{"product_id":"the-philosophy-of-documentary-film-9781498504515","title":"The Philosophy of Documentary Film","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe spirit that founded the volume and guided its development is radically inter- and transdisciplinary. Dispatches have arrived from anthropology, communications, English, film studies (including theory, history, criticism), literary studies (including theory, history, criticism), media and screen studies, cognitive cultural studies, narratology, philosophy, poetics, politics, and political theory; and as a special aspect of the volume, theorist-filmmakers make their thoughts known as well. Consequently, the critical reflections gathered here are decidedly pluralistic and heterogeneous, invitingnot bracketing or partitioningthe dynamism and diversity of the arts, humanities, social sciences, and even natural sciences (in so far as we are biological beings who are trying to track our cognitive and perceptual understanding of a nonbiological thingnamely, film, whether celluloid-based or in digital form); these disciplines, so habitually cordoned off from one another, are brought togethe\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Philosophy of Documentary Film undoubtedly bears witness to the complexity and the density of its subject matter. The texts included in the volume cover a wide range of topics and approaches, and they raise multiple philosophical questions inherent to documentary films. * Cinema: Journal of Philosophy and the Moving Image *\u003cbr\u003eThis anthology is a gem! Bringing together documentary filmmakers, philosophers, and film theorists, this volume will be an important resource for all those interested in this important genre of filmmaking, be they students, professors, scholars, or just serious film viewers. Get it for yourself and see! -- Thomas E. Wartenberg, Mount Holyoke College\u003cbr\u003eWith the pervasive and facile use of digital manipulation of images in public and private communications, few questions are more important than the question raised by this richly rewarding book—‘What is real and what is fake?’ In 1960 my executive producer at NBC warned us to be careful of what we put on the screen because he said ‘people will believe it.’ David LaRocca in his fulsome and well-articulated introduction reminds us that a critical mind has never been more essential to acquire ‘a fuller, truer, experience of reality.’ As a successful documentarian for over 60 years, I know of no other book that is more useful in the pursuit of that goal. -- Bill Jersey, winner of two Peabodys, Emmys, and Oscar nominations\u003cbr\u003eThis is the collection of essays on documentary film that I have been waiting for. It brings together many of the best classic pieces on documentary theory and practice, and a trilling assortment of new essays by philosophers, film scholars devoted to aesthetic issues and close reading, and documentary filmmakers who teach. The writing throughout is  of the highest order, and the promise of genuine (as opposed to tinker toy) philosophical inquiry is amply kept. David LaRocca has done an exemplary job of editing, and his lengthy overview essay which serves as the volume's Introduction is incisive and indispensable. -- George Toles, University of Manitoba\u003cbr\u003eAs far as documentary film and philosophy are concerned, David LaRocca has summoned a cloud of reliable witnesses and all the usual suspects, or so it seems. Once readers enter the critical conversations that these estimable writers provoke and sustain, the criteria for reliability and suspicion themselves become productively volatile, and that volatility will lead readers to surprising insights and reflections. From considerations of Plato to Cavell and well beyond, these memorable essays fruitfully explore both truth and make believe in documentary film, as well as the manifold challenges of discerning the elusive differences between them. -- Lawrence Rhu, University of South Carolina\u003cbr\u003eTimely. Vital. Engaging. An essential companion to any thinking about documentary cinema. LaRocca is especially attuned not just to the voices at the heart of theoretical debates but, to my liking, also to those who push out into the practice and craft of documentary filmmaking. -- Paul Cronin, School of Visual Arts\u003cbr\u003eAt the center of many of these observations and discussions—now receiving new and expert engagements in The Philosophy of Documentary Film—has been the taunting power of cinematic reality, nowhere more concentrated than in the quintessential art of the real, the provocative revelator of truth, documentary cinema. . . . These works in hand are contemporary perspectives on, for me, the most vibrant practice in contemporary cinema. They call us to think carefully and seriously not only about the truth claims and strategies of specific documentary films but also about why documentaries are so central to our age. -- Timothy Corrigan, University of Pennsylvania\u003cbr\u003eAn impressive selection, including some of the most interesting voices in documentary thought. -- Jonathan Kahana, University of California, Santa Cruz\u003cbr\u003eA marvelous collection that promises to