Documentary Display. Re-Viewing Nonfiction Film and Video

Not all documentary films and videos are sober depictions of the real world. Documentary representations can present expressive, entertaining and spectacular images. This book examines such innovative approaches as they occur within the process of 'documentary display' - a practice which emphasises the visual attractions of documentary representation. Works of documentary display explore modes of exhibitionistic 'showing' in which sensation is frequently the vehicle of cognition and knowledge. Such a display is analysed within the popular and prominent forms of found-footage film, 'rockumentary', the city film, nonfiction surf film and video, and certain views of natural science topics. This accessible and informed study, with its focus on entertaining, popular, spectacular and sensational forms of representation, makes an important contribution to theoretical analyses of documentary film and video.
Keith Beattie is a member of the Faculty of Arts of Deakin University, Melbourne. He is the author of The Scar that Binds (1998) and Documentary Screens (2004) and co-editor of The Cinema of Australia and New Zealand (2007)