- The History of Documentary Film
The term 'documentary' was coined by John Grierson in the 1920s, and his thoughts about the potential of this new art form to observe reality was echoed by Dziga Vertov, who also wanted cinema to show "life as it is". That being said, many of the first documentary films were also propaganda films, and this is a tension that lies at the heart of the form.
Early documentary films like Sergei Eisenstein's 'October' and Leni Riefenstahl's 'Triumph of the Will' embody this tension, as well as being visual masterpieces and classics of the first wave of Documentary filmmaking.
The many possibilities of documentary filmmaking are evident in the variety of films in this collection, and many of these films are distinctly modern.
Citizenfour, Laura Poitras' portrait of NSA-whistleblower Edward Snowden lays bare the post-9/11 security landscape, while Laurie Anderson's
Heart of a Dog is a more personal avant-garde movie. While imagining her pet's journey through the afterlife, it also is a profound reflection on grief and the modern world.
Many of these films are also portraits of an artist. Matthew Akers's film about Marina Abramovic The Artist is Present was filmed in the leadup to her retrospective at MoMA. Man on Wire documents French tightrope walker Phillipe Petit's extraordinary feat, crossing between the buildings of the World Trade Centre on a wire. And Andreas Johnsen's film about Ai Weiwei centre on the 'fake case' the Chinese government manufactured against the artist.