The Archive Effect: Found Footage and the Audiovisual Experience of History examines the problems of representation inherent in the appropriation of archival film and video footage for historical purposes. Baron analyses the way in which the meanings of archival documents are modified when they are placed in new texts and contexts, constructing the viewer’s experience of and relationship to the past they portray. Rethinking the notion of the archival document in terms of its recep...

In contemporary culture, existing audiovisual recordings are constantly reused and repurposed for various ends, raising questions regarding the ethics of such appropriations, particularly when the recording depicts actual people and events. Every reuse of a preexisting recording is, on some level, a misuse in that it was not intended or at least anticipated by the original maker, but not all misuses are necessarily unethical. In fact, there are many instances of productive misuse that seem...

The fourth edition of Bill Nichols's best-selling text, Introduction to Documentary, has been vastly altered in its entirety to bring this indispensable textbook up to date and reconceptualize aspects of its treatment of documentaries past and present. Here Nichols, with Jaimie Baron, has edited each chapter for clarity and ease of use and expanded the book with updates and new ideas.Featuring abundant examples and images, Introduction to Documentary, Fourth Edition

The word "ventriloquism" has traditionally referred to the act of throwing one's voice into an object that appears to speak. Media Ventriloquism repurposes the term to reflect our complex vocal relationship with media technologies. The 21st century has offered an array of technological means to separate voice from body, practices which have been used for good and ill. We currently zoom about the internet, in conversations full of audio glitches, using tools that make it possible t...

The fourth volume in the Docalogue series, this book explores the significance of the documentary Honeyland (2019) in relation to documentary ethics, the representation of human and animal relations, environmental studies, genre theory, and documentary distribution.The film, focused on a Turkish-speaking woman in Macedonia who cultivates bees to produce honey through an ancient and environmentally sustainable method, raises important questions about the place of humans and...

The fifth title in the Docalogue series, this book examines Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson’s 2021 documentary, Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised).The award-winning film draws on archival footage and interviews to examine the legacy of the Harlem Cultural Festival, a showcase of Black music staged weekly throughout the summer of 1969. The film interrogates this event as a piece of “forgotten” history and prompts critical reflection on why this hist...

The third volume in the Docalogue series, this book explores the significance of the documentary series Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness (2020), which became 'must-see-TV' for a newly captive audience during the global Covid-19 pandemic.The series – a true-crime, tabloid spectacle about a murder-for-hire plot within the big cat trade – prompts interesting questions about which documentaries become popular in particular moments and why. However, it also raises importa...

This second book in the Routledge Docalogue series continues to model a new form for the discussion of documentary film, focusing on a new film and a different set of critical questions.Kedi (2016) is the first feature documentary by Turkish-American filmmaker Ceyda Torun. The film provides a window into the everyday lives of Istanbul street cats; their itinerant meanderings present a non-human perspective on this ever-changing, ancient city while at the same time exploring the mea...

As the inaugural volume in the Docalogue series, this book models a new form for the discussion of documentary film.James Baldwin’s writing is intensely relevant to contemporary politics and culture, and Peck’s strategies for representing him and conveying his work in I Am Not Your Negro (2016) raise important questions about how documentary can bring the work of a complex thinker like Baldwin to a broader public. By combining five distinct perspectives on a single documen...

This sixth volume in the Docalogue series explores the significance of Flee, the award-winning and critically acclaimed 2021 animated documentary about one man's journey from child refugee in Afghanistan to building a stable home as an adult with his soon-to-be husband in Denmark.The film is particularly notable in that it asks pressing questions about how stories of marginalized peoples come to be told, circulated, and consumed within contemporary culture. By combining fi...