Table of Contents

Preface; Chapter One: Some Ways to Think About Documentary; Chapter Two: Beginnings - The Americans and Popular; Anthropology, 1922-29; Chapter Three: The Soviets and Political Indoctrination, 1922-29; Chapter Four: Beginnings - The European Avant-Gardists and Artistic Experimentation, 1922-29; Chapter Five: Institutionalization: Great Britain, 1929-39; Chapter Six: Institutionalization - United States, 1930-41; Chapter Seven: Expansion - Great Britain, 1939-45; Chapter Eight: Expansion - Canada, 1939-45; Chapter Nine: Expansion - United States, 1941-45; Chapter Ten: The Unfulfilled Promise - Postwar Documentary, 1945-52; Chapter Eleven: In Pursuit of Excellence - The National Film Board of Canada's Unit B, 1948-64; Chapter Twelve: A New Channel - Documentary for Television in the "Golden Years", 1951-71; Chapter Thirteen: British Free Cinema and Social-Realist Features, 1956-63; Chapter Fourteen: Direct Cinema and Cinema Verite, 1960-70; Chapter Fifteen: English Language Documentary in the 1970s - Power of the People. Chapter Sixteen: English Language Documentary in the 1980s - Video Arrives; Chapter Seventeen: English Language Documentary in the 1990s - Reality Bytes; Chapter Eighteen: Other Ways to Think About Documentary Appendices.

About the Author

Jack C. Ellis is Professor Emeritus of Northwestern University, where he taught film from 1956-91. He has also taught, over that period, at the University of Texas, NYU, and UCLA. He was a founding member of the Society for Cinema Studies, and was awarded Honorary Life Membership in 1998. His textbook A History of Film (co-authored with Virginia Wright Wexman) is currently in its fifth edition, published in the US by Allyn &Bacon. Betsy A. McLane is the Project Director of "The American Documentary Showcase" a presentation of the U.S. Department of State Bureau and Education and Cultural Affairs. Director Emerita of the International Documentary Association. She has taught courses on film and documentary at Loyola Marymount University, the University of Vermont, Emerson College and the University of Southern California. She is a Past President of the University Film and Video Association.

Reviews

"It's an excellent introduction for any student wishing to understand the major trends in documentary production in the UK and North America and the major films of various eras...Overall, A New History of Documentary Film is a worthy and ambitious book. The text would be a great resource for a library or for a documentary studies class" L. Clare Bratten, Journal of Film and Video 60.1, Spring 2008--Sanford Lakoff

"The book is homage to documentary pioneer John Grierson who coined the term documentary in 1926. Each of the 18 chapters offers a concise and useful historical overview of a particular time period, topic, or filmmaker and adds a list of relevant film titles and publications. As a carefully crafted and reader-friendly volume, this book takes its place alongside Erik Barnouw's classic Documentary ("1974)" -Humanities-Performing Arts-Film 2006" "

The timing couldn't be better for a knowledgeable survey of documentary films that acknowledges (and appreciates) the work of Robert Flaherty but continues through the era of cable TV, digital video, Michael Moore and Born Into Brothels. This thoughtful appraisal will be useful to students as well as moviegoers who want to learn more about the history of nonfiction filmmaking. Leonard Maltin