Overview

Richard Wall Memorial Award 2012 - Finalist. What key concerns are reflected in documentaries produced in and about the United States? How have documentaries engaged with competing visions of US history, culture, politics, and national identity? This book examines how documentary films have contributed to the American public sphere - creating a kind of public space, serving as sites for community-building, public expression, and social innovation. Geiger focuses on how documentaries have been significant in forming ideas of the nation, both as an imagined space and a real place. Moving from the dawn of cinema to the present day, this is the first full-length study to focus on the extensive range and history of American non-fiction filmmaking. Combining comprehensive overviews with in-depth case studies, Geiger maps American documentary's intricate histories, examining the impact of pre- and early cinema, travelogues, the avant-garde, 1930s social documentary, propaganda, direct cinema, postmodernism, and 'new' documentary. Offering detailed close analyses and fresh insights, this book provides students and scholars with a stimulating guide to American documentary, reminding us of its important place in cinema history.

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9780748670796

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Reviews

This is nothing less than a tremendous achievement ... and the new benchmark in concise appreciation of American documentary film history. --Ian Scott, H-Net In American Documentary Film, Jeffrey Geiger examines the role of documentary film in mobilizing, promoting, and even suppressing central myths of U.S. national identity. His brilliant close readings illuminate the relationship between the rhetorical, technical and stylistic elements of specific films and a broader set of contexts and concerns. Rigorous yet accessible, this elegantly-written book will be of great value to the general reader and the specialist alike, and it will transform the way we consider the history, theory, and practice of documentary filmmaking. --Valerie Smith, Princeton University The richness of Geiger's synthesis will make it an excellent text for courses in the subject and also a resource outside the classroom. The book will be a particularly important acquisition for libraries with limited holdings on documentary film. Highly recommended. All readers. --Ken Nolley, Choice American Documentary Film is well-reasoned and well-written.... subjects like the relationship between documentary form and New Deal politics with groups like Nykino and the Film and Photo League resonate within his argument for documentary as the coalescence of personal and organizational links between practitioners and theorists, radical politics and aesthetic experience. --Susan Ryan, Cineaste A scholar writing about or teaching the propaganda documentaries made during World War II will surely want to consult chapter 5.... Similarly, the beginning of any course that deals with the origins of documentary film could do no better than to assign Geiger's first chapter, which explores the cultural climate in the 1890s that was ripe for the introduction of documentary film. --Carl Rollyson, Journal of American Studies Beautifully combining research with his own thoughts on the subject, Geiger has written a book that should be used in all undergraduate documentary classes, and could be used by more advanced students as well. Simply put, this is one of the definitive texts on the subject, not out of place among the likes of John Grierson, Erik Barnouw, and Bill Nichols. - Scope, Douglas C. MacLeod Jr.

Author Information

Jeffrey Geiger is Senior Lecturer at the University of Essex, where he founded the Centre for Film Studies in 2001. Other books include Facing the Pacific: Polynesia and the U.S. Imperial Imagination (2007), the co-edited Film Analysis: A Norton Reader (2005, expanded edition 2013), and Cinematicity in Media History (2013).

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