Contemporary Documentaries - Essay Example

Contemporary Documentaries Introduction In the modern society, focus on the inherent factors that influence societal existence is inevitable. Contemporary documentaries remain imperative in highlighting the most influential social, economic, and political effects that hinders humanity. Such films that includes sports, mock, rock, and investigative documentaries reflects the inherent factors that largely affect society well-being both positively and negatively. Most contemporary documentaries are domineering in informing the society of the inherent vices or occurrences around them. Consequently, the paper explores features, trends, methods and production of varied sub-genres of various contemporary documentaries as aforementioned. In achieving the effect of contemporary documentaries in the society, the paper investigates and compares various such films such as The Two Escobars, This is Spinal Tap, Metallica: Some Kind of Monster, and Food Inc. The paper explores the various methods used in designing the films while making comprehensive study on individual sub-genres. It is vital to note that contemporary documentaries remain authoritative in exposing various economic, social, and political trends or injustices that occurs within the society. Contemporary Documentaries In essence, contemporary documentaries are a representation of unceasing struggle to recall majority of events in the transitional history. The documentary explores at the complicated ways in men attempt to shape their future from past events of their lives. More importantly, the documentaries differ from traditional designs as they reflect the inherent trends facing the society. Such contemporary documentaries that include The Two Escobars, This is Spinal Tap, Metallica: Some Kind of Monster, and Food Inc possess various unique features contrary to traditional documentaries. Such features includes, Primary features of Contemporary documentaries According to Nichols (163), contemporary documentaries inherently present a national identity. Such national identity indicated through the films depicts shared values including collective identity and instilling communal sense. For instance, The Two Escobars reflects effects of class stratification on imperative economic activities including sports. Sporting activities such as football can spur unity in a given nation when citizens initiate loyalty in supporting their national team. However, the documentaries may also reflect inherent challenges faced by the society in relation to leadership and economic disparities effects. Though band members in Metallica: Some Kind of Monster documentary can overcome financial challenges by recruiting a performance team, they face struggles in leadership especially between Ulrich and Hetfield. The leadership struggles greatly affects their performance and Towles has to mediate. The aforementioned personal differences in the documentary reflect modern society where specific organizations fail to deliver their mandate due to leadership issues mainly resulting from personal differences. Similarly, This is Spinal Tap struggles to promote their newly produced album under less innovative leadership that also faces financial challenges. The plight of poor marketing strategies and financial problems presents many challenges to the contemporary society especially corporate organizations. On the contrary, Food Inc and The Two Escobars documentaries reflect the contemporary issues of economic power and influence. Food industry organizations use technological developments including chemicals in enhancing the growth of animals and agricultural products for consumption. Such compromise enables the industries to gain financial advantages by increasing production. Similarly, Pablo Escobar in the sports documentary, The Two Escobars uses his financial power in influencing the most imperative economic activities in his country. He uses his financial capability to dominate football activities in Colombia, an influence that compromises integral performance of the national team even in international competition levels such as world cup. The aforementioned issues presents the main features of contemporary documentaries that inherently aim at highlighting economic, social, and political challenges facing a country. Comparable interests Governing contemporary works In the contemporary society, various interests govern the production and interest in contemporary documentaries. The interests remain mostly focussed in highlighting economic, social, and political challenges facing the society. For instance, investigative documentary Food Inc, explores the inherent economic and health issues caused by food industries on their consumers. Similarly, The Two Escobars documents the inherent influence of financial power on sporting activities and the way society embraces national unity through such socioeconomic engagements. Moreover, this is Spinal Tap, Metallica and Some Kind of Monster highlights the contemporary economic, political, and leadership challenges facing contemporary music industry. How production technologies have shaped contemporary documentary Introduction of modern film production technologies have had immense effect on development of contemporary documentaries. Since documentaries entails production of films that depicts both visual and audio elements, enhanced education and instruments have defined the field. Modern audiovisual instruments produce excellent pictures and sounds that attract high interests from viewers and subsequently enhancing interest in the films. Moreover, technological access to remote areas and increased applications has largely spurred shaping of contemporary documentaries. For instance, the investigative documentary, Food Inc documents activities accomplished by various food industries in USA. How new distributions vehicles and Exhibition influenced contemporary documentary Modern film exhibition and distribution trends have increased access and popularity of contemporary documentary films globally. Film directors and producers perform comprehensive promotions of their documentaries through theatres and technological platforms such as internet. Such comprehensive marketing resulting from modern refined methods of distributing and exhibiting artworks have positively influenced popularity of contemporary documentaries. In addition, heavy marketing through modern exhibition channels spurs the enhanced reception of produced documentary films. For instance, efficient modern exhibition strategies of Food Inc documentaries contributed to winning various awards including Gotham awards. Discussion of the Four Sub-Genres of Contemporary Documentaries Sports Documentaries Essentially, sports documentaries reflect national identity themes aimed at communicating communal sense and shared values. The two Escobars documentary reflects a sense of national togetherness through playing of football. Andres Escobars, a