ABSTRACT
Early sound documentaries did a good deal of lecturing and strike us nowadays as regimented and authoritarian. Old habits of disseminating improving tracts to the unwashed masses die hard, of course, but documentary is now less monological and more dialogical. That is, today’s makers are using the complexities of language, thought, and purpose once confined to older art forms like literature and theatre. Today’s documentaries plumb people’s inmost thoughts and feelings and are ready for dialogue with the more savage, contradictory elements of human identity. They do this by sharing evidence, rather than lecturing conclusions. The benevolently authoritarian narrator—a legacy of patriarchal power structures—has given ground to a multifaceted chorus of experience from the grassroots, where we all truly belong. As a result, the documentary has become more richly textured, nuanced, and human.
