans grappling with the paradox of numerous, often contradictory definitions of blackness.
Cameraperson by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #20483ISBN: 9781681432588A boxing match in Brooklyn; life in postwar Bosnia and Herzegovina; the daily routine of a Nigerian midwife; an intimate family moment at home with the director: Kirsten Johnson weaves these scenes and others into her film, a tapestry of footage captured over her twenty-five-year career as a documentary cinematographer.
I am not your negro by Call Number: Streaming videoUsing James Baldwin's unfinished final manuscript, Remember This House, this documentary follows the lives and successive assassinations of three of the author's friends, Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr., delving into the legacy of these iconic figures and narrating historic events using Baldwin's original words and a flood of rich archival material. An up-to-the-minute examination of race in America, this film is a journey into black history that connects the past of the Civil Rights movement to the present of #BlackLivesMatter.
With hand and heart a portrait of Southwestern Native American artists by Call Number: Jones Media Video tape #5303ISBN: 9781561763931Among the native peoples who inhabit the unforgiving, rocky landscape of the American Southwest, a tradition of magnificent ceramics and crafts has evolved for over a thousand years.- Ácratas; Por esos ojos; Memorias de mujeras: 3 películas documentales uruguayas byCall Number: Jones Media DVD #3281Ácratas (2000, 73 min.): Using photographs, films and documents, chronicles an anarchist movement located in the Rio de la Plata and Montevideo areas in the first third of the 20th century. Revolutionaries included Miguel Arcángel Roscigno, Buenaventura Durruti, and Severino Di Giovanni. ...
Finding scholarly articles & journals
Articles and other writings about movies can be found in many publications. Our collection includes a couple of titles which look exclusively at Documentary films. You can use Film & Television Literature Index to find articles.
Studies in documentary filmCall Number: Electronic journalThis journal provides information about the history, theory, criticism and practice of documentary film.
Film quarterlyCall Number: Electronic journalFilm Quarterly publishes substantial, peer-reviewed writing on cinema and media.
Film & television literature index by Call Number: Electronic resourceUse this index to find articles about this genre.
Web of science citation databases by Call Number: Electronic resourceThe online version of 3 separate ISI indexes: Arts & Humanities Citation Index, Science Citation Index and, Social Sciences Citation Index.
