Documentary Film example essay topic

Can A Fireman's Ball be regarded as a documentary? web 'A film whose narrative is derived from non-fiction and does not feature actors " The ideas for this film came about purely by accident after Milos Forman and his co-writers had retired to the country to think of a proper follow-up film to Loves of a blonde. They decided to take the night off and go to the local Fireman's Ball and on the following evening they played cards with the firemen in this little town in the mountains. Using the time he spent with the firemen, he was able to bring a level of authenticity to the film. ' Most definitions delineate documentary as a nonfiction work. Instead of filmmakers conceiving the film's subject in their imaginations, they find the basis of their works in real life and real events. ' 'Instead of providing an outlet from the everyday world, documentary seeks to address our world and to educate us about it.

' Tries to inform the viewer of life under the Socialist Government. ' Documentary subjects come from life, not from the imagination. The subjects chosen tend to possess some kind of cultural relevance, be it historical, social, or scientific. ' 'The word 'documentary' is rooted in the earliest, anthropological use of film to 'document' or record field work. Now, it can mean everything from a classic documentation of life in a remote part of the world to a filmmaker's personal exploration of any subject under the sun.

' 'Documentary subjects come from life, not from the imagination'A documentary is a work in a visual or auditory medium presenting political, scientific, social, or historical subjects in a factual and informative manner. ' It is not a documentary in the traditional sense in that it is staged using scripts and is not outright informative. From the beginning of Milos Forman's career we see the mixture of black humour and observations of everyday life used in his films. A Fireman's Ball has the same type of humour and is based on the lives of a small community and their fire department. All of the firemen seem to be unable to perform their jobs due to their lack of competence. Apart from the fact that the firemen all seem hopeless, the prizes from the raffle keep getting stolen, the beauty pageant is a failure, the old man's house gets burnt to the ground because the firemen can't shovel snow on the flames fast enough and all he gets is the useless raffle tickets, even although this seems dull or sad it is actually quite entertaining and hilarious in some parts.

The viewer gets the impression that this could actually take place somewhere in the world and that the setting for the film is not taken entirely from imagination. ' Documentary subjects come from life, not from the imagination " The ideas for this film came about purely by accident after Milos Forman and his co-writers had retired to the country to think of a proper follow-up film to Loves of a blonde. On the DVD version of A Fireman's Ball there is an interview with Milos Forman in which he tells the viewers of the first screening of the film. This took place in the town where the film was made ('Most documentary filmmakers shoot events where they actually occur. ' ) and as with all the first screenings in all Czechoslovakia at the time this film was released, there had been people placed there to gauge peoples " reactions to the film. When one of the men placed there stood up at the end of the film and announced that he felt the film was terrible and made the firemen look unheroic, one of the 'real' firemen which the film based itself on replied that it did nothing of the sort and that it was in fact very realistic. The fireman then recalled the time when he and his firemen were unable to reach a fire because the driver of the truck had been too drunk to get behind the wheel.

Forman's use of non-professional actors gave this film a convincing authenticity and a gutsy realism. A documentary film depicts real people, not actors portraying other people. The people in the small town in the mountains who the film is essentially about, play their parts. The use of these people makes the film seem more real.

The firemen in the film are not what you would expect or hope, instead of being a group of good looking heroic firemen sitting around drinking milk, we are faced instead with all lot of old men who can't even organise a ball never mind put out a fire. As for the beauty contest, it feels like real life, they used real woman not models to play the part of the contestants. Grierson's definition of documentary as 'creative treatment of actuality' has gained some acceptance, though it presents philosophical questions about documentaries containing stagings and reenactments. A Fireman's Ball could be classed as such because of it's creative use of these day-to-day circumstances in the life of a fireman.

Forman manages to use this film as a way to criticise the Socialist Government. However, the film was made up of staged scenarios and its presentation of their lifestyle was more emphasised stealing away from the sense of reality we do get from the film. Although the film presents, in it's own way, political and social subject matter it is not in a particularly informative manner or accompanied by the dulcet tones of a voice over explanation of the events going on. In my opinion, the film seems very realistic in it's use of characters, actors and story line. However I find that sometimes the film over stretches reality. In that the reality which it is trying to portray is sometimes over emphasised.

It is hard to believe that there could be a fire station somewhere that had firemen so stupid and so useless running the department and being left to rescue people if there is a fire when they can't even organise an evening where anything from holding up a ladder to putting out a fire seems impossible.