Bill Nichols 6 modes of Documentary

By Ewan, George, Tyler and Oliver.

Poetic in
documentary
• Poetic in Documentary's was first seen in the 1920s , they focus
on experience and image and showing the audience the world
through a different set of eyes the poetic subgenre can be very
unconventional and experimental.
• Poetic documentary is a sub genre documentary filmmaking to
use advance guard techniques to evoke a certain mood
• Leni Riefenstahl's Olympia is a classic example of how a poetic
Documentary emphasises visuals to encourage the audience to
understand an of the text. The main focus of this documentary is
on the Aaryan athletes representing Nazi Germany at the 1936
Berlin Olympics Games.
• The poetic mode of documentary film tends toward
subjective interpretations of its subjects. Light on
rhetoric, documentaries in the poetic mode forsake of a
particular mood or tone.
• Strength: That it is always telling a true story, and you know that
it is a trust worthy source.

• Https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KepfhBLhfVo
Expository
Expository documentaries are when there is a specific point of
view or augment about a subject. There is a narrator that often
speaks to the viewer directly, drawing attention to the
relationship between the images presented on screen.
Strengths
• Helps explain what is happening in the documentary
Weaknesses
• It could be considered Bias

An example of this type of documentary is The Dust Bowl (2012)

by Ken burns. This is a historical account about the disastrous
drought during the "Great Depression", the documentary uses
real photos and facts to supplement the causes and impact the
drought did to north America's farmlands.
Participatory

Participatory is a sub-genre to documentary

film making where the Film maker is included
in the film's narrative.
Strengths
• It helps the documentary interesting
• It helps show that the documentary is real
Weaknesses
• It will be less cinematic and might take
people out of the film.
An example of Participatory in a Documentary
is Chronicle of a summer (1961). This
documentary is about the everyday lives of
ordinary Parisians. In the documentary they
discuss topics on society, happiness in the
working class, among others.
 Reflexive
A Reflexive film is sectioned by how it makes the
audience aware of the filmmaking process.
Unlike expository documentary, reflexive exposes
the process of making a documentary and really
makes the viewer push their view and allows them
to re-analyse their belief of truth. The
first Reflexive documentary was created in 1929 and
was called "Man With a Movie Camera (1929)." This
documentary made history with releasing the
ordinary soviet life and brings forward the many
different aspects of filmmaking including shots, cuts
and the different types of angles.
This became part of the narrative itself and can make
the audience question the process of how it
influences their feelings about the overall film. This
can make the audience feel as if it just brought more
questions than answers, but if the
audience doesn't look too deep into things, then it
will create questions and answer them too.
Performative

Performative documentaries are more focused on the filmmaker being involved with their subject
while using their experience with the subject as a start for exploring a larger, subjective, political,
historical view.
The first Performative documentary was "Tongues United (1989)" made as a Marlon Riggs' film
chronicles, it was a life experience of gay African American men going through subjects like class,
religion and politics while using footage from his life. The main perspective of this documentary is
through the personal lens of experience and truth.
One that could catch the eye was "Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer (1994)" which
was a case reviewing of Aileen Wuornos obtaining footage of interviews with convicted felons as
he examines her charges and subsequent trials with attempting to prove innocence and lower
charges. It shines a light regarding her murders and attempts to show the corrupted and
influenced justice system.
Along with learning aout the history of Aileen, it brings up how the justice system was in the past
and will encourage the audience to invest more time into learning about the justice system
especially how it was saved from its downfall. With footage being editted, not everything can
always be true, and many parts may be changed to make a different outcome in favor of one side.
Observational:
• In this style of documentary, the film maker doesn't have a fixed
script, screenplay, actors and sometimes even locations.
• Most of the time, a handheld camera is used and if a voiceover is
given, it is mostly the spontaneous observations of the filmmaker.
• The main aim of this type of documentary is to portray ordinary real-
life situations, and people's actions and take on such events.
• A good example of an observational documentary would be a direct
cinema documentary called Salesman. This documentary was made in
1969 and is about the daily life of a door-to-door Bible salesman.
• Salesman (1969): https://youtu.be/z6SHxVj3D6U