inform the teaching of nonfiction film for years to come. -- J.P. Sniadecki, Northwestern University, director of Chaiqian\/Demolition, Foreign Parts, and The Iron Ministry and co-director of El Mar La Mar\u003cbr\u003eThe Philosophy of Documentary Film is a welcomed addition to the scholarly study of a mischievous praxis—one that continues to expand, contract, merge, and mangle in its attempts to explore versions of “real life” on film. Periodic, thoughtful reflection on this rogue form is necessary, and this book provides it. The leading lights of nonfiction film scholarship are well represented, and especially pleasing to me, as a documentary filmmaker, is the fact that documentarians have also been enlisted to write about our craft. Furthermore, just for good measure, The Dogma 95 Manifesto is included as both a beacon and dangerous shoal to filmmakers exploring the choppy waters around the fiction\/nonfiction whirlpool. Great idea! -- Ross McElwee, Director, Sherman’s March, Bright Leaves, Professor of the Practice of Filmmaking, Harvard University\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eForeword At the Center of Our Age Timothy Corrigan Introduction Representative Qualities and Questions of Documentary Film David LaRocca  Part I: The Medium, Morals, and Metaphysics of Documentary Film  Chapter 1: What Photography Calls Thinking: Theoretical Considerations on the Power of the  Photographic Basis of Cinema Stanley Cavell Chapter 2: Cinematic Representation and Spatial Realism: Reflections After\/Upon André Bazin Noël Carroll Chapter 3: Documentary Traces: Film and the Content of Photographs Gregory Currie Chapter 4: The Limits of Appropriation: Subjectivist Accounts of the Fiction\/Nonfiction Distinction Carl Plantinga Chapter 5: Inscribing Ethical Space: Ten Propositions on Death and Documentary Vivian Sobchack  Part II: Strategies and Styles of Documenting with Film  Chapter 6: Before Documentary: Early Nonfiction Films and the “View” Aesthetic Tom Gunning Chapter 7: Ruminating on the Ideologies of Nature Film Scott MacDonald Chapter 8: Jean Rouch’s Cine-trance and Modes of Experimental Ethnofiction Filmmaking William Rothman Chapter 9: The Ecstasy of Time Travel in Werner Herzog’s Cave of Forgotten Dreams William Day Chapter 10: Habitats of Documentary: Landscapes, Color Fields, and Ecologies in the  Avant-Docs of Vincent Grenier Claudia Pederson and Patricia R. Zimmermann  Part III: Documentary Theorist-Filmmakers at Work  Chapter 11: Promises and Contracts Found in the Archive Are Not About the Past:  Renewing Civil Alliances—Palestine 1947–48 Ariella Azoulay Chapter 12: “See and Remember”: The Golden Days of Said Otruk Diana Allan Chapter 13: Intimacy, Modesty, Silence: Documentary Filmmaking in the Face of Trauma  Mieke Bal Chapter 14: Provoking the Truth: Applying the Method of Cinéma Vérité Bernadette Wegenstein Chapter 15: Reenvisioning Dziga Vertov: 10 Enduring Diktats for Documentary Cinema Dan Geva Chapter 16: Whose Strife is it Anyway? The Erosion of Agency in the Cinematic Production of  \tKitchen Sink Realism Elan Gamaker  Chapter 17: Redefining Documentary Materialism: from Actuality to Virtuality in Victor Erice’s  Dream of Light Selmin Kara  Part IV: Interventions and Reconstitutions of Documentary  Modes, Methods, and Meanings  Chapter 18: Four and a Half Film Fallacies Rick Altman Chapter 19: The Dogma 95 Manifesto and The Vow of Chastity Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg Chapter 20: Minnesota Declaration: Truth and Fact in Documentary Cinema Werner Herzog Chapter 21: Omission and Oversight in Close Reading—The Final Moments of Frederick  \tWiseman’s High School \tV. F. Perkins Chapter 22: Cinematic Consciousness: Animal Subjectivity, Activist Rhetoric, and the Problem  of Other Minds in Blackfish Jennifer L. McMahon Chapter 23: Understanding (and) the Legacy of the Trace: Reflections After Carroll, Currie, and  Plantinga \tKeith Dromm Chapter 24: The Big Short: Adam McKay’s Vehicle for Truth Claims K. L. Evans Chapter 25: Letter to Errol Morris: Feelings of Revulsion and the Limits of Academic Discourse  Bill Nichols  Part V: Auto\/biography and the Composition of Identity in Documentary Film  Chapter 26: “You are Never Alone”: On Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno’s Zidane:  A Twenty-First Century Portrait Michael Fried Chapter 27: On Patience (After Sebald): Documentary as a True Portrait of Sensibility Garry L. Hagberg Chapter 28: Fiction and Nonfiction in Chantal Akerman’s Films Charles Warren Chapter 29: Vérité Fiction, Dramatized Documentary: On Michelle Citron’s Aesthetic Provocations Linda Williams Chapter 30: “Deceiving into the Truth”: The Indirect Cinema of Stories We Tell and  The Act of Killing \tKaren D. Hoffman Chapter 31: A Reality Rescinded: The Transformative Effects of Fraud in I’m Still Here David LaRocca","brand":"Lexington Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51040627491159,"sku":"9781498504515","price":136.8,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781498504515.jpg?v=1750947320","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/the-philosophy-of-documentary-film-9781498504515","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}