Jazgol: Documentry Genre

The documentary genre is the genre that can be considered ‘the non-fiction’ genre. When the objective behind all media texts are always coming from a subjective point of view or better say a ‘theme’, here the same structure exists. We still witness the ‘theme’ which represents a specific mindset, but in this case the images, the location represents a non- narrative story , that is tiring to exhibit a version of reality that is lesser dependent on fictional characters and plots.

The level though, may vary. Some of the documentary texts exist to simply record an event or record a specific period in the history, but even this attempt may seem like a platform or a medium to endorse a ideological perspective . Moreover, these actual images and this scenes which are taken to be assuming ‘non- biased' and less artificial, can always be edited and artificially framed in the editing room. Therefore cannot be ‘just a way of recording the history’.

Here we can briefly examine and mention some of the important documentaries, in terms of the story and the style making they offered in film industry. 'Nanook of the North'' (1922), directed by Robert Flaherty's was the first official documentary about the harsh lives of Canadian Inuit Eskimos in arctic, although some of the images were staged, it was perhaps the first time this genre was produced and labeled in the manner that it was .

Flaherty , continued his work and his documentary style later on with his 1926’s Moana about Samoan Pacific islanders, and in 1934 his first sound documentary Man of Aran was about the rugged Aran islanders/fishermen located west of Ireland's Galway Bay. His final and most controversial feature documentary was , 'Louisiana Story' (1948).

Here is some of the footage's of his first official movie ever produced ‘Nanook of the North’ It only lasts for 8 minutes ,but it might be a good reference of understanding how cinematic documentary elements worked and functioned in that period of time.