Documentary film and the poetics of history

ABSTRACT

How do documentary film-makers picture the past and in what ways does their approach differ from the orthodox writing of history? In this article I draw upon my own experience as a documentary film-maker to explore a broader set of issues concerned with the relationship between academic history and factual film-making. Does the history documentary as found on television involve a ‘dumbing down’ of historical understanding? Or does it, as I suggest, encourage a form of historiographic practice that is more reflexive, experimental and critically aware of its own auspices. In reflecting on a range of my own broadcast work I seek to illuminate some of the ways contemporary documentary film-makers have engaged with the past and in so doing expanded the language of documentary film and of historical narration.

KEYWORDS:

• documentary film
• history
• practice-based research
• reflective analysis