It is clear that documentary as a category is now as vibrant and dynamic as it has ever been – both on the small and large screens. This is partly due to the ways in which those practitioners working in the field have responded to the changing climate of deregulation (particularly in the UK), and means that there are some fascinating recent trends in documentary and factual filmmaking. Much has been made of the ways that reality TV has effectively lessened the impact and importance of documentary, because it has used the serious and sober aims associated with documentary in the service of a watered-down, ratings-seeking philosophy, more driven by entertainment. Likewise, there have been some worries voiced that new technologies (the almost complete manipulation of the image afforded by digital technology, for example) are changing the way documentaries are made and viewed – and not necessarily for the better.
However, I would argue that the vibrancy of the area means that examples are consistently appearing that actually make us rethink precisely what ‘documentary’ might mean, rather than simply debasing or diluting it. For example, a current tendency is for documentaries to make extensive use of computer-generated imagery (CGI) and other forms of digital ‘trickery’. Walking With Dinosaurs (BBC, 2000, UK) used digital technology to show in hyper-realistic detail what life might have been like during pre-historic times. There have also been documentaries where CGI is used instead of dramatic reconstruction – to show the last moments of Pompeii, as Vesuvius erupted, for instance. As the discussion of animated documentaries in chapter five suggested, one of the key shifts in recent times has been the increased tendency for documentaries to consist of images that do not have an indexical link to the thing they purport to show. This arguably represents a major theoretical and philosophical challenge to commonsense definitions of documentary as a mode: is it possible for us to refer to something as a ‘documentary’ if it is completely computer-rendered, for instance? Or does a documentary necessarily require indexical images from the real world? A related issue here is the ‘speculative’ nature of such films and programmes – what we could call the ‘might have been’ factor. The CGI of Walking With Dinosaurs and the like is only ever going to be a ‘best guess’, and is this as good as an actual record of something? As argued throughout this book, a dramatised reconstruction (or, indeed, a CGI rendering) of something is obviously of a different order than imagery that is clearly captured at the time the events happened, but this does not necessarily mean that the former cannot have some ‘documentary value’, to paraphrase Grierson. It all depends on how this imagery is deployed in the film or programme, and how the audience interprets it. It is more in these viewing contexts that the meaning of documentary resides, than in any essential features of the documentaries themselves.
One of the other more encouraging recent developments has been the ability of people to make documentaries very cheaply and, perhaps more crucially, find ways of getting them to a reasonably large audience. As television has abdicated some of its responsibilities in this area (either by simply not commissioning more challenging work in the fear it will not win the ratings war, or by relegating such work to minority channels, like BBC4 in the UK), there have been a number of notable successes in cinemas and alternative channels of distribution. Campaigning, issue-driven films such as The Corporation (Jennifer Abbott and Mark Achbar, 2003, US) and Super Size Me (Morgan Spurlock, 2004, US)have achieved success in cinemas. The former film’s sell-through on DVD is being handled using grass-roots/ activist techniques, perfectly in keeping with the underlying message of the film. Documentaries made by Robert Greenwald – such as Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism (2004, US), about the partisan nature of Fox News Network in the US – have circumvented any problems with distribution by distributing the film on DVD, direct to viewers. These examples, as well as the still-emerging role of the internet in the dissemination of news/actuality and documentary material, mean that we will have to deal with the notion of documentary for some time to come.
Central to this book has been the notion that documentary has close relationships with other forms of expression – drama/fiction, comedy, animation – and that we need to think carefully about how these relationships might have changed what we think documentary can be. The most interesting work being done in the field at the moment is that which engages with these relationships, and thinks through how documentary ‘interfaces’ with other modes of expression. A recent film such as Tarnation (Jonathan Caouette, 2003, US) for example, makes a virtue of its fractured-ness and hybridity, constructing a compelling documentary from the highly personal fragments of a life – photographs, answering-machine messages and so on. However, it is clear that the notion of performance is still central to this film: it is a deeply personal ‘performing’ of a life, as self-indulgent as it is compelling. Equally clear is that such a film (apparently made for $218 and edited on home computer) shows that virtually anyone can make a documentary that might have a large impact. In this respect, Tarnation and films like it are the flipside of the hugely expensive ‘digi-docs’, where CGI is used to render and document worlds that would otherwise remain invisible, or be brought to the screen using more traditional means such as talking heads or dramatic reconstruction. With Tarnation, digital technology is being used to ‘democratise’ the process, and make things more affordable. The consequence of this might be that there will be an upsurge in deeply personal films such as this, where the ephemera of people’s lives (favourite songs, jottings from a notebook) become the basis for a new kind of documentary. One thing is certain: because documentaries tell stories about the real world, they will always be part of that world, and will need to keep evolving with it.