Resource Key

When accessing content use the numbers below to guide you:

LEVEL 1

brief, basic information laid out in an easy-to-read format. May use informal language. (Includes most news articles)

LEVEL 2

provides additional background information and further reading. Introduces some subject-specific language.

LEVEL 3

lengthy, detailed information. Frequently uses technical/subject-specific language. (Includes most analytical articles)

What are Documentary Modes?

In 1991, American film critic and theoretician Bill Nichols proposed that there were six different modes of documentary—poetic, expository, reflexive, observational, performative, and participatory—each containing its own specific characteristics. While some documentary films may have an overlap in traits, each mode is a category that can be boiled down to a few specific elements. (Masterclass, 2022)

Modes of Documentary Films

Expository Mode

Expository documentaries set up a specific point of view or argument about a subject and often feature “voice of God” style voice-over. For expository documentaries, the cinematographer is responsible for collecting footage that supports and strengthens the spoken argument of the film, including stock footage, archival footage, b-roll, or re-enactments of historical events. The Dust Bowl (2012) is filmmaker Ken Burns’ historical account of the disastrous drought that occurred during the Great Depression. Burns uses photos and facts to supplement the causes and impact of one of the worst droughts to plague North American farmland.

(Examples: Spellbound, Why We Fight)

Motion Picture Association of America (2002). Spellbound. [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkbJWZvBVvk

Cagle, C. (2012). Postclassical Nonfiction: Narration in the Contemporary Documentary. Cinema Journal, 52(1), 45-65.
This article examines contemporary mainstream documentaries for the patterns through which they create meaning and argument. Rather than exhibiting hybridity, these films rely on postclassical narration in their combination of traditional formal documentary form with direct cinema's open argumentation.
Wolfe, C. (1997). Historicising the 'Voice of God': The Place of Vocal Narration in Classical Documentary. Film History, 9(2), 149-167.
In critical and historical accounts of documentary film practice, voice-over commentary in the 'classical' documentary of the 1930s and 1940s is commonly equated with a 'Voice of God'.

more... less...

Disembodied, this voice is construed as fundamentally unrepresentable in human form, connoting a position of absolute mastery and knowledge outside the spatial and temporal boundaries of the social world the film depicts.

Observational Mode

A style of documentary embraced by the cinema verité movement, observational documentaries attempt to discover the ultimate truth of their subject by acting as a fly-on-the-wall—in other words, observing the subject’s real-life without interrupting. Cinematographers on observational documentaries will often be asked to be as unobtrusive as possible in order to capture their subjects in a raw, unguarded state. An example of this direct cinema type of documentary is Primary (1960), a film chronicling the Wisconsin primary between John F. Kennedy and Hubert H. Humphrey.

(Examples: Armadillo, 9/11, Don't Look Back)

Torsting, K. (2009). Armadillo. [Video). YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcwrLV-H5UU

Edwards, D. (2013). Wang Bing and the Lives of Others. Metro, (177), 40-42. Retrieved from Australia/New Zealand Reference Centre.
The article presents criticism of the documentary film "Three Sisters" (San Zimei), directed by Wang Bing. The empathetic style of Wang, which emerged from the Chinese tradition of observational documentary, was observed in the film which shows the life of three young girls who live in the poverty-stricken village in China.

more... less...

It notes that Wang Bing engages his audience to connect and come to understand with the people in the film.
Cruzado, A. (2011). Waiting and Watching: Bob Connolly on Observational Documentaries. Metro, (169), 76-79. Retrieved from Australia/New Zealand Reference Centre.
An interview with Australian documentary filmmaker Bob Connolly is presented. When asked about the creation of the documentary film "Mrs. Carey's Concert," he refers to the opportunity of having known the music department headed Karen Carey at the University of Sydney in New South Wales.

more... less...

He notes that a person must have technical abilities, emotional maturity and intellectual understanding to become a classical musician. He cites the techniques of capturing the moments of the film's characters.
Sim, G. (2011). A Gray Zone Between Documentary and Fiction: Interview with Janus Metz. Film Quarterly, 65(1), 17-24. Retrieved from JSTOR.
In 2009, director Janus Metz and cinematographer Lars
Skree accompanied a group of young Danish soldiers to “Armadillo,” a NATO-run base in Afghanistan’s Helmand province. The resulting feature-length documentary, Armadillo, won the Critics’ Week prize at Cannes in 2010.

more... less...

All political documentaries wish to have an impact on the discourse of the events they cover. Armadillo succeeded to an unusual degree. Initially thought to have captured evidence of war crimes, the film prompted
outrage from Denmark’s political Left, which successfully demanded an investigation, and questioned the country’s military involvement in the War on Terror. By extension, the furor also facilitated a reflection on national identity.

Participatory / Interactive Mode

Participatory documentaries are defined by the interaction between the documentary filmmakers and their subject. Therefore, a cinematographer is equally responsible for capturing the interviewer as he is the interviewee. Participatory documentaries, also known as interactive documentaries, often present the filmmaker’s version of the truth as “the” truth, focusing on direct engagement with subjects and capturing real emotional responses and interactions. Many of the interactions that are captured support the filmmaker’s point of view or prove the film’s intent. Many of Michael Moore’s documentaries, like Bowling for Columbine (2001), are participatory but also blend elements of observational and performative modes.

