My father being a documentary filmmaker, I’ve grown up seeing the variety of work that the job can entail. Covering everything from museums to full blown narratives, documentaries perennially teeter on the fine line between the subject and the director. I always disregarded those environmentally cautionary “nature documentaries” you find at any wildlife reserve as purely utilitarian, but what about I’m Not Your Negro, or Amy? Given that numerous film awards are dedicated to the genre, there are clearly some documentaries that have been acknowledged by the artworld (not to validate the opinions of the artworld!), but this just raises a greater question: are there qualities that distinguish “art-qualifying” documentaries from merely amusing ones? A large part of the challenge in separating documentary films along such a line stems from the subject matter itself, which many presume to predetermine their structure. As such, I don’t intend to go as far as to say that the documentary film itself is art, but rather that no qualities distinct to documentary filmmaking preclude the creation of art proper. To prove this, I will go on to articulate the common traits of documentaries as they may compare to the four improper uses of art as Collingwood cites in The Principle of Art. Like Collingwood with art proper, I intend to prove that while documentaries will likely possess aspects of craft, representation, magic, and amusement, they are not bound to them. I will then isolate the aspects of documentaries that facilitate expression, in doing so identifying the key traits which may set apart documentaries possessing art proper from those that have succumbed to their other qualities. Finally, I seek to prove that in articulating its pieces, the success of the documentary as far art proper lies in the ability of the director to overcome the subject, or rather, that the film must succeed to clarify emotions through expression in spite of its subject rather than because of it. To condense these statements, I intend to use Collingwood’s views to distill the components of documentaries necessary to their being art from the irrelevant baggage that may come with their veracity.
Art as Craft
Let’s talk about documentaries in regard to craft. Collingwood distinguishes craft as “the technical theory of art”, identifying six independent characteristics. How any piece of art relates to these characteristics is vital, since at the heart of his (and my) greater argument, he is separating art proper from craft. While Collingwood explores a multitude of requirements for craft (the less of which art possesses, the better), he is in fact using them to highlight a singular definitive requirement of art proper: spontaneity. I hope to avoid the logical fallacy, to mistakenly argue that documentaries can only be considered art if they are spontaneous, as clearly documentaries – and most art – will contain some form of planning, clear materials and so forth. I instead wish to acknowledge which of their aspects are actually most successful in conveying art proper. Craft designates specific temporal and qualitative separations, i.e. the separation of raw material from the finished product, cognition of the object before its creation, as well as means and ends. On the surface, one may argue that documentaries hold true to most of the traits Collingwood lists: they appear to have an end in both clarifying their subject and exciting the viewer by means of successfully representing an event, on top of a clear planning process and separation of raw and final form in consideration of the editing process. Where would documentaries possibly possess the spontaneity of art then? Let’s attempt to think from the perspective of the director and editor; do they have means and ends? The answer could very well be a definite yes. If the director wishes to portray a man in a negative light, their means would be to candidly portray what they see to be the negative qualities of a police department, with the end of invoking a negative reaction toward the department by the film’s viewer. What if, however, they desire to effectively express the complex pain of a family in mourning? One could easily imagine them switching between one slide and the next, finally coming to some conclusion as to which camera angle, which length clips and audio should be utilized. While this process is clearly longer and more complex than that of the poet, I assure you that neither could effectively explain to you why they chose the materials that they did.
Art as Representation
The priority of representation is perhaps the most common issue I address when discussing documentaries as art. Like architecture with structural integrity or clothing with comfort, veracity is a significant limitation to documentaries in maintaining the notion of art. Numerous times a documentary has come under fire for misrepresenting facts a critic considered integral to the narrative – look only a year ago to the issues lawyers found with Netflix’s Making a Murderer. While I understand the concerns, the criticism of such documentaries as “awful” it strikes the wrong chord, as it assumes that they must be char
Art as Magic
Collingwood goes to great lengths to clarify true magic (as it operates in aesthetic terms). Dispelling any notion that magic may just be pseudoscience or neurosis, he states that, “The primary function of all magical acts is to generate in the agent or agents certain emotions that are considered necessary or useful for the work of living”. In other words, Collingwood puts particular stress on the notion that magic stems from “useful emotions” created by art (which ties it back to his notion of craft). Discussing documentaries as magic inevitably leads us back to veracity. Even when we’re watching a documentary about the making of sushi, the notion that what we’re seeing is real inevitably possesses a magical quality. Unlike Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter, any action or event in a documentary can’t be fully separated from the world of the viewer. Whatever emotions are sparked in regard to the film, whether they be anger at Policeman Bob for throwing Jane Doe in prison or sympathy for Joe the rebel as he struggles to win a lawsuit against some corporation, are directed at – even if not at something that still exists – actions directly connected to us. Given their direct relevance to real problems, it seems reasonable that a critic may conflate the artistry of a documentary with its ability to evoke emotions toward a certain goal. This is particularly reasonable when directors themselves think along these lines. Commercially successful movies existing solely to appeal to certain issues, such as “The Thin Blue Line” with police malpractice, “An Inconvenient Truth” with global warming, or even “Super-size Me” with food deserts, seem to fill the documentary limelight. While their success is appreciable and probably much deserving, here again is a misjudgement of documentaries as craft instead of as art. “An Inconvenient Truth” is a phenomenal documentary, but only so far as it can utilize emotions and logic to achieve a proactive state of mind in its viewers. As I hinted at earlier in mentioning “useful emotions” magic can only ever be a means to an end. Thus, there is a logical challenge in that a documentary will always contain some magic, even if it is not particularly stressed by the structure of the film.
Art as Amusement
There still does manage to be a flip side to magic in the documentary genre: the “nature flick”`. Growing up with a documentarian did not have many significant advantages for eight year-old me, but then there was Planet Earth. That series had everything: gorgeous vistas, exotic animals, even a fantastic narrator. Every episode was an amazing escape, but you never found yourself changed or emotionally charged when the credits started rolling. “If an artifact is designed to stimulate a certain emotion, and if this emotion is intended not for discharge into the occupations of ordinary life, but for enjoyment as something of value in itself, the function of the artifact is to amuse or entertain.”(Collingwood, 59). Sadly, I struggle to call Planet Earth a product of art any more than its magic-infused brethren. If you have ever spent time watching NatGeo, you will be well aware of the constant stream of “nature flicks”: short series typically covering an assortment of animals, quickly highlighting defining details unique to them before jumping to the next topic. It’s all a matter of spectacle. Where magic uses the cognitive validity of documentaries to push larger issues and thus sustaining an emotion, amusement stems from the direct response one may have to that validity itself, resulting in an encapsulated and – as Collingwood puts it – “earthed” experience. Both do have similarities, however, in that they seek to invoke one generalized emotion, but beyond that
Art As Expression
Finally, if we are aware about the misconceptions of art in documentaries, where does art rest? Jiro Dreams of Sushi is a favorite documentary of mine that does little more than articulate the daily going ons of Jiro, a famous 85-year old sushi chef. The film only follows Jiro out of his shop twice and is structured in the “Catalyst” style, which is to say there’s no narration. His interactions with his son (still his apprentice at 50 years old) doesn’t presume any generalizations about patriarchal standards, nor do his cooking techniques highlight a changing ecosystem or amusing practices. As Collingwood views it, art proper only stems from the authentic expression of the artist. Unlike the case for magic or amusement, the artist cannot simply plan for the emotion or reactions they desire to invoke – the artist is not conscious of the emotion created until its expression.