Genre

Documentaries

Experimental and Animation

Fictional

Hollywood

Art

The turn of the century witnessed not only the invention of the motion picture but also tremendous growth of popular interest in journalism, picture postcards, lectures by travelers (frequently illustrated with slides), and so forth. The motion picture quickly came to serve society's need to learn about the geography and social conditions of the world at large. Some of the first motion pictures depicted exotic locations, contemporary events (battles, coronations), and unknown cultures. Indeed as late as 1908 such a major company as Biograph actually produced more nonfiction films than narratives. This would soon change, in part because the production of documentary films is dependent on world events and is therefore more haphazard and more difficult than the fully controlled process of making fiction films in studios. The decline of the nonfiction film has also been attributed to the belief that, after a decade, audiences were saturated with "views" and "actualities," as such films were called. moviegoers were no longer drawn to the sheer recording ability of motion pictures; they demanded imaginative entertainment instead.

Travelogues and ethnographic films

One sort of film that has had continuous appeal, albeit for a specialized audience, has been the travel film. Much of the attraction of such films--from the crude pictures cranked out by Lumière cameramen in Japan, Africa, and the Arctic, to Robert Flaherty's films about the Eskimos, the South Sea Islands, and the wild western coast of Ireland, to National Geographic presentations on television--results simply from the thrill of seeing a foreign culture or a distant location. Flaherty proved, however, that there could also be tremendous artistry in such films. His unforgettable compositions matched the harmonious rhythm of his editing to render the lives of his subjects in a gloriously romantic tone.

Both anthropologists and Hollywood producers immovietely recognized the value of Flaherty's work, initiating several long-lived genres. In Hollywood King Kong (1933), one of the most famous monster movies ever made, was conceived by producer-director Merian C. Cooper, who was inspired by his experience shooting travel documentaries. The surprising success of The Gods Must Be Crazy (1981), a comedy about life in the Kalahari desert of Botswana, shows that audiences continue to enjoy the mixture of foreign locations and familiar dramas. The Bushmen (San) of the Kalahari are also the subject of an important ethnographic film, John Marshall's The Hunters (1958). Marshall's tradition dates to the 1930s and to the films the anthropologists Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson made in the Pacific.

Most scholars prefer that all artistry be eliminated from ethnographic films so that the visual data recorded by the camera remains as fresh and uninterpreted as possible. The audience for these films typically consists of members of a university or museum community for whom entertainment is less significant than authenticity. When such films are prepared for mass television audiences, however, many concessions may be necessary, including the addition of extensive explanatory narration, musical accompaniment, and scenic photography.

Propaganda

In presenting a background, an environment, and characters who behave in a certain way, every motion picture may be said to be propaganda. The term is usually restricted, however, to pictures made deliberately to influence opinion or to argue a point. The most powerful and most consistent use of the cinema for propaganda was seen in the Soviet Union. After the 1917 revolution, Soviet films exploded on the screen with fervent conviction. Gradually, however, the pictures became lifeless, and in the 1930s and 1940s, during the Stalin regime, great directors such as Eisenstein and Aleksandr Dovzhenko worked under severe restraints. Nazi Germany produced its own brand of propaganda in the 1930s, the most striking being Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will (1936), a terrifying spectacle of a huge Nazi rally that had in effect been staged for the film made about it.

Few filmmakers would admit to making propaganda, although, in effect, many so-called educational films and all advertising or promotional shorts, whether featuring consumer products, vacation sites, or religious sects, may be seen as examples of propaganda. This form of film bears a stigma owing to its undisguised aim: to influence ideas and change behaviour. Cinematic artistry serves merely as a tool in propaganda.

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