From “Nanook of the North”, dir. by Robert Flaherty.
A few days ago, Jim Feeley on Doculink posted the article “Why Documentaries Matter” from Sunday’s Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2011/mar/20/documentaries-brian-cox-nick-fraser
“It would be more accurate to say”, writes the author Nick Fraser, “that documentaries are among the most valuable, neglected cultural forms of our time. They aren’t all good, to be sure, but the best are unusual, persuasive, seductive. And their success has something to do with the way they are taken for granted, casually watched. Few old things have flourished in the cultural chaos of this century, but docs have steadily consolidated their hold on a small portion of the contemporary consciousness. Film stars want to make or sponsor them. Sometimes, if you squint hard enough, they really do seem like the new rock’n’roll.”
I think that in all realms, our shared need to understand and bear witness to the “real” has informed our cultural vision, as serious documentaries play at first-run film houses, literary memoirs rise on best-seller lists, and reality shows hold sway on tv.
I like particularly Fraser’s line, that the success of the documentary has “something to do with the way they are taken for granted.”