Documentary Film - Creative Histories

Poetic:
- Emphasizes the aesthetic qualities of filmmaking.
- Example: Errol Morris, The Thin Blue Line (1988).
Expository:
- Relies on voice-over commentary and logical story development.
- Characterized as the classic documentary style.
Observational:
- Involves direct engagement with subjects.
- Utilizes the 'fly on the wall' technique, often applied to historical re-enactments.
Participatory:
- Features interaction between the filmmaker and the subject (interviewee).
- Frequently incorporates archival footage.
Reflexive:
- Employs a 'post-modern' style that reflects on the inaccessibility of truth.
- Techniques include combining real interviews with interviews involving actors.
Performative:
- Expresses the filmmaker's involvement in or identification with a subject.
- May include the use of entire fictional scenes within a documentary.

*Source: Bill Nichols, Introduction to Documentary. Third ed. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2017, 22-23.

The Westinghouse Rosie (1942) film contributed to the myth that munitions workers were primarily middle-class women who ceased working after the war ended.
Connie Field's documentary, an oral history of women munitions workers, aimed to dismantle this myth.
Field interviewed five women (three Black and two white), all of whom returned to menial labor after the war.

Considered a performative documentary because Lanzmann interacts with his subjects and is frequently visible on camera.
Notably avoids standard expository documentary techniques:
- Absence of voice-over narration.
- Exclusion of archival footage.