A New History of Documentary Film: Second Edition - Softcover

McLane, Betsy A.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1441124578 ISBN 13: 9781441124579

Publisher: Continuum, 2012

Synopsis

A New History of Documentary Film, Second Edition offers a much-needed resource, considering the very rapid changes taking place within documentary media. Building upon the best-selling 2005 edition, Betsy McLane keeps the same chronological examination, factual reliability, ease of use and accessible prose style as before, while also weaving three new threads - Experimental Documentary, Visual Anthropology and Environmental/Nature Films - into the discussion. She provides emphasis on archival and preservation history, present practices, and future needs for documentaries. Along with preservation information, specific problems of copyright and fair use, as they relate to documentary, are considered.
Finally, A History of Documentary Film retains and updates the recommended readings and important films and the end of each chapter from the first edition, including the bibliography and appendices. Impossible to talk learnedly about documentary film without an audio-visual component, a companion website will increase its depth of information and overall usefulness to students, teachers and film enthusiasts.

About this title

About the Author:

Betsy A. McLane is the Director Emerita of the International Documentary Association. She holds degrees in cinema: a BFA from Ithaca College, MA and Ph.D. from The University of Southern California School of Media Arts. She has taught courses on film and documentary at Loyola Marymount University, The University of Vermont, Emerson College, The University of Southern California and California State University, San Bernadino, Palm Desert Campus. She is a Past President of the University Film and Video Association, and most recently served as the Project Director for The American Documentary Showcase, a program of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the US Department of State.

Review:

The timing couldn't be better for a knowledgeable survey of documentary films that acknowledges (and appreciates) the work of Robert Flaherty but continues through the era of cable TV, digital video, Michael Moore and Born Into Brothels. This thoughtful appraisal will be useful to students as well as moviegoers who want to learn more about the history of nonfiction filmmaking. Leonard Maltin

This book expands Ellis's The Documentary Idea (1989), a classic history of English-language social documentary film and video. Here Ellis (Northwestern Univ.) partners with Betsy McLane (past president, University Film and Video Association) to bring the subject of documentary film forward into the global sphere of digital image-capture technologies, satellite and Internet distribution and exhibition, and the "frenzy of TV reality shows." Like the earlier edition, the book is homage to documentary pioneer John Grierson, who coined the term "documentary" in 1926, and largely limits itself to the English-language "social documentary," i.e., "the mainline of the documentary tradition Grierson set in motion." Within those parameters, each of the 18 chapters offers a concise and useful historical overview of a particular time period, topic, or filmmaker and adds a list of relevant film titles and publications. Soviet propaganda and European avant-garde experimentation are discussed, though less comprehensively. As a carefully considered and reader-friendly volume, this book takes its place alongside Erik Barnouw's classic Documentary (1974). Specialists and advanced scholars may prefer Michael Renov's The Subject of Documentary (CH, Feb'05, 42-3312), which reconsiders the Griersonian "objective" ideal in the light of the subjective practices of the autobiographical vernacular." Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-/upper-division undergraduates, graduate students, general readers.

(CHOICE)

"It's an excellent introduction for any student wishing to understand the major trends in documentary production in the UK and North America and the major films of various eras...Overall, A New History of Documentary Film is a worthy and ambitious book. The text would be a great resource for a library or for a documentary studies class" —L. Clare Bratten, Journal of Film and Video 60.1, Spring 2008 (L. Clare Bratten)

Documentary (1974)” -Humanities-Performing Arts-Film 2006

"It's an excellent introduction for any student wishing to understand the major trends in documentary production in the UK and North America and the major films of various eras...Overall, A New History of Documentary Film is a worthy and ambitious book. The text would be a great resource for a library or for a documentary studies class" —L. Clare Bratten, Journal of Film and Video 60.1, Spring 2008 (Sanford Lakoff)

About this edition

• Publisher: Continuum
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 1441124578
• ISBN 13: 9781441124579
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 448