ABSTRACT

Assessments of the truthfulness or otherwise of documentaries are best understood as genre conventions which vary historically. Genre conventions are shared between audiences, filmmakers and institutions. Beliefs about the acceptable use of fictional techniques in documentary storytelling, particularly in television, are subject to occasional public controversies. The move from photographic to digital processes underlay one such controversy at the end of the last century. This was particularly the case around the so-called ‘docu-soaps’ on television, but public doubts about the truthfulness of documentary filming meant that many filmmakers developed new approaches. The result is that both public and professional documentary beliefs and practices have changed. Where once observational filming was seen as the bedrock of authenticity, newer approaches have developed a growing emphasis on the assessment of the ‘documentation’ of past events. They frequently gather and interrogate footage and other visual information from very diverse sources. They are seen as evidence in explicit attempts to reconstruct those events.

摘要

对纪录片的真实性或其他方面的评估最好理解为在历史上有所不同的体裁惯例。观众，电影制片人和机构之间共享流派惯例。关于在纪录片叙事中，特别是在电视中，可接受使用虚构技术的信念，偶尔会引起公众争议。从照相到数字处理的转变在上世纪末引起了这样的争议。在电视上所谓的“肥皂肥皂”周围尤其如此，但是公众对纪录片拍摄的真实性表示怀疑，这意味着许多电影摄制者开发了新的方法。结果是公共和专业纪录片的信念和实践都发生了变化。曾经观察性拍摄被视为真实性的基础，更新的方法越来越重视对过去事件的“文档”的评估。他们经常从非常不同的来源收集并询问素材和其他视觉信息。在明确尝试重建这些事件时，它们被视为证据。