Description
Book SynopsisDemonstrates how documentary serves as a cultural laboratory in the thought and practice of American democracy. This book places iconic images and the work of celebrated filmmakers next to overlooked and rediscovered productions and proves the pliability of documentary's function for American popular intelligence.
Trade Review[A] sobering reappraisal of documentary film. -- Lyell Davies AfterImage [Kahana] illuminates many documentaries that deserve to be much better known... Recommended. Choice the author's impressive grasp of documentary history and insightful discussion of cinematic form make Intelligence Work a significant contribution to the literature on documentary. -- Susan Ryan Cineaste Kahana's approach navigates what might be called the interstices of political critique, revealing documentary's multiplicity while marking its relative successes and limits. -- Jeffrey Geiger New Formations [Kahana provides] a much-needed survey of a century-long development in cultural history that is nonetheless tightly focused on the crucial political issue of how art enables the production of publics. -- Jeff Allred American Literature Kahana is often intensely insightful about form and style in the films he considers, such as a sophisticated analysis of sound particularly in radical documentaries of the 60s on. -- Chuck Kleinhans Jump Cut
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction. The Intelligence Work of Documentary: Publics, Politics, Intellectuals Part I. The Sentiment of Trust: The Documentary Front and the New Deal 1. National Fabric: Authorship, Textuality, and the Documentary Front 2. Voice-Over, Allegory, and the Pastoral in New Deal Documentary Part II. Lyrical Tirades: New Documentary and the New Left 3. Revolutionary Sounds: Listening to Radical Documentary 4. Documentary Counterpublics: Filming Prison Part III. The Public Sphere of Suspicion: Documentary in the New Obscurity 5. The Vision Thing: Documentary, Television, and the Accidental Power of the President 6. Tense Times: Documentary Aporias; Or, the Public Sphere of Suspicion Notes Filmography Index
