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Overview
In essays by eleven of America's foremost writers, critics, and filmmakers, Beyond Document explores the full spectrum of nonfiction film and its creative possibilities. In addition to Charles Warren's broad introductory history of the genre, the book takes a close look at ethnographic films, cinema-verite, memoir and autobiography, docudramas, essay films, and newsreels, from classics like Night and Fog and Nanook of the North to more recent important work like Film about a Woman Who. . ., Harlan County, U.S.A., Sans Soleil, and Forest of Bliss.Representations of reality are increasingly contested, in courtrooms and in Congress, as well as in art. Asking what the art of film can achieve, Helene Keyssar considers the history of nonfiction films by women; Jay Cantor discusses film investigations of the Holocaust; Patricia Hampl looks at how autobiographical films render experience into narrative; Robert Gardner questions the filmmaker's "impulse to preserve" ; and poet Susan Howe explores structures of mourning in several filmmakers. All the book's essays provide deeply felt understanding of documentary film, and of how we live with, an d within, images.
CONTRIBUTORS: Jay Cantor, Robert Gardener, Patricia Hampl, Maureen Howard, Susan Howe, Helene Keyssar, Phillip Lopatte, Vlada Petric, William Rothman, Charles Warren, Eliot Weinberger.
Synopsis
Critics and writers consider nonfiction film both as document and as creative work with strong artistic, political, and moral implications.
Library Journal
Though made up of academic essays, a majority of which were originally presented at Harvard, this interesting anthology has a special literary tone, owing to the inclusion of works by several poets, novelists, and one filmmaker. After an introduction that outlines a history of the genre reflecting the broadest possible definition of nonfiction film, most of the writers discuss the distinction between fact and fiction. There are essays on Holocaust films, ethnographic films, docudramas, film essays, memoirs, and films by women. Filmmakers repeatedly admired include Chris Marker, Ross McElwee, Maya Deren, Susan Makaveyev, and Dziga Vertov. These essays often describe films not generally available, but some, like Roger and Me, have received wide distribution, and the genre itself received great attention with last year's Hoop Dreams. In any case, the book covers in accessible prose a wider than usual number of complex film topics and is therefore recommended for the informed lay reader.Jane Sloan, Rutgers Univ. Libs., New Brunswick, N.J.