famous Colombian footballer expressed national sense of identity in representing his country to World Cup competitions in Los Angeles. Consequently, The two Escobars depicts the current primary features of contemporary documentaries that aim at promoting unity amongst citizens. Moreover, the film enhances a single set of value relating to the importance of certain members or groups in the society. For instance, footballers such as Andrew Escobar play a fundamental role in representing his country values and standards. Effective competition through winning football matches would improve the morale of other citizens. Subsequently, sport documentaries including The Escobars promotes togetherness and enhances national identity. The Two Escobars as a contemporary sport documentary depicts elements of class stratification in the society. For instance, Pablo Escobar displays his high-class status using wealth that he acquired through money laundering in influencing the lifestyles of footballers and the sport itself. He uses his status to influence football players such as Andrew Escobar into making their influenced decisions. Pablo represents the common trends occurring throughout contemporary world in relation to creation of wealth and influence of wealthier citizens in the society. Besides indicating effects of social stratification in the society, the two Escobars reflects contemporary challenges facing influential individuals in the society including leaders and celebrities. Such individuals such as Andrew Escobar possess a key virtue within the society in relation to providing significant performances without failure. An eminent under performance in their duties or roles would affect the society. For instance, Andrew Escobar faces social trauma for failing to assist his country in achieving sports glory in Los Angeles. He mistakenly scores a goal for the opponent and contributes to his country’s failure in wining world cup. Therefore, the sport documentary represented by the ESPN’s 30 for 30 portrays the impacts and influence of football to a whole state and various factors associated with the contemporary soccer. The contemporary documentary has however totally shaped the way our thoughts integrate what soccer entails. The sport is implicated either for various related issues that affects negatively or positively to the culture of people including historical success within international platforms. Due to The two Escobars significance in societal development in relation to economic and political developments, various imperative factors in contemporary sports documentaries including imbrications of capital comes into play. The paper extensively presents such factors as below, Sports as Imbricated with Capital The two Escobar (2010) elaborates the role of drug lords in the rise, stability and fall of the Colombian football most importantly in the 1980’s and its fall in the 1990’s. There is an appreciation of the Escobars role in the success of o the Colombian football (Zimbalist and Zimbalist, The Two Escobars). However, there is equivocal condemnation of the condemnation of the illegality and the chaotic nature of the support. The most evident fact is that the rise of the Colombian football dependent wholly on the capital contributions at all stages of the processes involved. Huge capital finds use in retaining of football stars and persuading them from migrating to Europe. Consequently, the issues of money interplay in football as presented in the film depict contemporary politics within sports and the society. Contemporary sports documentaries remain imperative in exploring inherent political trends and economic power influence in societal activities. Sports as Visually Spectacular Other than imbrications with capital, the contemporary documentary considers sports a visual medium. Sports forms a special object where viewers’ exploits visual register and by so doing the contemporary documentary therefore emphasizes its visual and spectacular properties. Essentially, sports in the contemporary documentaries majors around the theme of self-expression. Apart from the visual register, sports also employ non-verbal communication, which is exploited in the contemporary documentary. These non-verbal cues enables for the celebration of the unique potential of players in the field. Mockumentary and Comedy Documentary Contemporary comedy and mockumentary documentaries remain essential in reflecting modern trends in the society. In eliciting humour amongst viewers, mock documentaries reflect inherent social, economic and political trends facing the society. Most of such challenges that may affect organizations or economic structures in the society remain comical if acted in a mockery manner. This is Spinal Tap, for instance, shows economic, political and social facing spinal tap during promotion tour of their newly produced albums (Reiner, This is spinal tap). Dibergi Marti, the filmmaker, uses the economic, social, and political struggles faced by the band in a comical manner to elicit humour amongst his followers. The most outstanding theme of the mock documentary relates to displaying the contemporary challenges faced by music industries in promoting their productions. Most musical bands including Spinal tap have no financial capacity to meets their financial obligations and have to rely on other influential personnel. The documentary achieves its objective of highlighting the inherent challenges within music industry critique-performance. Such critiques remain effectively achieved through paradoxical performance (Ward 4). This is spinal tap besides using critique styles in performance also employs application of poetic and perfomative mode in creating humour about challenges faced by Spinal tap band. Poetic modes lead to a documentary that expresses moods, peculiar tones or particular effects. The poetic mode in a documentary extensively explores the visual, aural associations and distinctive patterns to draw the desired connections (Nichols 100). The poetic modes are often associational and tend to be evocative in nature. The mode is not in any way attempting to clarify, or make a rational argument about the practical world. Rather, it is attempting to alter the viewer’s perspective of viewing various objects in the actual and advancing the creation of connection drawing between the otherwise obviously connected components of the world. The poetic modes, consequently, results to breakage of both time and space aspect of the event, and creates a multi-perspective look at the issue of concern. Besides poetic mode, perfomative mode remains critical in mock documentaries and normally tends to draw the viewers’ attention from the structural form of the documentary. The mode does not emphasize relation of the image and its actual existence in the real world. The link between the image and its actual sense remains not removed but simply incorporated into the different aspects of the documentary (Britton 