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1. Modes of
documentaries

2. • Moves away from the objective reality of a given situation or
people to grasp at an inner “truth” that can only be grasped by
poetical manipulation codes emphasises visual associations.
Key Examples
• Robert Flaherty’s Man of Aran (1934)
• Leni Riefenstahl’s Olympia (1938) presents a glorified view of
athletes during 1936 Olympic games.

3. • This mode is what we most identify with the documentary. It
emphasises verbal commentary and argumentive logic often using
a narrator
• Assumes a logical argument and a right and proper answer using
direct address
• Most associated with television news programming.

4. • Cinema veritie or direct cinema movement which emerged in the
late 1950’s / early 1960’s
• Attempted to view real life situation as a fly on a wall.
• Cameraman is ignored by the characters.
• By maintaining the observational mode, the director allows the
subject to forget the presence of the camera and behave more
naturally, thereby letting the audience get a better sense of how the
person really feels
• Examples would include benefit street.

5. • Unlike the observational mode, the participatory mode
welcome. Direct engagement between filmmaker and subjects
• Filmmaker impact on events is acknowledge.
• Archival footage to examine historical issues is also included
Key Examples
• Films of Michael Moore- here the filmmaker directly engages
with the material
• Life of Michael Jackson By Bashir

6. • The reflexive Mode acknowledge the constructed nature of
documentary and flaunts it - conveying to people that is not
necessary.
• An example of reflexive documentary maker would be Nick
Broomfield, who mainly uses minimal camera crew with just
himself and the cameraman most of the time.
• It makes the audience more aware of the problems the
documentary maker faces while they make the film.

7. • This mode of documentary emphasis the subjective as well as
acknowledging the subjective reading of the audience e.g.
supersize me.
• Documentary maker comments on the process of making the
documentary.
• The documentary is often shaped in to the narrative of an
investigation or search.