ABSTRACT

Regardless of the modes they recruit, every documentary maker selects and organizes information for audiences, engaging us and leading us to deeper understanding of a central question, story, or truth claim. Many documentaries, particularly interview-driven works, seem to float in a limbo of expository information removed from distinctions of place and time. This creates a lifelessness and a formal remove from the material presented. Aristotle's Rhetoric is to argument and persuasion what his Poetics is to drama and story. Each explores what has made certain approaches and structures timeless in their ability to connect with audiences and to communicate feelings and ideas about the natural world and the human experience. Hollywood's structuring of fictional narratives has relevance to documentary storytelling. Locating a story within a circumscribed location or community permits a specificity that deepens character engagement and the complexity of arguments.