Photographic Genres (Documentary)

Documentary:A documentary is a creative work of non fiction. A document, which creates a record of a true story. A documentary may be a video or audio recording, such as a movie or radio program.

1900–1920:

Travelogue films were very popular in the early part of the 20th century. They were often referred to by distributors as "scenics." Scenics were among the most popular sort of films at the time. An important early film to move beyond the concept of the scenic was "In the Land of the Head Hunters" in 1914.

1920:
Romantism:With Robert J. Flaherty's "Nanook of the North" in 1922, documentary film embraced romanticism, Flaherty filmed a number of heavily staged romantic films during this time period, often showing how his subjects would have lived 100 years earlier and not how they lived right then.

1920–1940:

The propagandist tradition consists of films made with the explicit purpose of persuading an audience of a point. One of the most notorious propaganda films is Leni Riefenstahl's film " Triumph of the Will" in 1935, which chronicled the 1934 Nazi Party Congress and was commissioned by Adolf Hitler.Political Weapon:

In the 1960s and 1970s, documentary film was often conceived as a political weapon against capitalism in general, especially in Latin America. "La Hora de los horos" (The Hour of the Furnaces) in 1968, directed by Octavio Getino and Fernando E. Solanas, influenced a whole generation of filmmakers. Among the many political documentaries produced in the early 1970's was "Chile: A Special Report", public television's first in depth expository look of the September 1973 overthrow of the Salvador Allende government in Chile by military leaders under Augusto Pinochet, produced by documentarians Ari Martinez and José Garcia.

Modern Documentaries:
Box office analysts have noted that this film genre has become increasingly successful in theatrical release with films such as Fahrenheit 9/11, Super Size Me, Food, Inc., Earth, March of the Penguins, Religulous, and An Inconvenient Truth among the most prominent examples. Compared to dramatic narrative films, documentaries typically have far lower budgets which makes them attractive to film companies because even a limited theatrical release can be highly profitable.

Documentary films has expanded in the past 20 years from the cinema verité style in the 1960's, in which the use of camera and sound equipment allowed a relationship between filmmaker and subject.