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Knowledge about the most important historical developments of US-American documentary cinema in its manifold cultural relations. 

This lecture offers a historical survey of US American documentary film from its beginnings to reality TV. John Grierson famously described documentary film as ‘the creative treatment of actuality.’ In this lecture course, we will set out to explore some of the creative energies

that have fueled developments in non-fiction cinema. Covering a great variety of

filmic texts, we will discuss political, representational, and aesthetic issues that

documentary film faces. These issues concern the filmmakers’ ethical commitments

and ideological attachments, the role technological and stylistic developments play in

capturing reality as well as the question of genre boundaries and representational conventions that negotiate differences between fiction and reality. 

Lecture, reading assignments, discussions

Oral exam

A list of filmic and literary works will be distributed in the first session of class.

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