311). Rock Documentaries Essentially, rock documentaries record a tradition of indicating and not narrating visual occurrence as displayed by films. The documentaries depict humanity role during performance and the way they overcome inherent challenges. They depict our identities to the world by enabling people to display their talents through excellent performance. For instance, Metallica: Some Kind of Monster displays the inherent performances of Mettallica band members as they aim at producing an excellent piece of music out of originality. The band members expect to produce a new album with no inherent riffs, songs, or tittles but rather believes in creativity to enable them establish a famous music. Through endurance, the band members recruit performance team and begin the courageous journey of producing a famous album. However, Hetfield absence and sickness disrupts the band’s focus, they remains focused and produced ‘St. Anger’ as their Album (Sinofsky and Berlinger, Metallica: Some Kind of Monster). The documentary shows the role of courageous performance in music industry. Though the band members had no idea of future success, they recruited a performance team and even famous documentary personnel to display their courage. However, the inherent success of the band despite challenges including disagreements between Hetfield and Ulrich remains overshadowed by questions of gender roles and sensitivity. The documentary film has insignificance representation of gender sensitivity in music industry. The thought of male dominance in the film inflicts the question of gender insensitivity in the rock documentary. However, the foremost contemporary documentary trend showed by Metallica: Some Kind of Monster relates to the role technology in excellent performance. Exemplary performance in music industry and production of famous documentaries requires an assemblage of excellent team including filmmakers. Therefore, contemporary documentary development has remained shaped by development in technology (Nichols 163). Investigative Documentary Investigative documentaries define an inherent form of journalism that researches on corporate wrongdoings, crime, corruption, and political trends within the society. Investigative documentaries are significant in journalism as they reflect the most contemporary economic, social, and political trends in the society. Besides being investigative, the documentaries remain informative and subsequently highlights or exposes malpractices distinctive with certain organizations or members in the society. Food Inc, the inherent investigative documentary in discussion investigates the trends within food industries in America. The documentary aims at exploring the inherent expenses of achieving food value at the expense of environmental effects and nutrition (Schlosser and Pollan, Food Inc). Current technological trends dominates the food industry where chemicals and biotechnological innovations finds use in enabling faster and quality growth of animals and crops meant for agricultural purposes. It is imperative that an investigative documentary such as Food Inc would remain informative of the inherent economic practices within such industries. Within the industries, stakeholders use toxic chemicals in production of modified animals and crops for consumption. Such practices compromise the health status of consumers while making food industry stakeholders richer. Therefore, Food Inc as a contemporary documentary film remains reflective of the inherent societal challenges including those resulting from technological developments in agricultural sectors. The documentary employs an investigative mode in establishing the economic and health impacts of using biotechnology in enhancing growth of animals and crops. Conclusion In conclusion, contemporary documentaries depict the current economic, social, and political trends within a specified society. Various contemporary films including sports, mock, investigative, and rock documentaries posses various similar primary features that includes informative and influential nature. Different sub-genres of the contemporary documentaries possess related themes. There is also large-scale involvement of the complicated technology in production, reproduction and simulation processes of the documentary. The contemporary documentary shows high degree of originality and less behavioural transformation from the archival source. The documentaries such as Food Inc inform the society of industry trends within food industry including consumption of animal and agricultural products grow from toxic chemicals. Essentially, various comparable set of interests exists between the discussed types of contemporary documentaries. Such comparable interests range from political, economic, and social challenges that affect societal well-being. Most rock documentaries reflect individual roles and performances in efficient production of excellent music. Similarly, mock documentaries aims at achieving maximum market dominance through production and publicity of brilliantly produced music. However, the foremost goal or purpose of contemporary documentaries is to inform the society of trending vices or economic, political, or social occurrences that may directly or indirectly affects them. Production of the documentary films may follow a similar or common method especially in designing of modes. For instance, both mock and rock documentaries employs effective use of poetic and Perfomative modes in production of the most popular and interesting films. Development of various modern technologies including excellent audiovisual instruments have transformed production and processing of contemporary documentaries. Such technologies that also include modernization of exhibition and distribution of contemporary documentaries have enhanced their dominance in the market. Consequently, dominance of contemporary documentaries in the global market have also enhanced their relevance in the society mainly in relation to informing people of the inherent social, economic, and political trends. It is imperative to note that the contemporary documentaries define the relevance of visual arts in enhancing societal informative options. Work Cited Britton, Andrew. Contemporary Approaches to Film and Media Series: Britton on Film: the Complete Film Criticism of Andrew Britton. Ed. Barry, Keith Grant. Michigan : Wayne State University Press, 2008. Print. Nichols, Bill. Introduction to documentary. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001.Print. Reiner, Rob. Dir. This is spinal tap. Atmosphere Agency, 1984. Film Schlosser, Eric and Pollan, Michael. Dir. Food Inc. POV, 2009. Film Sinofsky, Bruce and Berlinger, Joe. Dir. Metallica: Some Kind of Monster. Paramount Pictures, 2004. Film. Ward, Paul. Documentary: The Margins of Reality. New York: Columbia University Press, 2013. Print. Zimbalist, Jeff and Zimbalist, Michael. Dir. The Two Escobars. All Rise Films, 2010. Film Read More