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Bill Nichols (born 1942) is an American film critic and theoretician best known for his pioneering work as founder of the contemporary study of documentary film. His 1991 book, Representing Reality: Issues and Concepts in Documentary, applied modern film theory to the study of documentary film for the first time. It has been followed by scores ...
- 1942
- Introduction to documentary (2010), Engaging Cinema (2010), The Cinema's Alchemist: The Films of Peter Forgacs (2011)
Bill Nichols is an American film critic and theoretician best known for his pioneering work as founder of the contemporary study of documentary film. His 1991 book, Representing Reality: Issues and Concepts in Documentary, applied modern film theory to the study of documentary film for the first time.
- Bill Nichols
Dec 27, 2017 · Bill Nichols, Speaking Truths With Film: Evidence, Ethics, Politics in Documentary. University of California Press, 2016. 263pages.
- Alex W. Bordino
- 2017
- Poetic Mode
- Expository Mode
- Observational Mode
- Participatory Mode
- Reflexive Mode
- Performative Mode
The poetic mode emerged during the late 1910s and into the 1920s. It began in reaction to the rise of narrative storytelling. This mode experiments with montage editing, which seeks to create meaning by pairing different images during the editing process. The meanings created prove more abstract, revealing patterns and themes. Music plays an integr...
An expository documentary asserts a strong rhetorical argument, and everything appearing within the documentary supports that argument. The film attempts to control the film’s interpretation by explaining the images shown. The explanation of the documentary’s argument is more an important than allowing the audience to think and decide for themselve...
The observational mode emerged in reaction to the expository mode and to technology changes. Cameras became lighter and quieter, lenses became faster and more sensitive to low light, and sound recording went wireless. These equipment changes allowed smaller-sized crews, which could gain access to more intimate spaces and more spontaneous moments. U...
In the participatory mode the filmmaker participates in the production process. The filmmaker is actively engaged throughout the film, such as taking part in events or interviewing people, all while appearing on camera. Within this active approach, the filmmaker maintains their point of view, but remains careful not to impose that point of view on ...
Films in the reflexive mode call attention to themselves as documentary films. Instead of just using the usual documentary conventionsto create their stories, these films skew the conventions in ways that challenge our assumptions about what a documentary actually is. For example, they might show a camera on screen or reveal the struggles behind an...
The performative mode draws on the filmmaker’s personal experience as a gateway toward understanding a larger social or political issue. This mode thus focuses on subjective experience over objective reality. This subjectivity allows movement beyond rhetorical arguments toward the emotional journey of the filmmaker’s life and struggles. This emphai...
Jan 30, 2004 · Tracing the Evolution of Documentary. By Ray Zone. Introduction to Documentary. By Bill Nichols. Indiana University Press. 226 pps. (paperbound), $19.95. ISBN #0-253-21469-6. Bill Nichols is a leading film theorist and a professor of cinema at San Francisco State University.
May 29, 2020 · First Online: 29 May 2020. Part of the book series: Framing Film Festivals ( (FFF)) Abstract. In this interview, internationally renowned film scholar Bill Nichols reveals his insights into the past, present and future for the study of documentary film festivals.
Pioneering film scholar Bill Nichols investigates the ways documentaries strive for accuracy and truthfulness and simultaneously fabricate a form that shapes reality. Such films may rely on reenactment to re-create the past, storytelling to provide satisfying narratives, and rhetorical figures such as metaphor or devices such as irony to make a ...
