Genre Research

Research into the Documentary genre

I am eye. I am a mechanical eye. I, a machine, am showing you a world, the likes of which only I can see.
  —Dziga Vertov, Kinoglas

Why documentaries?

The documentary genre is one that really appealed to me right from the start, mostly because I enjoy documentaries and watch a lot of them. The thing that I like the most is that they introduce us to events, places and subcultures that we didn't even know existed. We can explore the entire world from the comfort of our own living rooms. I am also intrigued by how controversial and influential documentaries can be, and how wide their effects can spread.

Examples of influential/ controversial documentaries

Super Size Me

When Morgan Spurlock first set out to prove a fast-food-only-diet could, in fact, be extremely harmful, it was a shocking sight: a man’s health falling apart on the big screen. Documenting how a month’s worth of McDonald’s food affected everything from his energy levels to his sex drive—at one point, Spurlock even vomits as his body rejects an overdose of the processed grub. Some claimed that Spurlock was exagerrating his symptoms, which may have been true, however, the film opened up the world's eyes to the dangers of fast food and kick started a few small but significant changes.

Impact

The "Super sized" menu items in McDonald's are gone. There are three new "premium" grilled chicken sandwiches, a grilled chicken wrap and several salads. The flagship Happy Meal has since been revamped to offer a choice of french fries or apple slices and low-fat milk, apple juice or a soft drink. The film was the inspiration for the BBC television series The Supersizers..., in which the presenters dine on historical meals and take medical tests to ascertain the impact on their health

Standard Operating Procedure

 

Standard Operating Procedure is a 2008 documentary film which explores the meaning of the photographs taken by U.S. military police at the Abu Ghraib prison in late 2003, the content of which revealed the torture and abuse of its prisoners by U.S. soldiers and subsequently resulted in a public scandal.  

Controversy

Director Errol Morris's practice of paying his interview subjects has caused controversy, although it is not an unusual practice in documentary filmmaking, according to the producer Diane Weyermann who also worked on An Inconvenient Truth. In a private interview during the Tribeca Film Festival, Morris said: "If I had not paid them, they would not be interviewed."