Documentary Process
DOCUMENTARY PRACTITIONERS: Nick Broomfield: Nick Broomfield, an English documentary practitioner is known for his minimal filming crew, often recording sound himself. He usually appears within his own films, often shown holding up his microphone recording the interviews. He rose to fame with his documentary Driving Me Crazy. Originally supposed to document the revival of a musical show with Andre Heller, of all black music and songs from the 1930’s and 1940’s, the producers of Nick’s documentary substantially cut the budget for his film, so Broomfield took it upon himself to document the countless phone calls and verbal arguments to his documentary’s producers to try and get in touch with the people who held the financial accounts of the film in order to get more money. He was sardonic with his actions, often depicting the fights and arguments in a comedic way, and showed the true, harsh colours of the show business world. It is this style that Nick Broomfield is widely known for; documenting the making of instead of the actual subjects and giving the behind the scenes feel to his documentaries, engaging the audience so that they feel they are their within the action, all the arguments and the dead ends that Broomfield comes to within his film. Broomfield worked comfortably within the style of cinema verité, often using set ups as his back drops and staging some of the things he filmed, so it felt more cinematic as well as engaging with his subjects and often successfully getting the vital answers that he needed for his documentaries by interrupting them and directly asking them. It’s an infamous trait of Broomfield’s that has gained worldwide recognition amongst other documentary practitioners. Another one of Broomfield’s successful documentaries was Biggie and Tupac, a film in which Broomfield introduced an ex- LAPD cop from America with evidence to show that the LAPD deliberately concealed information regarding the deaths of Biggie and Tupac in connection between the police, the rappers’ label and feared gangs of LA. This particular documentary reinforced Broomfield’s filming style and technique, in which he carefully and cunningly gets the information out of his subjects by manipulating the situation, which can prove very unsuccessful with other practitioners, yet Broomfield’s charm and no- nonsense approach leads him to answers that he wants. Broomfield will enter an interview knowing the answers that he needs for his documentary, and will nearly always successful get them by toying and confusing the subject. However, Nick Broomfield’s best known work was probably his documentary Kurt and Courtney, which began production after the death of Kurt Cobain. Again struggling with budgets issues, Nick recorded the sound himself and took his minimal film crew along with him to uncover some rumours on whether Cobain had actually committed suicide, or whether Courtney had planned his death, along with others involved. He again uses his aggressive and manipulative style of interviewing, disregarding sympathy for his subjects and instead getting answers and evidence to support his opinion. Upon production, Broomfield was met some negativity regarding the issue and belief that Kurt had not committed suicide, and Courtney Love opposed to the documentary, trying to get it banned from release because of defamation of character. The documentary concludes that there was not enough evidence to suggest that Courtney had any involvement within Kurt Cobain’s death, yet because of her refusal to allow Broomfield to use Cobain’s music and to take any interviews with her, Nick used this in effect as evidence of her censorship of free speech. | Nick Broomfield explaining his interview technique Kurt and Courtney Trailer, 1998 |
John Grierson: Often hailed as the Grandfather of British documentary, John Grierson was a pioneering documentary practitioner, who believed that the focus of film should the everyday drama of ordinary people, and with this he also believed that documentary should be about real-life, therefore containing no actors as a way to engage audiences with this idea of realism and representation of society that has not been staged. He wanted his films to be of social realism and political issues raised within the UK. | “All of these films dramatised reality and forced the public to become interested in important national issues. All were developed with integrity and, despite restricted budgets, all achieved a degree of technical perfection.” The Documentary Film Movement: An Anthology, Ian Aitken (1998), p. 212
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Cinema Verité and Direct Cinema:
Cinema Verité, also know as truthful cinema, is a style of documentary film making where the naturalistic techniques are combined with stylistic film devices such as editing, misé en scene and camera work. The subject is aware of the camera and sometimes set ups are staged, which can be argued take away the truth of the documentary because complete realism in not represented.
Direct cinema is similar to cinema verité, yet there are some subtle differences. One key difference is that the subject is usually made unaware of the camera, and camera work can be rough and loose as depicted in Nick Broomfield’s documentaries. There have been several debates over the centuries which one is the most truthful form of documentary making, yet it is down to the preference of the documentary practitioner to which style he or she may film in. A direct mode of address is usually a convention of direct cinema, where there is the voice of God syndrome which informs the audience of things they see in the film, where as an indirect mode of address is usually conveyed by social actors, with the film maker using cinematic techniques to convey their own belief through editing, camera work, sound and shot types.
