In our last lecture, we took a look at a variety of different documentary modes. There are a lot of theories to classify documentaries, however, US American film critic Bill Nichols certainly established the most noticeable one. According to him, there are 6 main documentary modes:

• The Expository mode, where there mostly is an all-knowing voice of God, guiding the audience through the film.
• The Poetic mode, that features a lot of emotional shots and editing.
• The Observatory mode, where the topics are presented as neutral as possible, letting the audience be the observer
• The Participatory mode, usually featuring a character who’s part of the story
• The Reflexive mode, emphasizing the relationship between the filmmaker and the audience
• The Performative mode, mostly driven by the filmmaker’s intention or opinion

 

Examples supporting Nichols’ theory

Like most national geographic documentaries, this one can be seen as an expository one. Easy to identify by the all-knowing “voice of God”, documentaries like this are often fact-based information, however, the audience is often affected by the filmmaker’s opinion, often exaggerating facts to create a stronger interest.

The next example is the Netflix production “Hip-Hop Evolution”. It explains the origins and development of American Hip-Hop Music from its birth in the 1970s to modern rap music in the early 2000s. It is fully accompanied by rapper and moderator Shadrach Kabango aka “Shad”, who contributes by explaining his own impressions of certain movements, styles or artist. This is why I personally see this series as a participatory documentary. The moderator’s impression is part of the story and due to the lack of literature, the show’s sources are mostly interviews. This is likely to influence the audience to take part in the main character’s opinion.

Alternative documentary modes

A slightly different approach do categorize documentaries was made by filmmaker Toni De Bromhead. He concentrated more on the information and content of the film itself rather than the presentation and editing. According to him, there are 4 main different versions:

• The Linear mode is the classic approach to a problem and solution, often with a character investigating and researching facts and a solid narrative structure
• The Discursive mode is often used during ongoing events. It typically gives political or general news a cinematic cote
• The Episodic mode compares two or more different issues to reveal a coherence
• The Poetic mode concentrates more on cinematography and is a more artistic approach rather than a conventional storyline

Democracy (2007) – An example for the Discursive documentary mode

Conclusion

Few people have yet made the effort to create different categories for documentaries. The fact that I had a hard time finding any opinions criticizing Nichols’ theory verifies that his approach to categorizing documentaries is a widely accepted concept. I personally think that his categorization makes sense and does a good job in interpreting the intention of the filmmaker.