Writing assignments will be listed on this page. Reading assignments may be found in the syllabus.

Structure your weekly response as an essay approximately 500 words in length in which you incorporate your personal reactions to the film and tie in any relevant points from the weekly readings, other films you’ve seen, other readings, etc. Assignments are given and discussed each week and are due prior to the start of the next class meeting.

Week 1: What does it mean to “explore the world” through documentary? How did Flaherty represent the world of the Inuit in Nanook of the North?

Week 2: How can viewers tell the difference between something staged vs. something real? Was Nanook of the North authentic? Base your discussion on both Nanook of the North and Nanook Revisited.

Week 3: Write a reaction to Night and Fog. What is this film evidence of? Consider this in light of the readings (especially the chapter “Evidence” in Crafting Truth.) You may weave into your reaction your critique/analysis of one of the following quotations: (1) “At the heart of documentary is less a story and its imaginary world than an argument about the historical world” — Bill Nichols in Representing Reality, p. 111; (2) “Cinema is not the reflection of reality, but the reality of the reflection.” — Jean-Luc Godard; (3) “If you want to make fiction, shoot a documentary, if you want to tell the truth, write a script and hire some actors.” — Jean-Luc Godard; (4) “Each medium, if its bias is properly exploited, communicates a unique aspect of reality, of truth. Each offers a different perspective, a way of seeing an otherwise hidden dimension of reality […] A medium is not simply an envelope that carries any letter; it is itself a major part of that message” — Edmund Carpenter (“The New Languages” in Explorations in Communication, 1960).

Week 4: Based on your experience viewing The Plow That Broke The Plains (Pare Lorentz, 1934) and Night Mail (Harry Watt & Basil Wright, 1936), what do you think is the ideological bias of each of the films? Relate your response to the readings. Consider that Night Mail was funded by the The GPO Film Unit (a division of the UK General Post Office) and The Plow That Broke The Plains was funded by the Resettlement Administration of the US government to raise awareness about the New Deal.

Week 5: In the readings assigned for this week (Crafting Truth, Ch. 4: “Resoponsibility”) Jay Ruby is quoted as saying, “So long as our images of the world continue to be sold to others as /the/ image of the world, we are being unethical,” does a documentary filmmaker have an ethical responsibility to reveal their particular point of view? More specifically, how does Andrew Jarecki reveal his point of view in Capturing the Friedmans? Support your answer by referring to specific details in the film. Andrew Jarecki has said, “it’s possible that Arnold Friedman was a paedophile and committed certain bad acts and yet the acts that he was being accused of might not have happened,” Does this come across in the film itself? Reference: “Andrew Jarecki,” British Film Institute (interview by Leslie Felperin after a screening of Capturing the Friedmans at the National Film Theatre, March 23, 2004), bfi.org.uk/features/interviews/jarecki.html

Week 6: 1. Pepare your Preliminary Research Topic Proposal; 2. Based on your viewing of Who Killed the Electric Car? (Chris Paine, 2006), think about how the filmmaker structured the argument and the choices made in terms of visuals, testimony of EV-1 enthusiasts, expert testimony, personal experience, humor, archival footage, sound, music, etc. Was the film: (a) fair and balanced reporting of an issue; (b) a persuasive argument; or (c) propaganda? Support your position by describing how the filmmaker used the array of materials to shape his argument. What do you know, or not know, about the filmmaker, and how does that influence your perspective?

Week 7: Compare and contrast the structure and style of Marlon Riggs’ Tongues Untied and Chris Marker’s San Soleil. To get you started, consider that Riggs expresses his personal view of black gay experience from the position of his own experience, the filmmakers voice is one of the many voices heard in the film, often addressed directly to the audience. In Marker’s film a female voice reads (and occasionally comments on) letters from a cameraman who presumably is writing about his travels as a flow of images, many with an ethnographic quality, illustrate what he’s writing about in the letter. Note 1 : If you have not emailed in your Preliminary Research Topic Proposal, please do it as soon as possible. Note 2: Don’t forget to include “[hid]” in the subject line of all emails related to this class.

Week 8: 1. Final Research Topic Proposal with a Preliminary Bibliography, 2. How is Surname Viet, Given Name Nam (Trinh T. Minh-ha, 1989) structured? What are some of the strategies and techniques the filmmaker used in editing the film? Include in you essay at least three specific examples. How did these editing techniques enhance the filmmaker’s ability to construct her inquiry into issues of national identity? For a discussion of the film, see: Katherine Gracki, “True Lies: Staging the Ethnographic Interview in Trinh T. Minh-ha’s Surname Viet, Given Name Nam (1989),” Pacific Coast Philology, Vol. 36, (2001), pp. 48-63, www.jstor.org/stable/3595469 (log-in via MassArt libraries database page and your NetID for access).

Week 9: What is the role of the camera in Chronicle of a Summer? Is the camera a participant in, or observer of, the events unfolding? Your response should refer to the key ideas in this week’s readings: “Camerawork” in Crafting Truth, and “Ch. 14: Direct Cinema and Cinéma Vérité, 1960-1970,” in New History. Focus on specific examples that illustrate your analysis rather than the story of the film. Related resources: (1) William Rothman, “Chronicle of a Summer,” in Documentary Film Classics, Cambridge University Press, 1997, pp. 69-107, Download PDF (from der.org); (2) Barbara Bruni, “Jean Rouch: Cinéma-vérité, Chronicle of a Summer and The Human Pyramid,” Senses of Cinema Issue 19, March 13, 2002, Revised June 9, 2011, Link to Article; (3) Julian Vigo: “Power/Knowledge and Discourse: Turning the Ethnographic Gaze Around in Jean Rouch’s Chronique d’un Ete,” Visual Sociology, 1995, pp. 14–39, Download PDF (from archive.org).

Week 10: Discuss how John Marshall intervenes creatively in the profilmic in terms of setting, social actors, historical context, and the role Marshall himself plays in “Death By Myth,” part 5 of A Kalahari Family (John Marshall, 2001). How did Marshall’s relation to the profilmic environment change over the course of his involvement with the Ju’/hoansi people of Nyae Nyae from 1951 to 2001? The following resources might be helpful: A Kalahari Family Web Site (web site, includes transcripts of the films); Alice Apley & David Tames, “Remembering John Marshall,” New England Film July 1, 2005 (article); Karma Foley and Pamela Wintle, “Evolution of a Filmmaker, Learning To See,” Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History (web site).

Week 11: TBD

Week 12: TBD

Week 13: No essay assignment. Student Presentations of Parallel Research Projects, 1/2

Week 14: No essay assignment. Student Presentations of Parallel Research Projects, 2/2