“By their nature, documentary films often transform what is messy and contradictory in life into tidy and effective narrative.”
Documentaries often have a reputation as dull, educational films that teachers show during class as a “treat.” In some ways, the Oxford Dictionary exemplifies this view. It defines a documentary as “a film or television or radio programme that provides a factual report on a particular subject.” I believe, however, that documentaries encompass so much more. They are in many ways comparable to journalism; like other scholarly articles, they add knowledge to the “conversation” of the topic they revolve around.
Despite the limitation of the non-fictional genre, types of documentaries stretch across a wide range of narrating techniques and subject matters. Tim Dirks in his article “Documentary Films” covers over ten types of documentaries, including “well-known historical event[s]”, “‘biographical’ films about a living or dead person”, etc. A Degree of Justice, a film my class watched in our CAP joint lecture last week, falls under the “expose including interviews” category as it dives into the lives of Japanese students during the year 1942 by recounting events through interviews.
A common misconception about documentaries is that their fact-based content restrains them from being a narrative. The truth is that they just tell their stories through different means. A Degree of Justice develops its narrative through interviews, photos, and text rather than through a narrator. Like an author’s use of reported speech, documentaries use editing techniques to present their direct statements (Gilrow 163). For example, by excluding the narrator, A Degree of Justice made their interviews feel more personal and relatable.
Transitions and music also shape our experience of the narrative. By using short pauses, the filmmakers implicitly broke up the film into different segments, with each segment focusing on a different part of the story, allowing for a smoother transition. During the sombre portions of the film, the filmmakers chose much slower and quieter music, which reflected the mood and carried the full impact of the story. In contrast, towards the end, the music was light and joyous, representing the happiness of the interviewees in the present-day. These editing techniques created a more robust experience for the audience and in many ways, guided our emotions towards the film’s narrative.
My examination of A Degree of Justice as a documentary opened my eyes to its usage of life narratives. I finally put together the pieces of the puzzle just like the film pieces together the life narratives of different individuals into one coherent story. Separately, the stories of these individuals make sense and are thought-provoking, but together, they are so much more powerful.
Works Cited
Dirks, Tim. “Documentary Films.” AMC Filmsite, American Movie Classics Company LLC, www.filmsite.org/docfilms.html.
“Documentary | Definition of Documentary in English by Oxford Dictionaries.” Oxford Dictionaries | English, Oxford Dictionaries, en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/documentary.
“Documentary Storytelling Techniques.” Desktop Documentaries, Desktop Documentaries LLC, www.desktop-documentaries.com/storytelling-techniques.html.
Gilrow, Janet, et al. “Reported Speech.” Academic Writing: An Introduction, Third ed., Broadview Press, 2014, pp. 163–171.
Kitagawa, Mary, et al. A Degree of Justice: Japanese Canadian UBC Students of 1942. A Degree of Justice: Japanese Canadian UBC Students of 1942, UBC Library, 19 Mar. 2012, www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8jGdYMmwfQ&feature=youtu.be.
Rabinger, Michael. “Documentary Filmmakers Decide How to Present Compelling Evidence.” Nieman Reports Documentary Filmmakers Decide How to Present Compelling Evidence Comments, Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard, niemanreports.org/articles/documentary-filmmakers-decide-how-to-present-compelling-evidence/.