In defense of the documentary as an art form

When I was in high school, I got into a documentary for the first time in my life. The first documentary that I got into was Ken Burns’ “The Civil War” (shown on PBS). It would be the first of many for me. Since then, I have watched hundreds of documentaries (if not more), in a search for the special kind of storytelling that only a documentary can really offer. But what is it that documentaries provide? What advantages do they have over books? What advantages do they have over Hollywood movies? And how can they hold their own against other art forms that undertake to tell stories?

What advantages do books have over documentaries?

First of all, how do documentaries compare to books? I should preface this by saying that I am a tremendous fan of books. There are many things that books do better than any other medium. Most importantly, they are able to be more in-depth than any television program or movie ever could be. The longest documentary I’ve ever watched is “Canada: A People’s History,” which was 32 hours long – pretty long for a documentary. But if I wanted to study Canadian history in more depth, I’d probably have to go to a book to do so. For some subjects, there is no choice but to go to a book. Books are cheaper to produce than films. Books allow you to use your imagination more. And books abound on many subjects, almost giving you a choice overload for even the most esoteric of subjects.

What advantages do documentaries have over books?

So what advantages, then, do documentaries have over books? In my opinion, it’s the power of the audio and the visual to tell the story. For modern subjects especially, you can see what something actually looked like, as well as hear what it sounded like. If there is real footage of the topic at hand, so much the better. And if the footage is silent, you can re-enact the sound part of it. Conversely, if you have good audio for something, you can show a still (or “non-moving”) photograph, while playing the available audio in the background. If the topic is something for which there is neither footage nor photographs (say, the Roman Empire), re-enactments have great power to bring the topic to life.

The potential downsides of doing re-enactments …

However, I can think of two potential downsides to doing re-enactments. One is the need for historical accuracy, and the potential for re-enactments to mislead or misinform when accuracy is not sufficiently valued.  Another is that re-enactments are much more expensive, and are therefore not done as often as (perhaps) they should be – and I think they should be at times, in case that wasn’t clear. When a topic appeals only to a small niche, filmmakers are especially unlikely to take the time to do them right – or even to make them in the first place, in some (and perhaps even many) cases. As an Ancient Greece buff, I can tell you that very few filmmakers have ever undertaken to cover Ancient Greece with re-enactments. This limits my options for relevant media in the area. Only popular subjects are likely to receive the kind of budgets needed for Hollywood movies, and so few of these movies are ever made.

What advantages do documentaries have over Hollywood movies?

For these subjects, the advantages of a documentary may be similar to those of books – the potential for the viewer to use their imagination to “fill in the gaps.” If a documentary gives a visual for the location of a historical event, a good description may be all that’s needed to bring it to life with a small budget. You just state what happened in this place that’s being shown, and the viewer can imagine it happening in this location. Re-enactments are not necessarily needed to bring them to life, and a good narration can sometimes have the power to get the viewer’s imagination to do the rest of it. Thus, mountains can sometimes be moved with a relatively small budget, if the filmmaker has done the research to show the relevant images on the screen. These visuals can also be very entertaining, and can be a lot of fun to watch.

Little Round Top – A portion of the Gettysburg battlefield, Pennsylvania

Documentaries often have more authentic visuals …

For example, in PBS’s “The Civil War,” Ken Burns showed modern footage of old Civil War battlefields, often filming them on the same day of the year in which the actual battles took place. This is because it would have been inappropriate, for example, to show Gettysburg in cold and snowy weather, when the actual battle that took place there transpired in sweltering July heat. Or for the Battle of Antietam, filming the battle on September 17th (the anniversary of the actual battle in 1862) allows for authentic late summer/early autumn weather to be shown on the Antietam battlefield in these shots (appropriate for a September battle). Obviously, Ken Burns also made extensive use of the real photographs and eyewitness paintings available for these battles. But in the gaps where these kinds of visuals were not available, the combination of location shots with voiceover storytelling allows for considerable drama. The battlefield footage also adds much to the film’s authenticity.

Union positions below the Confederates at Burnside Bridge - Antietam battlefield, Maryland

The idea that documentaries are “boring” …

But these cost-cutting measures are often criticized as making films “boring” in some way. I must confess that I have a hard time understanding this view. In fairness, I suppose that not everyone possesses the imagination needed to be appropriately affected by this kind of storytelling. But to me, the effect is tremendous, and allows for as much emotional impact as many re-enactments. I’m not questioning the value of re-enactments, of course (as I mentioned earlier), or the advantages that they offer over these more budget-conscious kinds of storytelling. But the power of words is considerable, and helps to make up for the simplicity of some of the visuals. Interviews with eyewitnesses (or even historians) are also of considerable interest, and help to bring many of the most fascinating stories of our heritage to life. Historians sometimes provide some needed context, that helps us to appreciate the importance of these events more fully.

Stephen Ambrose, a historian who was often used to great effect as a talking head

Documentaries can summarize in relatively few sentences …

Another advantage of well-written narrations is their ability to summarize in relatively few sentences. Dialogue can be fascinating to listen to, but it often takes time to do it correctly. The results of the dialogue can often be neatly summarized in an economy of sentences. For example, “Joe borrowed money from his brother Bob,” rather than a lengthy record of the full conversation in which they did so. Full conversations can include things like “Hi, how’s it going?” and other small talk, which seldom make for compelling television. Like books, documentaries have a near-unparalleled ability to “get to the point,” by reporting and summarizing in brief. I doubt that many Hollywood movies would do well with such extensive material. Even many Hollywood movies like to summarize things after the fact, by putting these summaries into the mouth of a character from the movie. Moreover, even Hollywood movies sometimes resort to narrators (or text on the screen), particularly in the beginning and closing segments of a program. Few things have the ability to put you into a world so quickly as a compelling opening narration, which “gets to the heart” of why a story is both interesting and dramatic. And few things have the ability to close a movie as compellingly as a summary of what happened to the main character afterward, or what that character ultimately accomplished through the events of the movie.

Documentaries not the best at doing everything, but they are the best at doing some things

I say these things not to disparage either books or Hollywood movies, but to point out ways in which the documentary can be an artful compromise of their relative advantages. Documentaries are an underrated form of storytelling, and add the advantages of sensory authenticity to the evocative power of eloquent language and description. They are not the best at doing everything, but they are the best at doing some things.

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If you liked this post, you might also like:

My favorite history documentaries

The wisdom of the ages: The enduring legacy of books

Has Hollywood history always been so bad?

A review of “Liberty! The American Revolution” (PBS) and “The Revolution” (History Channel)

A review of Ken Burns’ “The Civil War” (PBS miniseries)

A review of “The Great War” (1964 BBC miniseries about World War One)

A review of “The World at War” (World War Two miniseries)