The Documentary Impulse Even before its invention, the cinema was saddled with a “documentary impulse”—the desire, tendency, and ability to capture, depict, and communicate facets of life, both familiar and foreign. As the medium matured and coalesced into an industry, this inclination tended to be subverted in favor of fictional, narrative films. The cinematic documentary was marginalized and pushed before the feature (newsreels), out of the theater altogether (educational, instructional, and propaganda films), or finally off the movie screen entirely, landing on television. In recent years, however, there has been something of a resurgence of the documentary form in mainstream cinema, with major Hollywood players now eager to be involved in producing the traditionally affordable and potentially lucrative genre. This course examines the history of documentary film, considers different approaches to non-narrative cinema, and discusses some recent entries in the genre and the questions they raise about the form.
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