World Documentary History Outline

Author: Ren Yuan / et al.
Editor-in-Chief: Gao Ziru
Publisher:
Publish Date: 1999-05-01
Features: This book is based on the lecture notes of Professor Ren Yuan from the Graduate Program of the Television Academy at Beijing Broadcasting Institute, and was compiled by referring to similar works both internationally and domestically. It provides detailed and clear explanations on the definition, genres, and evolution of styles in documentaries, as well as the creative backgrounds of renowned works and filmmakers. It also records the development history of Chinese documentaries and television documentaries, which constitutes a distinctive feature of the book. It can serve as a reference for professional television workers, amateur documentary enthusiasts, and faculty and students of colleges and universities to study the basic theories of film and television culture.
Excerpt:
Documentaries should also possess a quality of thought. From the perspective of the subject matter, this quality means evoking a richer artistic significance from the depiction of real objects. From the creator's standpoint, it means elevating emotions, judgments, and reflections through the selection and processing of life materials. From the audience's perspective, it means using the meanings generated within and between shots to evoke the audience's experience. The quality of thought essentially requires the creator's involvement, demanding the creator's subjective creative consciousness and social inclination, a point no one disputes. However, the focal point of the debate lies in whether this inclination exists in an explicit or implicit manner.