Conceptualizing documentary performance

Abstract

ABSTRACTIn discussions of non-fiction film-making, the issue of performance has often been given short shrift. This article begins to fill this gap by outlining a framework for understanding and discussing the documentary actor's work. I contend that a three-tiered model, which takes into account everyday performative activity (tier #1), the impact of the camera (tier #2) and the influence of specific documentary film frameworks (tier #3), is necessary to describe the non-fiction subject's work effectively. This kind of multifaceted conception also suggests the necessity of a complex, interdisciplinary method of analysis. If one is to consider adequately the nature and implications of documentary ‘acting’, one must draw from and combine the insights of fields that investigate each of the performative levels that non-fiction subjects negotiate. By amalgamating the relevant work of sociologists and social psychologists, film acting scholars and documentary theorists, I enumerate many of the performance strategies and techniques available to non-fiction subjects and demonstrate a means of analysing these choices. Throughout, evidence from The Up Series (Apted, 1964–2005) is used to suggest the utility of such an approach.