Film

This voice relationship moves the filmmaker from a position of separation from those he or she represents to a position of commonality with them.

"I (or we) speak about them to you."

How did John Grierson famously define documentary film in the 1930s?

A film that is the creative treatment of actuality

Out of the responses below, which best defines a "propaganda documentary?"

A film that uses rhetoric to argue FOR a particular government policy or program

What was the origin of new technology that allowed the rise of the cinema verite' movement?

Battle photography shot by soldiers during World War 2 with portable equipment

In Tongues Untied, what is the "revolutionary act?"

Black men loving men

Match each cinematic mode to the way a film's VOICE is characterized by that mode.

Classic oration in pursuit of the truth - Expository Expressive desire to give new forms and fresh perspectives - Poetic Engagement and strong investment in encounter with others - Participatory Patience, modesty, self-effacement - Observational Strongly personal, engaged orator pursuing the truth of what it feels like to experience the world in a particular way - Performative

Which of the following was NOT one of the subjects covered by the pioneering filmmakers chronicled in Defining the Moment: Cinema Verite?

Cold War-era spies returning home

In Harvest of Shame, Edward R. Murrow writes ironic narration that does the following:

Compares the way vegetables are transported with the way migrant workers are transported

Nichols says documentarians use "indexical evidence" to make their arguments. Which of the following is NOT considered such evidence?

Creating a new world with imagination

Which of the following was NOT a way the text described documentary filmmakers in the 1970s-80s as having courted controversy?

Embracing pro-government propaganda

Which of the answers listed below is NOT one of Rotha's four traditions of documentary?

Epic

Filmmakers' stylistic and expressive approaches often outweigh the film's social mission or political purpose in social issues documentaries.

False

One of the elements identifying Glas as an observational film is its explanatory voiceover narration that guides us through the glass-making process.

False

Robert Flaherty's primary stated purpose in crafting his documentaries was to inform, not to entertain.

False

The Flahertys always presented life as it was for their subjects, with no alterations or additional staging efforts.

False

The people the director/narrator meets on his journey in Sherman's March had mostly positive things to say about famed Civil War General William T. Sherman.

False

True or False: Propaganda films designed to affect and change audiences' attitudes in the post-WWII era flourished even more than they had during the war, in part due to a shift toward greater artistry in the form.

False

True or False: Reflexive would be an example of a type of preexisting nonfiction model.

False

Which of the following does Nichols' Triangle of Communication include? Select all that apply.

Filmmaker Film Audience

Stranger with a Camera evokes many nonfiction models. Filmmaker/narrator Elizabeth Barret's reflections on how the events depicted in the film affected her and how her perspective on them has evolved over the years is an example of which nonfiction model?

First-person essay

Match the following:

Free Cinema A poetry of reality and the common man Direct Cinema Camera is a stimulus Cinema Verite' From Vertov's Kino Pravda, "Film Truth. Candid Eye Observing real life

In Stranger with a Camera, who is presented as the most typical example of the "other?"

Hugh O'Connor

Which formulation of an answer to the question of "how we treat the people we film" is best positioned to tie the film/storyteller/narrator to the subject he/she/it is describing, such as in the case of a community or family unit?

I (or we) speak about us to you

Film is not regulated, but television is because...

It uses a public resource: airwaves in the electromagnetic spectrum

What is one characteristic that separated early Soviet cinema from the cinema of much of the rest of the world?

It was all run through and by the state

Into which division of documentary would most likely fall a film that examines the multiple developments in a war or battle in order to pull out its roots and implications?

Judicial or historical

Whose films leading up to the advent of World War II opened many eyes to the potential indoctrinating power of propaganda films, and prompted other countries to start or increase their own propaganda efforts?

Leni Riefenstahl

This filmmaker with no prior experience carried the baton of American documentary filmmaking from Flaherty, winning a Pulitzer Prize for the narration to one of his films before ultimately failing to find success in conventional Hollywood filmmaking.

Lorentz

Which voice is typically most focused on storytelling over any other purpose?

Narrative

Which of Rotha's four traditions of documentary best applies to Nanook of the North?

