This course considers the parallel development of documentary forms of film and theatre. While focused mostly on key movements and innovations from the twentieth century, the course also reframes a number of proto-documentary works from previous centuries. Students will engage the ways in which theatre artists and filmmakers have historically selected, authenticated, and otherwise spectacularized different types of documentation including found texts and recorded media. Through close readings of documentaries informed by contemporary film studies and performance theory, students will consider how documentaries evidence different epistemic virtues and norms of “objectivity,” and how the ideological apparatuses of film and theatre have in turn shaped the development of documentary inquiry. The course will also explore the ethics of documentary practice, including duties of care to audiences and subjects, as well as the advent of hybrid and participatory forms of documentary. Artists to be surveyed include Robert J. Flaherty, Spalding Gray, John Grierson, Abbas Kiarostami, The Living Newspaper, Chris Marker, David and Albert Maysles, Rabih Mroué, Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin, Anna Deavere Smith, Dziga Vertov, and Fred Wiseman.

This course considers the parallel development of documentary forms of film and theatre. While focused mostly on key movements and innovations from the twentieth century, the course also reframes a number of proto-documentary works from previous centuries. Students will engage the ways in which theatre artists and filmmakers have historically selected, authenticated, and otherwise spectacularized different types of documentation including found texts and recorded media. Through close readings of documentaries informed by contemporary film studies and performance theory, students will consider how documentaries evidence different epistemic virtues and norms of “objectivity,” and how the ideological apparatuses of film and theatre have in turn shaped the development of documentary inquiry. The course will also explore the ethics of documentary practice, including duties of care to audiences and subjects, as well as the advent of hybrid and participatory forms of documentary. Artists to be surveyed include Robert J. Flaherty, Spalding Gray, John Grierson, Abbas Kiarostami, The Living Newspaper, Chris Marker, David and Albert Maysles, Rabih Mroué, Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin, Anna Deavere Smith, Dziga Vertov, and Fred Wiseman.