History Of The Documentary Film example essay topic

Robin Black Professor Wah be English 100 11 September 2003 The Documentary Film In a sense, the first films to be made were documentaries. The documentary retains a sense of truth, even when reality is manipulated. The documentary film can change not only the lives of the subjects that are on camera but also the lives of those who see the film. The Twentieth Century is the first era with a photographic record of history, due to the invention of motion pictures.

The documentary film became a new source of history. As cameras rolled filming leaders and workers, natural disasters, and the misfortunes of man, history has been changed by the documentary film. The filmmakers have come to be seen as reporters, explorers, chroniclers, observers and activists. Taking a look in to the documentary film is like looking at a reflection in a mirror of ourselves and our society in this century. The fact that the human spirit strives to survive, and in the face of opposition, refuses to lie down is a testament made by the history of the documentary film. The every day struggle just to get by is experience by many Americans.

Documentary film makers like Barbara Kopple and Steve James were dedicated to telling the stories of some of those struggling Americans. Barbara Kopple's Oscar winning documentary, "Harlan County, USA" (1976), was produced when, at the age of twenty six, she moved to Harlan County, Kentucky and lived among coal miners for four years. During that time there was violent resistance by the coal miners to East over Mining Company's policies of exploitation. Kopple became close to the families which were affected, as well as the workers who struggled, and became committed to using her film techniques as a medium for helping their cause.

The never ending search for the American Dream is not just existing in rural, underprivileged areas of America. The struggle for survival that continues every day is also right in our own backyard. Steve James touched on universal issues in his documentary film "Hoop Dreams" (1994). James, with his camera, met two young boys by the names of Arthur Agee and William Gates in an inner-city basketball court. The boys achieved a momentary escape from their lives of poverty, parental drug addiction, and violence when they were shooting hoops and dreaming of making the NBA drafts. Steve James, along with film makers Peter Gilbert and Fredrick Marx and their cameras, documented the two boys as they worked to succeed at the one thing that gave them hope of one day lifting themselves out of their desperate situation.

That thing was basketball. "Hoop Dreams" is about success and failure in all aspects of life, not just on the basketball court. It shows the power of friendship, support, hope and dedication, and a person's dreams and aspirations can ultimately see them through the most dark and dismal times of their lives. Both films seem to capture an entire century of reality and the soul of the American Experience; just as stories recorded on film will continue to inspire and encourage the American spirit. The search for the American Dream is a journey taken on the back of the documentary film with the film maker as the guide. Standing as the testament of the history of the documentary film Is the undying human spirit always in that survival mode and never willing to give up to its adversaries.

Bibliography

web Common Culture: Reading and Writing about American Popular Culture. 3rd Ed. Michael Petra cca and Madeleine Sora pure. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2001.