ACT UP Documentaries and the Question of Intermediate Archival Context

Abstract

This article considers the status of preexisting footage used within contemporary documentary when that footage originates from another discrete nonfiction work. It proposes a category for these earlier titles (intermediate archival context) and offers terms to examine the translation of preexisting material from one documentary context to another (recognition, formal fidelity, and intentional proximity). Through an analysis of the use of AIDS activist media footage within two modern-day documentaries on the activist group ACT UP, the article argues that the influence of intermediate archival context can be understood not only in the appropriation of individual images but in the citation and interpretation of formal strategies seen within historical nonfiction practice.