ABSTRACT
What is documentary? ‘Documentary’ is a term that is popularly asserted to have been first used by John Grierson, to describe Robert Flaherty’s film Moana (Famous Players – Lasky Corp, US, 1926), coming from the French documentaire, or travelogue, a form that grew out of the actualities of early cinema (see previous chapter). While accurately describing one aspect of Moana – a travelogue – the term took on new meaning in relation to the film’s approach to depicting the ‘real’. However, a more familiar use of the term occurred soon after the birth of cinema in the writings of a Polish filmmaker Boleshaw Matuszewski, who proposed a use for the new medium as a museum of contemporary life, capturing activities that would be of ‘documentary’ interest.
