Representing Reality: Issues and Concepts in Documentary |
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Bill Nichols
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Pages: 336 (Paperback)
ISBN: 0253206812
Pub: Indiana University Press
Pub date: 1992-06-01
Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 118604
Reader Reviews:
Comprehensive,difficult,seminal,rewarding (1/2 people found this helpful)
If you want to understand documentaries, and their pervasive influence on discourses, then this is a book that you must read ("must" in the Anglo-Americn sense, not in the South African sense of "ought to"). The added bonus is that, in passing, the author defines and determines terms like dead time, interview, metonym, metaphor, evidentiary editing, movement, period, etc, and also the prominent ideas of writers such as Foucault, Lyotard, Baudrillard, Sartre, Jameson, etc, when you thought you knew what they were all about, but needed someone like Bill Nichols to put you straight. Two criticisms. Firstly it could have been written as a text book with headings, sub-headings, and a glossary of terms, which would have made it easier to read, but it would not have allowed Bill Nichols to amuse and delight us with his erudition and perceptive use of language. Secondly, it is out-of-date, and although it refers to a rich mine of documentaries, they are all old. That is not a fault of the author, he chose old films, but because it was published in 1991, and the films he mentioned were brand new then.
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Amazon.co.uk places this book into the following categories:
Books -> Subjects -> Music, Stage & Screen -> Performing Arts
Books -> Subjects -> Poetry, Drama & Criticism -> History & Criticism -> Literary Studies
Books -> Subjects -> History -> Cultural History
Books -> Refinements -> Language (feature_browse-bin) -> English
Books -> Refinements -> Age (feature_two_browse-bin)
Books -> Refinements -> Format (binding_browse-bin) -> Paperback
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