History of documentaries

Documentaries as a genre have come a long way since the idea of entertaining yet
factual films was first conceived in 1920s Russia during the Russian revolution by a
young poet named Dziga Vertov. These early documentaries were in the form of
factual programs called Kin-eye. This translates directly into English as Cinema-
truths and these were educational newsreels. These were the first programs
played on TV that started to show the rough format of what we now call a
documentary even though they were not called this. It was not until 1926 however
that the term “documentary” would first be used by Scottish filmmaker John
Grierson to describe to describe a nonfiction film.

Despite the name documentary being first mentioned in 1926 most people consider to Robert
Flaherty’s Nanook of the north to be the first real feature length documentary. The film followed the
life of Nanook and his family of Inuit’s living inside the Arctic Circle in Canadas Hudson bay. The
documentary was filmed over the course of a year on a camera using 75000ft of film. The
documentary first came to be when in august 1910, Sir William Mackenzie who was starting to build
his transcontinental railway the Canadian north, commissioned the writer Robert, j Flaherty to go on
an expedition to the area Nanook of the north was filmed to examine certain islands were there
were supposed to be deposits of iron located. Over a six-year period j flattery was sent to the area
and ended up discovering several islands with iron ore deposits but all were too low of a grade to be
of any value. Included in the kit was camera equipment which was taken with the hope of recording
videos of the baron north and Eskimo life which could hopefully raise enough money to cover the
cost of the expedition to the islands. The first films were recorded in 1913 -14 and accumulated to
about 30,000ft of film which all made it back in one piece to Toronto. However, once the footage
had made it to Toronto it all burned down in a fire, this was one of the many struggles with using
film in the 1920s was that nitrate film not only decayed over time but also highly flammable. It was
at this point that j Flaherty first decided he wanted to really pursue film making and in his article in
the documentary magazine on September 1st 1999 Robert J Flaherty stated that “a good film
depicting the Eskimo and his fight existence in the dramatically barren North might be worthwhile”.
This is when the writer turned filmmaker decided to travel up north solely for the purpose of
creating a film. The film was shot over the course of the next few years using over 75000 ft of film
that made it back safely to tornto to be editied into one of the most influential films of the time
especially in the genre of documentary, although this hadn’t yet been created. The most
controversial point however about the
Nanook of the north was the fact that the
second time round when t=recording the
shot Rboert J Flaherty asked Nanook to fake
these things for example in one of the
scenes when Nanook is catching a seal they
used a dead seal in filming that had already
been caught and froze. Another example of
this is in the famous igloo scene J Flaherty
made Nanook build the igloo to twice the
normal size and made him open up the
middle so that there would be more light
exposed to the camera.
During the first and second world war documentaries took a break from being informative pieces of
film and started to become tools used by British and German forces in order to recruit soldiers and
grow hatred for the enemy. This is of course known as propaganda and documentaries of this kind
played a huge part in the war. In Germany Joseph oebels and the department of film had been
creating propaganda films since 1933 which often included evil videos of world domination and vile
hate speech directed by the German film director Leni Riefenstahl. Britain’s answer to these films
were made by the east Anglian poet Humphrey Jennings and featured trilogies about war and were
created to fuel the fire in the British people. Although both documentaries and both sides are hard
to watch now due to the nature of them and what they are trying to achieve it is an important part
of how the documentary developed since a lot of these films where very artistic and extremely well
created.

Another early documentary styled film that truly changed the genre that we experience today in the
way we do is the French ethnological film “I, a negro” or “Moi, un noir” as it was called In French by
the French engineer turned filmmaker Jean Rouch. Jean Rouch who was originally born in France
moved to Africa as a young engineer to work there and in order to experience more of the world.
While in Africa Rouch found his curiosity peaked when talking to the native Nigerians. While most of
his peers ignored them and saw them as lesser, Rouch looked to them as equals and instead of
seeing them as irrelevant saw them as. Culture rich people supressed by French colonization and
years of segregation. During the second world war Jean was taken back to France in order to help
fight for his country as an engineer but soon decided that after the war he would ditch his life in
engineering to peruse the more creative career of film making. Armed with nothing but an amateur
wind up film camera and endless curiosity Jean Rouch travelled back to Africa and began to film the
ethnographical film that would change the world of documentary film making forever.

In order to explain how Jean Rouch changed so much with his film it is important to understand the
context of the time and in particular the cameras that were used to film with. Before the 1960s
cameras capable of capturing film would be very heavy large pieces of equipment that took a while
to set up. The main effect of this was that if a documentary film maker wanted to capture an event
they would have to make sure they were well prepared and new in advance what they were filming
and where so that they could set everything u[p. This meant that film makers would often miss key
shots and documentary’s would often be lacking in incredible images of real life events as they
unfolded since the cameras would not be set up on time. This style of film making was changed
when Jean Rouch took his amateur wind
up camera to the ivory coast, the reason
for this was the camera was extremely
light and did not take long to start filming
with meaning the images captured in Moi,
un Noir had so much more of a real feel to
them and really changed the way that
people wanted to record documentaries.
This is not to say that the wind-up camera
Rouch was using did not come with its own
set of disadvantages like the fact you had
to wind the camera up in order to start
recording and that once the camera had
been wound up it was extremely loud and
would only record for 20 seconds at a time.
This is where Robert Drew, the editor and
a writer for life magazine at the time stepped in and managed to get the people at the magazine in
charge of budgeting to dedicate one million dollars to creating a camera that would be able to
achieve all the same desirable effects Jean Rouch achieved without any of the downsides. These
handheld 16mm cameras became the new norm and shaped the genre of documentaries into what
they are today.

Fast forward to modern times where television has been replaced by sites like Netflix and YouTube
which has not only changed how we view documentaries but also the target audience and people
that watch them. While in the past documentaries may have been aimed more at older audiences or
people interested in a specific topic, they have now changed to the point where they are covering
issues that affect everyone or younger people through channels lie viceland that posts
documentaries focusing on real world issues and interesting topics on YouTube. The person who has
arguably been most successful in this new style of informative documentary is the writer, journalist
and documentary film maker Louie Theroux. Louie Theroux first started changing the audience and
appeal of documentaries in the early 2000s when he released popular shows like “Louie Theroux’s
weird weekends” and “when Louie met Jimmy” which is an hour-long program that aired on the BBC
where Louie got to know the ex Tv presenter jimmy Savel who was outed as a Paedophile recently
before filming. This captured the nations
interest in a way no documentary had
before and set Theroux up for a long career
talking to fringe groups, befriending them
and documenting the whole process. This
style of documentary has become the new
norm but it will be interesting to see how
over the course of time documentaries
continue to change and developed while
technology becomes more advanced and
smartphones give almost anyone the power
to create and upload content.

References:

Carrier, S. (2013). A brief history of documentary forms. Available:

https://transom.org/2014/brief-history-of-documentary-forms/. Last accessed 12th
dec 2019.
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/britains-world-
war-ii-films-were-more-than-just-propaganda-1780730.html
topdocumentaryfilms. (2011). the camera that changed the world. Available:
https://topdocumentaryfilms.com/camera-changed-world/. Last accessed 10th dec
2019.
desktop documentaries. (2014). A history of documentaries. Available:
https://www.desktop-documentaries.com/history-of-documentaries.html. Last
accessed 10th dec 2019.
Malcolm, D. (2000). Robert Flaherty: Nanook of the North. Available:
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2000/apr/13/1. Last accessed 9th feb 2020.