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Docudrama

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{{Short description|Genre featuring dramatized historical re-enactments}}

{{Distinguish|docufiction}}

Docudrama (or documentary drama) is a genre of television and film, which features dramatized re-enactments of actual events. It is described as a hybrid of documentary and drama and "a fact-based representation of real event".{{Cite journal |last=Ogunleye |first=Foluke |date=2005 |title=Television Docudrama as Alternative Records of History |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/20065757 |journal=History in Africa |volume=32 |pages=479–484 |doi=10.1353/hia.2005.0019 |jstor=20065757 |s2cid=162322739 |issn=0361-5413|url-access=subscription }}

Docudramas typically strive to adhere to known historical facts, while allowing some degree of dramatic license in peripheral details, such as when there are gaps in the historical record. Dialogue may, or may not, include the actual words of real-life people, as recorded in historical documents. Docudrama producers sometimes choose to film their reconstructed events in the actual locations in which the historical events occurred.{{Citation needed|date=February 2022}}

A docudrama, in which historical fidelity is the keynote, is generally distinguished from a film merely "based on true events", a term which implies a greater degree of dramatic license, and from the concepts of historical drama, a broader category which may also incorporate entirely fictionalized events intermixed with factual ones, and historical fiction, stories generally featuring fictional characters and plots taking place in historical settings or against the backdrop of historical events.

As a portmanteau, docudrama is sometimes confused with docufiction. However, unlike docufiction—which is essentially a documentary filmed in real time, incorporating some fictional elements—docudrama is filmed at a time subsequent to the events portrayed.{{Citation needed|date=February 2022}}

Characteristics

The docudrama genre is a reenactment of actual historical events.{{cite web |url= http://www.museum.tv/eotvsection.php?entrycode=docudrama |title= Docudrama |publisher= The Museums of Broadcast Communications |access-date= 28 June 2012 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20120812200057/http://www.museum.tv/eotvsection.php?entrycode=docudrama |archive-date= 2012-08-12 |url-status= dead }} However it makes no promise of being entirely accurate in its interpretation. It blends fact and fiction for its recreation and its quality depends on factors like budget and production time.{{sfn|Hoffer|Nelson|1978|p=21}} The filmmaker Leslie Woodhead presents the docudrama dilemma in the following manner:

{{Blockquote|[instead of hunting for definitions] I think it much more useful to think of the form as a spectrum that runs from journalistic reconstruction to relevant drama with infinite graduations along the way. In its various mutation it's employed by investigative journalists, documentary feature makers, and imaginative dramatists. So we shouldn't be surprised when programs as various as Culloden and Oppenheimer or Suez, or Cabinet reconstructions refuse tidy and comprehensive definition.{{sfn|Rosenthal|1999|p=xv}}}}

Docudramas producers use literary and narrative techniques to flesh out the bare facts of an event in history to tell a story. Some degree of license is often taken with minor historical facts for the sake of enhancing the drama. Docudramas are distinct from historical fiction, in which the historical setting is a mere backdrop for a plot involving fictional characters.

The scholar Steven N. Lipkin considers docudrama as a form of performance through recollection which in turn shapes our collective memory of past events. It is a mode of representation.{{sfn|Lipkin|2011|pp=1-2}} Educator Benicia D'sa maintained that docudramas are heavily impacted by filmmakers' own perspectives and understanding of history.{{Cite journal |last=D'sa |first=Benicia |date=2005-01-01 |title=Social Studies in the Dark: Using Docudramas to Teach History |url=https://doi.org/10.3200/TSSS.96.1.9-13 |journal=The Social Studies |volume=96 |issue=1 |pages=9–13 |doi=10.3200/TSSS.96.1.9-13 |s2cid=144165650 |issn=0037-7996|url-access=subscription }}

History

The impulse to incorporate historical material into literary texts has been an intermittent feature of literature in the west since its earliest days. Aristotle's theory of art is based on the use of putatively historical events and characters. Especially after the development of modern mass-produced literature, there have been genres that relied on history or then-current events for material. English Renaissance drama, for example, developed subgenres specifically devoted to dramatizing recent murders and notorious cases of witchcraft.