(Examples: Bowling for Columbine, Exit Through the Gift Shop)

Moore, Michael. (2002). Bowling for Columbine Trailer [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/embed/hH0mSAjp_Jw

Corliss, R., & Sachs, A. (2002). Blood Bath and Beyond. Time, 160(15), 89. Retrieved from Australia/New Zealand History Centre.
Profiles so-called guerrilla filmmaker Michael Moore and reviews his documentary motion picture, 'Bowling for Columbine.' Idea that the film examines the gun culture in the United States; Background on and activism of Moore who is a member of the National Rifle Association; Characterization of Moore as a propagandist; His view that television news created a climate of fear.
Møhring Reestorff, C. (2015, February 3). Unruly Artivism and the Participatory Documentary Ecology of The Act of Killing. Studies in Documentary Film, 9(1), 10-27. Retrieved June 14, 2015, from Taylor & Francis: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.108
This paper studies The Act of Killing as an unruly art activist – artivist – intervention in the contemporary aftermath of the 1965 military coup and genocide in Indonesia. The Act of Killing notoriously films Anwar Congo and his death squad friends reenacting their killings as scenes from Hollywood film genres.

more... less...

The film confronts an ethical dilemma between commemorating the victims and telling the story of the genocide, and situates this dilemma in a complex participatory ‘documentary ecosystem’. The paper argues that the genocide emerges as ‘difficult heritage’ in the merging of the reenactments, the killers' attempts to remain victors and the participatory documentary ecosystem. The reenactments generate affective conflicts, in which the killers become troubled indexes of themselves. In the reenactments, the rhythms of the killers' past are confronted with rhythms of the participatory documentary ecology of, what Lefebvre refers to as, presence. Ultimately, it is argued that the artivist strategy of The Act of Killing emerges in the assemblage of multiple participants and multiple affective rhythms that calls for as a reinvention of a ‘proto-empathic identification’ with the unrepresentable victims.

Reflexive Mode

Reflexive documentaries focus on the relationship between the filmmaker and the audience. Since the subject matter is often the process of documentary filmmaking itself, a cinematographer will shoot behind-the-scenes style footage of the entire film production process, including editing, interviewing, and post-production. Dziga Vertov’s reflexive documentary Man With a Movie Camera (1929) made history with its actor-less presentation of urban Soviet life.

(Examples: Man With a Movie Camera, Bontoc Eulogy)

BFI Film Forever. (2014). Man with a Movie Camera. [Video}. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtTlgxtoqhg

Bittencourt, E. (2013). Dziga Vertov's Revolutionary Cinema. Cineaste, 38(4), 20-23. Retrieved from Australia/New Zealand Reference Centre.
An interview is presented with Adelheid Heftberger, curator of the Vertov Archive for films by Soviet director Dziga Vertov. Heftberger discusses the history of Soviet film, Vertov's documentaries, and Vertov's attitude toward formalism, as well as his films such as "Man With a Movie Camera" and "Enthusiasm." Socialist films, Soviet propaganda, and film theorist Sergei Eisenstein are also mentioned.
Homiak, J.P. (2000, December). The Body in the Archives: A Review of Bontoc Eulogy. American Anthropologist, 102(4), 887-891. Retrieved from JSTOR
Bontoc Eulogy, a work of fiction by Filipino-American filmmaker Marlon Fuentes, contends with the ideology of colonial imaging practices as well as the truth claims of the documentary genre itself.
De Groof, M. (2013). Rouch's Reflexive Turn: Indigenous Film as the Outcome of Reflexivity in Ethnographic Film. Visual Anthropology, 26(2), 109-131.
One of the most important driving forces in the development of ethnographic film and its theory has been reflexivity. As a cinematographic and theoretical device, reflexivity is put forward by epistemological and ethical concerns in ethnographic filmmaking, and has shaped the genre of ethnographic film. Reflexivity, and particularly its limits, constitutes a very particular pivotal point of the shift from Western ethnographic film to indigenous film, a shift characterized both as disruption and as continuity.

Performative Mode

The film crew creates many of the events and situations to be filmed by their own intervention or through events carried out for the sake of the film.
(Examples: Super Size Me, Kurt & Courtney)

Samuel Goldwyn Films. (2015, June 10). SuperSize Me- classroom friendly. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRZe7AhO_i8

Poetic Mode

A poetic documentary eschews linear continuity in favour of mood, tone, or the juxtaposition of imagery. Since poetic documentaries often have little or no narrative content, the director of photography is often asked to capture highly composed, visually striking images that can tell a story without additional verbal context. Leni Riefenstahl’s Olympia (1938) is an example of a poetic documentary that focuses on visuals and artistic style to help reveal an inner truth.

(Examples: Night and Fog, Rain, Sans Soleil)

Unvittorionellafolla. (2012). Joris Ivens - Regen [Video]. YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ADNWzg4ZmE

Casebier, A. (1988). A Deconstructive Documentary. Journal of Film and Video, 40(1), 34-39. Retrieved from JSTOR.
Chris Marker's Sans Soleil (1983) may be regarded as both a documentary and a deconstruction of the conventional documentary film form. The film offers a multi-level exploration of many interrelated phenomena.