Critical paradigms in digital media Critical thinking in the new media [610168]

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Critical paradigms in digital media / Critical thinking in the new media
Dr. Claudi u Turc uș
DFM 2017 -2018
Magnus Lorenz
Review of ‘Theorizing Documentary’
(edited by Michael Renov, 1993, Routlege: New York)

‘Theorizing Documentary’ is a n Anglo -Saxon academic volume consisting of nine
essays by nine different authors and an introduction by editor Michael Renov .
The book was first published in 1993 by Routledge in New York and London and
contains scientific film and media study contributions a round the main subject
documentary film .
At the end of the book’s overviewing “Introduction: The truth About Non -Fiction”
(p. 1 -11) Renov expresses his belief that “this volume constitutes a fruitful
reflection upon a whole series of intervals – between truth and beauty, truth and
reality, science and art, fiction and nonfiction, constative and performative, self –
representation and media coverage, history and t heory – in a manner which will
significantly advance current thinking about documentary film and video.”1
In the first essay “Toward a Poetics of Documentary” (p. 12 -36) Renov gives a
brief introduction about the relationship between poetics and nonfiction before he
proposes “four fundamental tendencies or rhetorical/aesthetic functions
attributable to documentary practice”2 which are “those of preservation,
persuasion, analysis, and expressivity”3. He then evaluates, one by one, their
historical contingency, textual efficacy and mutual defining character.
Brian Winston focusses on the evidential value of photographic sources in “The
Documentary Film as Scientific Inscription” (p. 37 -57). He looks back in film
history and contrasts the different do cumentary movements Direct Cinema and
Cinéma Vérité and their opposite references to reality and comes to the
conclusion that “the fixity of the relationship between signified and signifier
supposed by realism cannot be guaranteed photographically any more ”4.

1 P. 11
2 P. 21
3 P. 35
4 P. 56

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Philip Rosen reflects about “Document and Documentary: On the Persistence of
Historical Concepts” (p. 58 -89) by comparing the NBC coverage about John F.
Kennedy’s assassination with the documentary film JFK: A Time Remembered .
He distinct in between the representation of reality in television (live) coverage
and filmic revision referring to the concept of John Grierson .
“The Totalizing Quest of Meaning” (p. 90 -107) by Trinth T. Minh -ha is the only
essay in this book that has bee n previously published already. She claims that
“truth is produced, induced, and extended according to the regime in power”5 but
“often nothing more than a meaning”6. She makes some explanations about film
theory in general and puts her critical focus on a nthropological documentary
filmmaking which abuses the anthropological authority to pretend being
scientifically valid in her opinion .
Paul Arthur ’s “Jargons of Authenticity (Three American Moments)” (p. 108 -134)
analyzes and compares the filming practice and the Hollywood narrative in three
different film -historical periods in the USA with each other: the new deal
documentaries of the 1930s , the direct cinema of the 1960s and the “aesthetics
of failure”7 in the late 1980s. He points out that all these periods share a n
oppositional relation to “Hollywood domination”8 that shapes the very contours of
documentary authenticity.
“Constantly Performing the Documentary: The Seductive Promise of Lightning
Over Water ” (p. 135 -150) by Susan Schreiber is a text a nalysis and philosophical
text interpretation of Wim Wender’s semi -documentary fiction film Lightning Over
Water . She puts her focus on the constative and performative elements which in
her argumentation deconstruct the film when nonfictional and fictional footage
overlap each other.
Another text analysis is contributed by Ana M. López in “(Not) Looking for Origins:
Postmodernism, Documentary, and America ” (p. 151 -163) about the Brazilian
television mini -series America from 1989. López sees America as a “hybrid
documentary form combining self -consciousness, awareness, and fascination

5 P. 90
6 P. 91
7 P. 126
8 P. 134

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with the tenets of postmodernism with the seemingly contradictory desire to
present a social critique”9. She concludes that the series doesn’t create an
objective picture of the USA but is approaching with a perspective “through a
distinct filter of (Brazilian) otherness”10.
Bill Horrigan comments in “Notes on AIDS and Its Combatants: An Appreciation”
(p. 164 -173) on vario us AIDS -related documentary practices, especially how the
medias have been challenged and fundamentally transformed by the ongoing
AIDS crisis11 in terms of “the importance of people owning and being able to
determine the terms of how they are visually repr esented”12.
The last essay “ ’Getting to Know You . . .’: Knowledge, Power, and the Body” (p.
174-191) by Bill Nichols analyzes the authentic representation of historical events
and figures by using different filmic approaches (archival footage, reenactment
etc.). One solution that he suggests is avoiding to invoke for “the power of
disembodied knowledge and abstract conc eptualization in favor [for] the enabling
power stemming from situated knowledge and the subjectivities of corporeal
experience”13.
‘Theorizing Documentary’ i tself is a document of its time and reflects and
represents the theoretical discourse on documentary films in the early 1990s out
of a very self -referential , scientific, Anglo -Saxon perspective. It was a time which
is characterized by the increasing media dominance of television which gets
described as the “the age of MTV”14 by Philip Rosen. This quotation is only one
of many examples that shows that ‘Theorizing Documentary’ already became a
25-year-old volume in the meantime. Many important developments (especially
for filmmaking) like the beginning of the computer and digital age are therefore
not covered. That doesn’t m ean that all contributions within the book are
redundant but many are outdated , incomplete and only accessible and fully
understandable within the ir historical context like for example Horrigan’s
comment on the AIDS crisis or Winston’s discussion on the ‘Docu mentary Film

9 P. 153
10 P. 153
11 The AIDS crisis in the U SA was at his peak in the beginning of the 1990s.
12 P. 170
13 P. 188
14 P. 63

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as Scientific Inscription’ which ends with the conclusion that the “fixity of the
relationship between signified and signifier […] cannot be guaranteed
photographically any more”15 with the argument that computer scientist are now
removing what chemists bestowed 150 years ago. This naïve argumentation
ignores that photography never was able to guarantee a fix relationship between
signified and signifier16 and puts its focus only on a sup posedly paradigm change
by the arise of a new technology (the computer) . The relevance and quality of the
essays in ‘Theorizing Documentary’ is varying a lot from chapter to chapter and
author to author . While , for example, the text analysis of López on th e Brazilian
mini-series America shows a coherent and logic methodological approach which
skillfully reads out of the text(s), Scheibler is doing nearly the opposite. She loses
herself in insignificant (philosophical) interpretations without having a n analy tical
message on Lightning Over Water .
I cannot estimate the value of ‘Theorizing Documentary’ on film and media
studies in the past but from my today’s perspective it is just a collection of more
or less relevant essays that had no significant advance on my thinking about
recent documentary film , like Renov promised in his introduction. On the contrary ,
I sometimes became angry about several authors sophisticated and prolonged
writing styles which were often just hiding that the ir main thes es could get
summariz ed in just a few paragraphs . Also, ‘Theorizing Documentary’ puts his
focus only on the American (documentary) film history, completely ignoring other
trends and developments like the Russian cinema and theories of Dziga Vertov
for example. Nevertheless, ‘Theorizing Documentary’ contains also a few
qualified contributions (some parts of chapter 2, 4, 5 and 10) that are maybe still
useful for today’s general discourse on documentary film if they get read out of
their historical context.

15 P. 56
16 Think of the history of p hoto manipulation for example.