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Looking at Documentaries 1

This document is a teacher's guide for using documentaries in the classroom. It outlines four key questions about documentaries: 1) Why are documentaries worth watching? They provide information about real subjects and events in an engaging way. 2) What types of documentaries are there? Examples include those about history, science, current events and nature. 3) How are documentaries different from fiction? They are based on real people, places and events. 4) What should we look for in a documentary? Elements like interviews, archival footage and revealing hidden worlds. Documentaries make the past come alive, humanize complex stories and show aspects of the natural world that can't otherwise be seen.

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0% found this document useful (0 votes)
10 views5 pages

Looking at Documentaries 1

This document is a teacher's guide for using documentaries in the classroom. It outlines four key questions about documentaries: 1) Why are documentaries worth watching? They provide information about real subjects and events in an engaging way. 2) What types of documentaries are there? Examples include those about history, science, current events and nature. 3) How are documentaries different from fiction? They are based on real people, places and events. 4) What should we look for in a documentary? Elements like interviews, archival footage and revealing hidden worlds. Documentaries make the past come alive, humanize complex stories and show aspects of the natural world that can't otherwise be seen.

Uploaded by

dickheadjones
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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DOC

WWW.hotdocslibrary.ca

Looking at
Documentaries
EDUCATIONAL RESOURCE

This project was made possible with the support of the Department
of Canadian Heritage through the Canadian Culture Online Strategy

WWW.HOTDOCS.CA
Looking at Documentaries

TEACHER’S GUIDE

This viewing and teaching guide sets out a few key questions that are designed to help
teachers include the study of documentary film in their curriculum. By this, we mean to
outline how documentaries can be used to complement more traditional pedagogical
tools, such as books, handouts, etc. While audio-visual material may already be a resource,
this study guide aims to support the teacher who is interested in developing a more
critical dialogue about documentary film in his or her classroom.

The key questions are:

• Why are documentaries worth watching?

• What types of documentaries are there?

• How are documentaries different from fiction?

• What should we look for in a documentary?

Common terms or key ideas useful in discussing


documentary are highlighted in bold.

Education package written by Alexandra Anderson


Why Are Documentaries Worth Watching?

Documentaries Tell Us About the World to the same cross section of the British population and
documented their passage from childhood through to mid-
You can find documentaries about almost any subject:
life. Each film uses clips from previous films to create the
rock stars, politicians, ethnic groups, things that happen
effect of time travelling through someone’s life. This is a
in far-off countries, events from the past, scientific
particularly powerful documentary perspective.
explorations—the list goes on and on. Documentary films
add a new level of information to the study of history, Documentaries Are Windows Into
sociology, geography, biology, etc. Often documentaries
humanize a subject, that is, a subject is discussed through
Hidden Worlds
a personal story. This makes the subject more alive, more Documentaries aren’t just interested in events in the past.
interesting and easier to understand. Documentary cameras take the viewer behind the scenes
to reveal the story behind the headlines or to reveal stories
Documentaries Make the Past Come Alive that don’t even make the headlines. Documentaries take us
Almost by definition, documentaries focus on events that into far corners of the world or corners of our own cities
happened in the past. For this reason, a longer-range and neighbourhoods that we would never otherwise see.
perspective can be trained on a subject, hindsight being a In Warrendale (1967), Alan King went to the outskirts of
particularly powerful documentary optic. In Fog of War Toronto to bring a camera into a group home for disturbed
(2004), Errol Morris elicited a dramatic admission of regret teenagers. The film shocked the CBC so much that they
from Secretary of Defence Robert McNamara for his role in refused to air it. In Gimme Shelter (1970), Albert and David
escalating the Vietnam War, 40 years after the key events Maysles followed the Rolling Stones on tour. Their cameras
took place. Strong characters, interviewed well, form the caught an altercation where one audience member was
backbone of many documentaries and help bring history alive. stabbed and later died. In the film, a very distressed Mick
Re-creations or dramatizations are also very effective Jagger tries to calm the crowd down and later we see a
at taking the audience back to moments in the past. Errol more composed Jagger watching the film of himself and
Morris’s Thin Blue Line (1989) used stylized re-creations to the stabbing as captured by the documentary camera.
call attention to discrepancies in the case against Randall Documentaries allow an audience to jump across time and
Adams, a drifter who had been found guilty of shooting a to see different perspectives of an event.
Dallas policeman more than 10 years earlier. The film was
so successful that it forced the re-opening of the case and Documentaries Humanize Complex Stories
the exoneration of the accused. In Afghan Star (2008), Havana Marking focuses her
Documentaries usually have more time to research and camera on the Afghan equivalent of American Idol. Her
develop an idea than do newspapers and daily television film follows the finalists in a national, televised singing
news broadcasts. Ken Burns has made numerous series competition where the winner is selected through cell-
for the American PBS network. Burns’s The War (2007) phone voting. The process is familiar to all of us, but
about World War II, Jazz (2001), Baseball (1994) and the the background of war and the influence of Islamic
American Civil War (1990), to name a few, use a treasure fundamentalism add a specific Afghan spin. The film is
trove of interviews and archive material to illuminate and entertaining and educational at the same time, as it gives
bring history to life. The films rely on years of research and us a window into a country that is far away and hard to
the gathering of material that news broadcasts just can’t do. comprehend even if it is in our newspapers daily.
The ability to look back and to reprise earlier periods is In Capturing the Friedmans (2003), the filmmaker used
used very effectively in the Up series (Seven Up!, Seven an extensive collection of home-movie footage and
Plus Seven and all the way to 49 Up as of 2005). Every present-day interviews to re-trace the events that led
seven years, Michael Apted and his team have returned to a father and son being accused and found guilty of


paedophilia and child abuse. The interviews with family
members are mostly sympathetic to the accused but the
filmmaker balances this with the court findings and events
that followed the trails to weave a complex, subtle and
ambiguous web around these dramatic events.

Documentaries Show What Can’t Be


Seen by the Human Eye
Some of the most popular documentaries are nature
documentaries. Films such as Winged Migration (2001),
March of the Penguins (2005) and Sharkwater (2006) use
the latest camera technology, filmed over a long period, to
show us the natural world in a way we could never see on
our own.

Nature documentaries are particularly effective at giving


us the behind-the-scenes look that documentaries use
so well. Titles from David Attenborough’s BBC series
reveal that the producers are well aware of this appeal (to
voyeurism) and this function of their films. Titles such as
The Private Life of Plants (1995) and The Secret Life of
Elephants (2009) pique our curiosity but also promise to
reveal in-depth information about the natural world.


Further Reading

Nichols, Bill. Introduction to Documentary. Bloomington,


Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2001.

Rabiger, Michael. Directing the Documentary, Second


Edition. Boston: Focal Press, 1992.

Vaughn, Dai. For Documentary: Twelve Essays. Berkeley:


University of California Press, 1995.

Bruzzi, Stella. New Documentary: A Critical Introduction.


London and New York: Routledge, 2000.

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