The documentary temptation: Fiction filmmakers and non-fiction forms

Abstract

This essay addresses the ‘documentary temptation’ for filmmakers more usually associated with fiction: an encounter with reality – whether rendered in minimalist, observational, cinéma-vérité, or conventional reportage formats – that comes on an initial, primary level without artifice, pretence, contrivance, or the industrial and aesthetic machinery of narrative cinema. The notion of such a ‘return to zero’ is critically explored with reference to directors including Jean Eustache, James Benning, Martin Scorsese, Jean-Pierre Gorin, Wim Wenders, and Stan Brakhage.