Description
Book SynopsisAn overview of the American documentary film
Trade ReviewIn American Documentary Film, Jeffrey Geiger examines the role of documentary film in mobilizing, promoting, and even suppressing central myths of U.S. national identity. His brilliant close readings illuminate the relationship between the rhetorical, technical and stylistic elements of specific films and a broader set of contexts and concerns. Rigorous yet accessible, this elegantly-written book will be of great value to the general reader and the specialist alike, and it will transform the way we consider the history, theory, and practice of documentary filmmaking. -- Valerie Smith, Princeton University In American Documentary Film, Jeffrey Geiger examines the role of documentary film in mobilizing, promoting, and even suppressing central myths of U.S. national identity. His brilliant close readings illuminate the relationship between the rhetorical, technical and stylistic elements of specific films and a broader set of contexts and concerns. Rigorous yet accessible, this elegantly-written book will be of great value to the general reader and the specialist alike, and it will transform the way we consider the history, theory, and practice of documentary filmmaking.
Table of Contents1. Novelties, Spectacles, and the Documentary Impulse - Case Studies: Blacksmithing Scene (1893), Buffalo Dance (1894), and Mess Call (1896); 2. Virtual Travels and the Tourist Gaze - Case Study: Nanook of the North (1922); 3. Serious Play: Documentary and the Early Avant-garde - Case Study: Manhatta (1921); 4. Activism and Advocacy: The Depression Era - Case Study: The Plow that Broke the Plains (1936); 5. Idea-Weapons: Documentary Propaganda - Case Study: The Memphis Belle (1944); 6. 'Uncontrolled' Situations: Direct Cinema - Case Study: Grey Gardens (1975); 7. Relative Truths: Documentary and Postmodernity - Case Study: Tongues Untied (1989); 8. Media Wars: Documentary Dispersion - Case Study: Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004)
