The debate about defining what a documentary film is and is not has never been satisfactorily resolved. By looking at different categories of films perceived as nonfiction, and by studying the development of the documentary form in the United States, it can be seen that a documentary film depends on how the audience perceives its truthfulness and credibility. Propaganda documentaries, educational documentaries, cinema verite, and the more recent works of filmmakers like Michael Moore are all perceived as falling into the category of nonfiction (although perhaps not without controversy.) While arguments can be made about the distortions and editing engaged in by documentary filmmakers, such concerns do not appear to trouble the average viewer’s definition of what films fall into the category of truth rather than fiction.
The difference between film and other mediums can be seen as a difference in the audience’s perception of the information that is imparted. Film is a more immediate, immersive experience than a book, a play, a speech, or a website. The trust that an audience gives to a documentary filmmaker needs to be examined in order for it to be seen how a documentary works as a nonfiction account. Plantinga’s definition of a documentary as nonfiction with “…aesthetic, social, rhetorical, and/or political ambition” serves to underline the importance of studying how documentary filmmakers achieve those aims. (p. 105) When Martin Scorsese refers to “documentary power,” meaning the unexpected, immediate quality of events and images capable of being captured on film, he is trying to highlight one of the ways in which documentaries can separate themselves from fictional film accounts. (Donato) However, the way in which a documentary film engages an audience – that is, the way that it works to achieve its aesthetic, social or political ambitions – depends on manipulation and editing to make the images captured compelling in a way that, for instance, unedited security camera footage could never be.
Imparting information to others is inevitably dependent on the form chosen. The form can influence the content of the information imparted and cause the audience for that content to interpret the information in certain ways. The mechanical reproduction of reality offered by the technology of film and photography has allowed documentary filmmakers to attempt to create a form that would reflect the world, events, and reality in an unmediated, more truthful way than has existed before. Studying the way in which documentaries work, however, shows that they are unable to simply reflect the truth and instead depend on their creators’ interpretations of reality and edited, crafted versions of what filmmakers believe are truthful accounts.
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