Documentary

A documentary film is a nonfictional motion picture intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record. It consists of or is based off official documents/information.

Documentary began when the first films were invented by the Lumiere Brothers in 1895. The Lumieres created a camera that could only hold 50 feet of stock film and their films were short unedited clips capturing the life around them. These were called actualities. The first official documentary or non-fiction narrative film was Robert Flaherty's Nanook of the North (1922), an ethnographic look at the harsh life of Canadian Inuit Eskimos living in the Arctic, although some of the film's scenes of obsolete customs were staged. The word Documentary was invented by John Grierson to describe this film. Grierson also described it as ‘the creative interpretation of reality’.

“Q: What is documentary for?
A: To record actuality.
Q: Why would one want to do that?
A: To inform people about it.
Q: Inform to what ends?
A: Either to affect our understanding--to change, increase, reinforce it--what may (but is not necessarily designed to) lead to action, may make better persons of us, and which may in turn make the world a better place to live in (Flaherty) or to make better citizens of us and to move us to collective action in order make a better society (Grierson).”

Undefeated is an Ethnological documentary which is a type of documentary that looks in the lives and culture of a particular group in a scientific or in this case an analytical fashion. On the other hand, A Complete History Of My Sexual Failures is a Mockumentary which Is a fiction film that uses a documentary form to suggest it’s a documentary but is often comical. It is also perhaps a documentary reconstruction because it is based on true events but not all of it.

Other types of documentary include Investigative documentary which A Complete History Of My Sexual Failures also fits in to. Personal documentary and authorative documentaries are two other types that a complete history fits. These documentaries’ also fit a range of different modes such as observational mode and investigative mode. A Complete History uses interactive mode which enables the ‘star’ to interact and almost converse with its audience.

Undefeated however is not so scripted and therefore rules out using interactive mode, but some characters do interact with the camera person in an interview style. As they do it A Complete History. Instead they use observational mode where they simply record things happening in front of the camera in long takes until they have what they need.

A Documentary filmmaker sets forth “not simply to register events and circumstances, but to find the most moving examples of them” (Bluem, 1972:10)

A Complete History Of My Sexual Failures and Undefeated compare and contrast

“Undefeated is a 2011 documentary directed by Daniel Lindsay and T.J. Martin. The film documents the struggles of a high school football team, the Manassas Tigers of Memphis, as they attempt a winning season after years of losses. The team is turned around by coach Bill Courtney, who helps form a group of young men into an academic and athletic team.”

“A Complete History of My Sexual Failures is a 2008 British documentary film directed by Chris Waitt who also starred as the main character and composed some of the music.”

Both of these films are documentary’s but they are very different types of documentary. Firstly, Undefeated is an Ethnological documentary which is a type of documentary that looks in the lives and culture of a particular group in a scientific or in this case an analytical fashion. On the other hand, A Complete History Of My Sexual Failures is a Mockumentary which Is a fiction film that uses a documentary form to suggest it’s a documentary but is often comical. It is also perhaps a documentary reconstruction because it is based on true events but not all of it. I was able to tell that some parts of the documentary were scripted for example when he took 7 Viagra pills (which is not healthy) and still managed to run around the city asking people to have sex with him.

A complete History is also a very different documentary because it uses interactive mode. This enables the ‘star’ to interact and almost converse with its audience. It would also be considered a personal and authored documentary.

Undefeated however is not so scripted and therefore rules out using interactive mode, but some characters do interact with the camera person in an interview style. As they do it A Complete History. Instead they use observational mode where they simply record things happening in front of the camera in long takes until they have what they need.

Undefeated is a much more realistic documentary. We are directly shown at the beginning the surroundings they live in. Run-down empty streets with poorly built houses. In the film we are shown a contrast between the football players houses and the coach’s neighborhood. The coach’s neighborhood is an attractive one, with big houses and clean streets. This shows us immediately the class difference between the two groups. A Complete History does not give us an establishing shot of the area he lives in. So we couldn’t make the same contrast between class of him and his girlfriends.

I think both documentaries were good. A Complete History due to is comical side made me want to keep watching and undefeated was uplifting throughout. Undefeated however was my preferred film and it gave a lot of inspirational messages to the audience such as when the coach Bill Courtney said “The character of a man is not measured in how he handles his wins, but what he does with his failures."