Keith Beattie,
Documentary Screens
Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.
ISBN: 0 333 74117 X
288pp
$A 53.00 (pb)
(Review copy supplied by Palgrave)

One of the ironies of this “post documentary” era (to use a designation coined by John Corner) has been the significant increase in public awareness of documentary. Evidence for this is provided by the very large cinema audiences for Super Size Me, The Corporation, various works by Michael Moore and so on. For those who are interested in documentary these works are a sign of an encouraging return of the committed documentary, and of sizeable box office returns for such documentaries. At the other end of the scale of production are political documentaries such as Outfoxed (Greenwald, USA, 2004) and Uncovered: The Whole Truth about the War in Iraq (Greenwald, USA, 2004). In Australia similar “no-budget” political documentary was evident in Time to Go John. All of these are healthy signs for those interested in, and who teach about documentary. Also encouraging, for me at least, is in the increased interest among my students in documentary study. So it is fortunate that the increase in documentary production and documentary audiences has coincided over recent years in a significant increase in publishing about documentary, including a number of important works of documentary theory. For my purposes at least, what has been missing is a sound introduction to the field for students. Keith Beattie has provided just such an introduction in Documentary Screens.

In his introduction Beattie explains that the book began as a series of questions raised in a course on “documentary film and history”, and there remain traces of these origins. One of the strands in the book is an historical perspective, which I welcome as an antidote to the lack of an historical perspective on documentary I find among my students. This perspective is developed also through an examination of “central categories of documentary film and television”: autobiographical, indigenous and ethnographic documentary, compilation films, direct cinema and cinema verite and television documentary journalism.

On the whole I found the book to be a very sound introduction to the field of documentary study. In such a book I would expect a clear well organised synthesis of existing scholarship and this is precisely what I found. It is well organised with a structure the logic of which quickly becomes apparent. The structure of each chapter, beginning with an introduction to the major concepts to be dealt with and then detailed discussion of one or more examples, provides a sound context to the discussion of the individual cases and would provide a useful framework for the discussion of other cases. Certainly the introductory sections of each chapter, taken together, are one of the strengths of the book. These also produce a flow from chapter to chapter, providing clear signposting which is generally maintained throughout the book. These are important matters in guiding students through the material.

The selected sub genres – or “representational strands” as Beattie calls them (1) – are appropriate and convincing, and the exemplary readings introduce to a new student (or teacher) of documentary most of the important concepts necessary in an introductory course. There is a clear emphasis on foundational texts and formal properties: “the formal features, evidentiary capacities, patterns of argumentation, and histories of selected works. There is always a danger that the selection of important works will produce a list of “canonical works”, and there is some of that here, but there is much more besides. It is necessary to select films which would be readily available and the selected works satisfy that criterion.

However this choice does come at the price of lesser attention to a number of issues. The first of these is the question of audience response and audience pleasure. It may be that the return of documentaries to the box office is a temporary phenomenon, and it might have more to do with political events in the world than anything to do with documentary itself. Nevertheless, it does suggest that questions of audience are important, especially in a form which is about persuasion and social change, so it is a shame that such matters are beyond the scope of the book.

The second issue, and trace of the book’s origins, is a matter of emphasis rather than an omission: the role of television as a medium of exhibition. It is clear that television was instrumental in the development of “Direct cinema” and of the long-form news documentary; and there is a good discussion of new television forms such as docu-soap, “reality TV”, and popular factual entertainment. However on the whole one is left with the sense that documentary is a film form. This emphasis reflects the dominant academic response to documentary in the US, but in the UK there is more recognition of the role of television – especially in the work of John Corner, Brian Winston, and Derek Paget, much of which is appropriately drawn on in Documentary Screens. These issues are dealt with in the last two chapters, however they do come as something of an afterthought, whereas in the UK and Australia at least they have been central concerns for many years.

Certainly Beattie does not neglect TV forms of documentary. As I have suggested I am quibbling here about a matter of emphasis and perhaps an emphasis which is changing: the large box office for a range of activist documentaries seems to suggest this. Another sign: at the launch of a recent television documentary in Melbourne (Steve Thomas’s Welcome to Woomera) there was some discussion of the need in the current political climate in Australia (and no doubt the US, and perhaps the UK) to find alternative sources of funding and exhibition than television. There is evidence of an increasing timidity in relation to political issues on the part of broadcasters, and here I am sure Australia is not alone. This necessitates new forms of funding and exhibition of documentary which may fortunately coincide with new media forms which make possible new means of distribution. Both Time to Go John in Australia and Robert Greenwald in the US (his works seem to be distributed through the Disinformation Company) have used the internet to distribute material in interesting ways, which might suggest a model for more documentary makers.

However, these issues are beyond the scope of an introduction text, such as Documentary Screens. Such a work needs to provide access to a wider range of resources for the student, and this Beattie does admirably. The chapter on additional resources not only includes useful suggestions for further reading and viewing in relation to each chapter, but also useful sources of film and video copies of relevant documentaries. This chapter is complimented by a comprehensive bibliography making the book a particularly useful resource for introductory courses in non fiction film and television.

Peter Hughes
La Trobe University, Australia.

Created on: Wednesday, 8 December 2004 | Last Updated: Wednesday, 8 December 2004