B None of this prevented documentaries from being produced, though exactly
when the process started is open to question. It is often claimed that
Nanook of the North was the first documentary. Made by the American filmmaker Robert J.
Flaherty in 1922, the film depicts the hard, sometimes heroic lives of native
American peoples in the Canadian Arctic.
Nanook of the North is said to have set off
a trend that continued though the 1920s with the films of Dziga Vertov in the Soviet
Union and works by other filmmakers around the world. However, that 1922
starting point has been disputed by supporters of an earlier date. Among this group
is film historian Anthony Berwick, who argues that the genre can be traced back as
early as 1895, when similar films started to appear, including newsreels, scientific
films and accounts of journeys of exploration.
C In the years following 1922, one particular style of documentary started to
appear. These films adopted a serious tone while depicting the lives of actual
people. Cameras were mounted on tripods and subjects rehearsed and repeated
activities for the purposes of the film. British filmmaker John Grierson was an
important member of this group. Grierson’s career lasted nearly 40 years, beginning
with
Drifters (1929) and culminating with
I Remember, I Remember (1968).
However, by the 1960s Grierson’s style of film was being rejected by the Direct
Cinema movement, which wanted to produce more natural and authentic films:
cameras were hand-held; no additional lighting or sound was used; and the subjects
did not rehearse. According to film writer Paula Murphy, the principles and methods
of Direct Cinema brought documentaries to the attention of universities and film
historians as never before. Documentaries started to be recognized as a distinct
genre worthy of serious scholarly analysis.