Bill Nichols' 4 Key Elements of Documentary Film

According to Bill Nichols, the four key elements that form the basis of documentary are: indexical documentation (shared with scientific film and the cinema of attractions), poetic experimentation, narrative storytelling, and rhetorical oratory.

Poetic Experimentation in Documentary

Poetic experimentation arises in cinema from the union between film and the modernist avant-gardes that flourished in the early 20th century. This plays a vital part in the emergence of the documentary voice. This feature is not present in the Cinema of Attractions or scientific images. Examples of poetic filmmaking include Luis Buñuel (Un Chien Andalou) and Abel Gance (La Roue). The filmmaker's way of seeing things was more important than what the camera was showing. However, the empirical ability of film was a handicap for artists: if a perfect copy was the desired outcome, what room was left for the artist's desire? In 1920, Jean Epstein termed photogénie (what the film offered that complemented or differed from what it represents), while the Soviet Union developed montage. Both were ways of overcoming the mechanical reproduction of reality.

Narrative Storytelling and Realism

Since 1906, narrative storytelling has been the dominant mode. In narrative, style couples with plot to tell a story. There are many ways in which an action or event could be told from different perspectives (types of narrators); this promoted the search for a voice used to represent the historical world in non-spoken ways, such as editing and lighting. Neorealists stressed narrative qualities alongside the film's indexical documentation, creating a sense of indexical or photographic realism. Realism applies to documentary in three specific ways:

• Physical or empirical realism: What appears in front of the camera.
• Psychological realism: Access to the inner life of the character.
• Emotional realism: Creating an emotional state within the viewer.

Neorealism and narrative enhanced the expressive possibilities of the documentary form.

Rhetorical Oratory: The Filmmaker's Voice

Rhetorical oratory is the distinguishing element of documentary. It features the documentary filmmaker as an orator (recorder of facts, exhibitor of attractions, and teller of stories). He or she speaks in their own voice about the world.