Documentary Display

Not all documentary films and videos are sober depictions of the real world. Documentary representations can present expressive, entertaining, and spectacular images and explore modes of "showing," in which sensation is the vehicle of cognition and knowledge. This display is analyzed within the popular and prominent forms of found-footage film, "rockumentary," the city film, nonfiction surf film and video, and certain views of natural science. An accessible and informed study, its focus on entertaining, popular, spectacular, and sensational forms of nonfiction representation is an important contribution to theoretical analysis of documentary film and video.