Docufiction
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Docufiction (often confused with docudrama) is a neologism which refers to a cinematographic work mixing fiction and documentary.
Concerning a film genre in expansion, the new term appeared at the beginning of the 21st century. It is now commonly used in several languages and widely accepted for classification by the most important international film festivals.
Docudrama is often used as a synonym for docufiction. Drama is confused with fiction, and the concept turns ambiguous. Widely used, it refers specifically to telefilms or other television media recreations, such as a documentary that dramatizes certain events often with actors. The term docudrama is apter in this sense.
The word docufiction is also sometimes used to refer to literary journalism (creative nonfiction).
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Origins
The term involves a way of making films already practised by such authors as Robert Flaherty, one of the fathers of documentary, and Jean Rouch, in the 20th century.
It also implicates the concept that fiction and documentary are basic genres, due to the ontological status of the filmed image as photography: the double is shown as being the same, as representation and reality. Being both, docufiction is a hybrid genre, arising ethical problems concerning truth.
In the domain of visual anthropology, the innovating role of Jean Rouch allows one to consider him as the father of a subgenre called ethnofiction (Jean Rouch and the Genesis of Ethnofiction – thesis by Brian Quist, Long Island University).
First docufictions by country
- 1926 – Moana by Robert Flaherty, USA
- 1930 – Maria do Mar by Leitão de Barros, Portugal
- 1932 – L'or des mers by Jean Epstein, France
- 1948 – La Terra Trema by Luchino Visconti, Italy
- 1963 – Pour la suite du monde (Of Whales, the Moon and Men) by Pierre Perrault and Michel Brault, Canada
- 1988 – Mortu Nega by Flora Gomes, Guiné-Bissau
- 1990 – Close-up (film) by Abbas Kiarostami, Iran
- 2002 – City of God (film) by Fernando Meirelles, Brazil (?)
Other well-known docufictions
- 1931 : Tabu (film) by Robert Flaherty and F.W. Murnau
- 1934 : Man of Aran by Robert Flaherty
- 1945 : Ala-Arriba! (film) by Leitão de Barros
- 1948 : Louisiana Story by Robert Flaherty
- 1958 : La pyramide humaine by Jean Rouch
- 1959 : Shadows (film) by John Cassavetes
- 1960 : Moi, un noir, by Jean Rouch
- 1967 : David Holzman's Diary by Jim McBride
- 1972 : Trevico-Torino (viaggio nel Fiat-Nam), by Ettore Scola
- 1974 : Orderers, by Michel Brault
common definitions for docudrama
- Compact Oxford English Dictionary: «a dramatized film based on real events and incorporating documentary features».
- Cambridge Dictionary of American English: «a television program whose story is based on an event or situation that really happened, although it is not accurate in every detail»
- Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary: «a television programme whose story is based on an event or situation that really happened although it is not intended to be accurate in every detail»
- Wiktionary: «A type of drama (a film, a television show, or a play) that combines elements of documentary and drama, to some extent showing real events and to some extent using actors performing recreations of documented events».
- American Heritage: «A television or movie dramatization of events based on fact».
- Rhymezone: «a film or TV program presenting the facts about a person or event»
See also
