What is a documentary?
A documentary is a non-fiction film about real people, places or events. It aims to show or argue something true about the world.
But it is constructed. The filmmaker chooses the subject, the frame (what is in the shot), the questions, the music and the edit (the order of clips). So a documentary is "a creative treatment of reality", not a window.
Exam films are often chosen from different types: a court story filmed with women judges in Cameroon, a family-memory film made by a daughter, a street-art film that may be partly a hoax, an archive portrait of a singer, and a diary from a war-hit city filmed by a young mother.
The modes of documentary
A common way to group documentaries is by mode:
- Expository: a voice-over explains and argues ("voice of God" narration).
- Observational: the camera watches quietly, no interviews, filmmaker unseen ("fly on the wall").
- Participatory: the filmmaker talks with people on screen; interviews shape the film.
- Performative: the filmmaker’s own feelings and experience are at the centre.
- Reflexive: the film shows how it was made and asks the viewer to question it.
- Poetic: images and rhythm create a mood more than an argument.
Most real films mix two or more modes.
Filmmakers’ theories
Exams ask you to apply ideas from at least two documentary makers:
- Peter Watkins: warned against the "monoform", the fast, chopped-up style of most TV and film that tells viewers what to feel. He wanted longer, more open forms where audiences think and take part.
- Nick Broomfield: puts himself on camera with a microphone. The struggle to get access becomes part of the story, so the viewer sees how the film was made.
- Kim Longinotto: mostly observational. No narrator; she stays close to people (often women standing up to unfair power) and lets them lead.
- Michael Moore: documentary as a persuasive, funny argument: voice-over, stunts, archive montage, aiming to make people act.
Apply a theory by asking: does my film follow it, break it, or mix it?
Critical debate: the impact of digital technology
Gains:
- Light, cheap cameras and phones let people film from inside events (for example a mother filming her own life under bombing).
- Huge amounts of home video and phone footage can be edited into archive portraits.
- Streaming platforms bring documentaries to big audiences.
Worries:
- Digital images are easy to change; fakes and deepfakes make viewers doubt what is real.
- Too much footage can make films chosen by algorithm-friendly drama.
- Privacy and consent: people may be filmed without truly agreeing.
Good answers weigh both sides and use moments from the film.
Try it: one event, two films
Film 6 short clips of one ordinary event (a family meal, a market) on a phone. Edit them in two different orders, once with your voice-over and once with none. Show both to a friend and ask what each version "says".
Key formulas and definitions
- Documentary = real material + choices (frame, order, sound, voice)
- Expository = voice-over explains
- Observational = fly on the wall, filmmaker hidden
- Participatory = filmmaker on screen, interviews
- Performative = filmmaker’s experience at the centre
- Monoform (Watkins) = fast, fragmented, standard media style
Worked examples
1. A film has no narrator, no interviews and long shots of a courtroom. Which mode and which filmmaker’s approach does it fit?
Observational mode. It fits Kim Longinotto’s approach of watching closely and letting people lead.
2. A director follows a famous person, is refused interviews, and films himself waiting at gates. Which approach?
Participatory/reflexive, like Nick Broomfield: the hunt for access becomes the story.
3. Give one argument that phone cameras improved documentary.
People inside a crisis can film it themselves, so we see events from the inside, in places no crew could reach.
4. A 90-minute documentary used 270 hours of footage. What shooting ratio is that?
270 h = 16,200 min. 16,200 ÷ 90 = 180, so the ratio is 180:1. Only 1 minute in 180 was used, showing how much the edit chooses.
Common mistakes
- Thinking a documentary is "pure truth". It is always shaped by choices.
- Mixing up observational (hidden filmmaker) and participatory (filmmaker on screen).
- Naming a filmmaker’s theory without applying it to scenes from your film.
- Writing only good or only bad points about digital technology.