Synopses & Reviews
The Documentary proposes that emotions such as pleasure, hope, pain, empathy or nostalgia play a powerful role in the circulation and reception of documentaries. Emotion shapes how political issues and individuals are represented and perceived in documentary and it is crucial to how we engage with the vicissitudes of the public sphere. In the past, documentary has been popularly perceived in ways that align it with education, science, history and the rational realm. This frame has never been adequate for understanding the broad array of styles and themes that can be seen in the documentary genre. Focusing on the question of subjectivity, Smaill analyses different kinds of individuals that can be found in documentaries, such as the female porn star, the politically disenfranchised, children, or the documentary auteur. She envisages an interdisciplinary approach to documentary drawing on scholarship from not only film studies, but also gender studies, queer theory, cultural theories of affect, critical race studies, political theory and psychoanalysis.
Review
'Smaill's excellence lies in knowing what she's doing: examining how emotion is both presented and evoked in and by documentary for political ends. This fluid conception of politics is deeply imbricated with feminist and other movement politics that assume affect is part of political motion, something that incorporates the agenda of change. That movement might be uncertain, in need of constant correction, but it is also affirmative and embodied, in the maker, in the film, and in the audience and social world.' Chuck Kleinhans, Jump Cut 'Smaill covers very diverse subject material in an engaging and accessible manner. Her references extend far beyond the world of the big screen: rather than furrow through documentary film theory, the author draws on multidisciplinary sources to explore the idea of emotion, including the psychoanalytical perspectives of Melanie Klein and the linguistic articulations of Elaine Scarry.' - New Cinemas: Journal of Contemporary Film 8.1
Synopsis
Belinda Smaill proposes an original approach to documentary studies, examining how emotions such as pleasure, hope, pain, empathy, nostalgia or disgust are integral both to the representation of selfhood in documentary, and to the way documentaries circulate in the public sphere.
About the Author
Belinda Smaill is Senior Lecturer in Film and Screen Studies at Monash University, Australia. She is the co-author of Transnational Australian Cinema: Ethics in the Asian Diasporas (2013) and has published widely in the areas of documentary studies, women and cinema, Australian film and television, and cinema and environmentalism.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
PART I: DOCUMENTARY AND PLEASURE
1. Introduction: Representation and Documentary Emotions
2. Pleasure and Disgust: Desire and the Female Porn Star
PART II: PAIN AND THE OTHER
3. Injury, Identity and Recognition - Rize and Fix: The Story of an Addicted City
4. Women, Pain and the Documentaries of Kim Longinotto
PART III: THE LABOUR OF AUTHORSHIP: CARING AND MOURNING
5. Loss and Care: Asian Australian Documentary
6. Civic Love and Contemporary Dissent Documentary
PART IV: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE: HOPE AND NOSTALGIA
7. Children, Futurity and Hope: Born into Brothels
8. Nostalgia, Historical Time and Reality Television: The Idol Series
Epilogue
Notes
Index