Documentary film is in fashion.

This statement is usually followed by words like Youtube, smartphones, Internet,

digital...
Nonetheless, the biggest documentary hits in recent years
have been films made for the screen, following traditional forms of production a
nd distribution.
The world is changing, but not as much as it may appear.
Although we are living through times of widespread access
to all phases of audiovisual production:
recording with digital cameras and mobile phones
editing with programs like Premiere, Final Cut or i-Movie,
financing through fundraising webs
and distribution via platforms like Youtube or Vimeo.
In addition, there are different platforms, some accessible for free,
for distributing documentaries.
In the digital environment the number of documentaries and audiovisual documents
made available for the public, has skyrocketed.
The archival and collaborative nature of the Internet
has made it possible to access
TV and cinema documentaries out of the commercial circuit, which in most cases
have been uploaded by users.
The media memory has found its shelter on the Internet.
When Flaherty made "Nanook of the North"
the technical equipment required for the shooting was very expensive
and the whole process was slow and cumbersome.
When Rouch and Morin shot "Chronicle of a summer",
they had at their disposal lighter and cheaper cameras,
and the technology to capture sound synchronically was already available.
Whenever there is technological mediation,
there will only exist in terms of audiovisual narration,
the part of reality that can be captured with the means available.
The technique also determines
what we mean by reality
and the type of reality that can actually be documented
and displayed in documentary films.
It also depends, as the spanish poet Jos ngel Valente once wrote, on
"what we are able to imagine as real
in a given time".
In any case,
the story documented by "Tarnation"
would be impossible to document when Buuel filmed "The Hurdes".
Beyond the tragic story depicted,
"Tarnation" is also the story of the democratization of what can be called the "
technologies of the spectacle".
It is the story of the digital man in the West,
and the massive conversion of middle class in documentary filmmakers of their ow
n life.
What was left to close the circle, the ability of the general public to broadcast
their own contents, was made possible by the Internet.
Each medium generates its own documentary logic.
Cinema led to specific developments in documentary storytelling, television
opened a new door onto the documentary realm and the Internet produced similar e
ffects.
the medium is, as McLuhan said, the message,
in the sense that it imposes its form
to the documentary narrative.
In the early twentieth century only the Lumire brothers,
who invented cinematograph, and a handful of wealthy aficionados
had the privilege of filming their babies having breakfast or taking photos of t
he family holidays.
But
these aficionados they did not even had a chance of showing their images in publ
ic:
they were restricted to the private circle of family and friends.
Nowadays, smartphones and similar devices have radically altered the relationshi
p of individuals to the world around him.
They have become the most used device to capture and display the everyday for mi
llions of people;
that is,
they have become the main generators of documentary materials on a global scale.
There are documentaries totally or partially
recorded with mobile phones
and documentary and cinema festival are increasingly incorporating these formats
into their programs.
But it takes more than a camera, a domestic editing software, and an online plat
form
for a documentary recording to become a documentary film.
To think that its enough just to get out in the street and press the record butto
n is completely unrealistic.
It takes a purpuse and it takes an idea to get a documentary film.
Reality is silent.
Or it just talks too much
but not about what is truly relevant.
You have to struggle to get the words out of its mouth.
We are not just meaning to ask the right questions to the right people,
who, by the way,
dont usually have the slightest intention to reveal sensitive information.
Reality
is also forced into expression through editing
and narration, by combining fragments of reality from different sources.
This incisive assembling of fragments
was given
the name of "creativity" by French theorist Abraham Moles.
This is why Grierson defined documentary as
"the creative treatment of reality".
We are most grateful victims of a documentary syndrome.
We own the technique to preserve the instant,
and it is difficult to resist.
We are human and we know that the time goes by.
Because of the widespread use of the Internet and mobile devices,
the medium itself
has become our living room
and we have now, along with TV reality, measured to the millimeter, fully proces
sed,
well done,
the casual and slovenly artificiality of domestic videos.
But there is no more truth in Youtube
that in any TV scheduling.
Wherever it may be found,
truth is anything but spontaneous.
We are in the midst
of an informational cacophony
and this is probably
the reason why we are coming to appreciate so much the informative oasis provide
d
by documentary films, where a specific topic is dealt with in depth
and in an entertaining manner.
In the broad spectrum that goes from audiovisual news reporting to the so called
webdocumentaries
hybrid audiovisual products are growing.
Documentary is a crossbred genre,
strikingly innovative
at times an ready to break orthodoxy.
It likes playing and adventure.
Other reasons why documentary is in fashion have always been there:
curiosity
thirst for knowledge, an entertaining way to kill time...
Lets finish quoting Andr Bazin words on cinema,
repurposing them in documentary terms:
"Documentary film is also an industry".