ABSTRACT

Documentary scholars have generally viewed Robert Flaherty and John Grierson as the founding fathers of the two major Western documentary traditions—as having initiated and defined the two main approaches to documentary filmmaking. Flaherty is perceived as the pioneer in practicing objective, detached, and anthropological documentation with aesthetic visual expressions, while Grierson is acknowledged as the activist in using documentaries for social advocacy. Although the path-breaking contributions of these two figures and their followers are undeniable, these traditions need to be reexamined today. Bestowing equal historical significance upon these two figures, or the two documentary approaches, seems to be out of all contextual proportion. Furthermore, repeating or reinforcing, and hence mystifying, these two traditions based upon the histories or textbooks of documentary filmmaking written in English can imply an unconscious Anglo-American cultural centrism.