Naturalist (romantic)

Documentary (and even narrative) films in Europe became markedly more ____________ after the end of World War II.

Observational

Which kind of documentary thrusts the filmmaker or interviewer into the center of attention in a style of direct engagement with the subject to pull out insights specifically from those interactions?

Participatory

Nichols considers Tongues Untied a prototype of which cinematic mode?

Performative

Night and Fog's push past simple facts and explanations to a more memory-driven, subjective experiencing of the Holocaust by an invisible and seemingly distant narrator, and how that haunting event might exist beyond simple reason and understanding in our collective memory best identifies it as ___________.

Performative

Which documentary mode(s) fit/s Tower?

Poetic, Expository and Participatory

Developments in 1970s-80s documentary works such as American Family can be credited with laying the groundwork for the rise in __________.

Reality television

Documentary is a form of film in which these two crucial elements are always in tension.

Representation and Reality

What has been often cited as problematic, as per the text, regarding the approach used in early films such as Housing Problem, that would be addressed or improved by later films such as Harlan County USA or Stranger with a Camera?

Representing the poor as helpless and dependent on outsiders to rescue them

Much of Peace Officer revolves around the quest for truth and justice by a __________.

Retired public official

Which of the following were cited as impacts of the improvement and proliferation of digital and video technology? Mark all that apply.

Shooting ratios typically expanded Increasing difficulties with archiving early video documentaries Direct cinema and Cinema Verite techniques flourished Conventional means of turning profits for documentaries broke down

Which is the closest nonfiction Model to Stranger with a Camera?

Sociology

Which of the following countries was NOT included among the "villains" in Why We Fight: Prelude to War?

Soviet Union

Which of the methods below did the management use to try to control its workers in the first 15 minutes of Strike?

Spying on the workers

This is generally accepted as the first "anti war" documentary.

The Battle of San Pietro

This concept arises out of the personal and social beliefs of the filmmaker about subjects who specifically live outside the filmmaker's own personal or social sphere.

The Other

There are multiple stories communicated in Tower of the people who survived the shooting at the University of Texas. Who was NOT represented in Tower through an in-depth character arc or interview?

The Shooter

How did John Grierson famously define documentary film in the 1930s?

The creative treatment of actuality

Why does Nichols throw doubt on his definition of documentary established earlier in the text? Select all that apply.

The definition has always been subjective and open to debate What can be perceived as a documentary often changes with time Creative expression has no clearly defined rules and restrictions

We get the story in Tower told from multiple points of view. Which of the following is NOT included among them?

The gunman

America's eventual success in starting to catch up to the Soviet Union in The Race for Space was shown as being due in large part to __________.

The use of former Nazi scientists

One big difference cited in the book that distinguished documentary films in the second half of the 20th century and beyond from the sort of pioneering early films by filmmakers like Grierson and Eisenstien is _______.

Their films' level of support for the authorities in their countries and governments

Nanook of the North and Tongues Untied are films about very different topics, but similar in what way?

They both claim to represent the voice of an entire culture

Which of the following was a commonality between the wartime documentaries of Canada, U.S., and Great Britain?

They were all government-sponsored

What was the goal of observational documentary during the cinema verite' movement?

To abandon all forms of control, revealing a new kind of compelling truth

What was cited as Robert Flaherty's objective as a filmmaker?

To entertain

What was the aim of the movement of early experimental film and animations?

To reveal an "aesthetic truth"

Of the two documentary films we watched this week, Cane Toads is the one more likely to invite us to laugh at its subject and how it is presented.

True

Television documentaries often contain narration because programming has to work for the ear as well as the eye.

True

Whether a documentary is generally considered a propaganda film depends on whether or not it overtly supports a stance made by the government.

True

Which is the MOST powerful cinema-specific way for filmmakers to make an argument or represent abstract concepts?

Utilize voice-over

______ is always the product of the combination of reasoning, analysis, feelings, and values conveyed to us in a documentary film.

Voice

The documentary tradition relies heavily on being able to convey _____________.

the impression of authenticity