HISTORY DOCUMENTARY FILM

History Documentary

The documentary is not just as fiction, is a record of events taken from real events or actually happened. The definition of "documentary" itself is always changing in line with the development of documentary films from time to time. Since the era of silent films, documentaries evolved from simple shapes become increasingly complex with the type and function of increasingly varied. Camera and sound technological innovation have an important role for the development of documentary film. Since the first documentary which only refers to the production of the film format (celluloid) but extends further until now using video format (digital).

Since the early days of cinema, filmmakers in the United States and France have tried to document what is around them by means of their findings. Such as the Lumiere Brothers, they record daily events going on around them, such as workers who left the factory, train entering the station, construction workers are working, and so forth. The shape is very simple (only one shot) and its duration was only a few seconds. These films often termed "actuality films". A few decades later in line with the improvement of camera technology evolved into a documentary journey or expedition, sepertiSouth (1919) which tells the failure of an expedition to Antarctica.

Milestone early emergence documentary officially recognized by many historians is the film Nanook of the North (1922) by Robert Flaherty. The movie depicts the life of an Eskimo named Nanook in the Arctic region. Flaherty spent up to sixteen months to record daily activities Nanook and his wife and his son, such as hunting, eating, sleeping, and so on. Flaherty's Nanook of commercial success brought an expedition to the region of Samoa to produce a kind of documentary titled Moana (1926). Although not as successful as Nanook but through this film the first time known the term "documentary", by John Grierson review in the New York Sun. Because of its importance for the early development of the documentary, historians often named Flaherty as the "Father of Documentary".

Success Nanook also inspire filmmakers Merian C. Cooper-producer and Ernest B. Schoedsack important to produce a documentary film, Grass: A Nation's Battle for Life (1925), which depicts a group of local tribes who were migrating in the region of Persia. Then continues with Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness (1927) a documentary journey which took place in the jungle of Siam (Thailand). Exoticism these films greatly affect the future production of the film (fiction) production phenomenal Cooper, namely King Kong (1933). In Europe, several influential documentary filmmakers have also sprung up. In the Soviet Union, led to the theory of Dziga Vertov "kino eye". He found the camera with all the technique has more value than the human eye. He practiced his theory through a series of series of short news footage, Kino Pravda (1922), and The Man with the Movie Camera (1929) which describes the daily life of the big cities in the Soviet. Cinematographer-filmmaker Europe that impact is Walter Ruttman with the film, Berlin - Symphony of a Big City (1927) and Alberto Cavalcanti with the film Rien Que les Heures.

The documentary is growing increasingly complex in the era of the 30s. The advent of sound technology also has established forms of documentary with narrative techniques and the accompaniment of musical illustration. Governments, institutions, and large companies began to support the production of documentary films for diverse interests. One of the most influential films are Triump of the Will (1934) female filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl's work, which is used as a Nazi propaganda tool. For the same interests, Riefenstahl also produce other important documentary films, the Olympia (1936), which contains documentation Olympics in Berlin. Through editing and camera techniques are brilliant, athletes Germany as a symbol of the Aryans are shown to be superior athletes than other countries.

In America, the great depression era spurred the government to support documentary filmmakers to provide background information about the causes of depression. One of the prominent filmmaker Pare Lorentz is. He started with The Plow that Broke the Plains (1936), and the success of this movie makes Lorentz again believed to produce more influential documentary film, The River (1937). The success of these films made the US government as well as a variety of increasingly serious institutional support projects documentary films. This support later intensified in the coming decades after World War raged.

World War II changed the status of the documentary to a higher level. The US government even asked for help Hollywood film industry to produce films (propaganda) that supported the war. Documentary films are becoming increasingly popular in the community. Before television appeared, the public can watch the events and the events on the battlefield through documentaries and short news footage played regularly in theaters. Some of the top Hollywood filmmakers, such as Frank Capra, John Ford, William Wyler, and John Huston asked by the military to produce documentary films War. Capra for example, produce a series of seven feature-length documentary titled, Why We Fight (1942-1945) is regarded as the best propaganda documentary film series ever. Capra even working with the Disney studio to make some animated sequences. While John Ford through The Battle of Midway (1942) and William Wyler through Memphis Belle (1944) both also successfully won an Oscar for best documentary.

In the era after the post-Second World War, the development of documentary films undergo significant changes. Increasingly rare documentary films screened in theaters and the studios began to stop production. The growing popularity of television make a new market for documentaries. The senior documentary filmmakers, like Flaherty, Vertov, and Grierson is no longer productive as the first of his time. Cinematographer-filmmaker just started popping up and supported by state of the world is now safer and more peaceful facilitate their films are known internationally. One tendency is visible is the documentary films more personal and with increasingly sophisticated camera technology to help them carry out a variety of technical innovations. The theme of the documentary has expanded and more specifically, such as social observation, expedition and exploration, an important event coverage, ethnography, art and culture, and so forth.