However, docudrama as a separate category belongs to the second half of the twentieth century. Louis de Rochemont, creator of The March of Time, became a producer at 20th Century Fox in 1943.{{cite book |editor-last1=Aitken |editor-first1=Ian |title=The Concise Routledge Encyclopedia of the Documentary Film |date=2013 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=9781136512063 |pages=767–768 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ay5rIWCXlLsC&pg=PA767}} There he brought the newsreel aesthetic to films, producing a series of movies based upon real events using a realistic style that became known as semidocumentary.{{cite book |last1=Schauer |first1=Bradley |title=Escape Velocity: American Science Fiction Film, 1950–1982 |date=2017 |publisher=Wesleyan University Press |isbn=9780819576606 |page=42 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=q1aoDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA42}} The films (The House on 92nd Street, Boomerang, 13 Rue Madeleine) were imitated, and the style soon became used even for completely-fictional stories, such as The Naked City.{{cite book |editor1-last=Krutnik |editor1-first=Frank |editor2-last=Neale |editor2-first=Steve |editor3-last=Neve |editor3-first=Brian |editor4-last=Stanfield |editor4-first=Peter |title="Un-American" Hollywood: Politics and Film in the Blacklist Era |date=2007 |publisher=Rutgers University Press |isbn=9780813541983 |page=143 |edition=Illustrated |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NubM5xfHhoIC&pg=PA143}}{{cite book |last1=Spicer |first1=Andrew |title=Film Noir |date=2018 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=9781317875031 |page=57 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fCapDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA57}} Perhaps the most significant of the semidocumentary films was He Walked by Night (1948), based upon an actual case.{{cite book |last1=Krutnik |first1=Frank |title=In a Lonely Street: Film Noir, Genre, Masculinity |date=2006 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=9781134973187 |page=206 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UWyIAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA206}}{{cite book |last1=Sanders |first1=Steven |last2=Skoble |first2=Aeon J. |title=The Philosophy of TV Noir |date=2021 |publisher=University Press of Kentucky |isbn=9780813181561 |page=55 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jAQaEAAAQBAJ&pg=PT55}} Jack Webb had a supporting role in the movie and struck up a friendship with the LAPD consultant, Sergeant Marty Wynn. The film and his relationship with Wynn inspired Webb to create Dragnet,{{cite book |last1=Nickerson |first1=Catherine Ross |title=The Cambridge Companion to American Crime Fiction |date=2010 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=9780521136068 |page=102 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HlkUqB7wYpsC&pg=PA102}} one of the most famous docudramas in history.

The particular portmanteau term "docudrama" was coined in 1957 by Philip C. Lewis (1904-1979), of Tenafly, New Jersey, a former vaudevillian and stage actor turned playwright and author,{{cite news |title=Philip C. Lewis, 75, dramatist, writer for various media |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/76045979/obituary-for-philip-c-lewis-aged-75/ |access-date=25 June 2022 |work=The Bergen Record |date=5 September 1979}}{{cite news |title=Philip C. Lewis, Writer For Film, Radio and TV |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1979/09/06/archives/philip-c-lewis-writer-for-film-radio-and-tv.html |access-date=25 June 2022 |work=The New York Times |date=6 September 1979}} in connection with a production he wrote, in response to the defeat of a local school-funding referendum, for the Tenafly Citizens' Education Council addressing "the development of education and its significance in American life."{{cite web |title=docudrama (n.) |url=https://www.etymonline.com/word/docudrama |website=Online Etymology Dictionary |publisher=Douglas Harper |access-date=25 June 2022}} Lewis trademarked the term "DocuDrama" in 1967 (expired, 1992) for a production company of the same name.{{cite web |title=DOCUDRAMA - Trademark Information |url=https://www.trademarkelite.com/trademark/trademark-detail/72264942/DOCUDRAMA |website=Trademark Elite |access-date=25 June 2022}}

The influence of New Journalism tended to create a license for authors to treat with literary techniques material that might in an earlier age have been approached in a purely journalistic way. Both Truman Capote and Norman Mailer were influenced by this movement, and Capote's In Cold Blood is arguably the most famous example of the genre.{{sfn|Siegle|1984|pp=437-451}}

American television

Some docudrama examples for American television include Brian's Song (1971), and Roots (1977). Brian's Song is the biography of Brian Piccolo, a Chicago Bears football player who died at a young age after battling cancer. Roots depicts the life of a slave and his family.

Examples

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This list is ordered by release date.

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See also

References

{{Reflist}}

Bibliography

  • {{cite journal |last1=Hoffer |first1=Tom W. |last2=Nelson |first2=Richard Alan |title=Docudrama on American TV |journal=Journal of the University Film Association |date=Spring 1978 |volume=30 |issue=2 |pages=21–27 |jstor=20687422 |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/20687422}}
  • {{cite book |last1=Lipkin |first1=Steven N. |title=Docudrama Performs the Past: Arenas of Argument in Films based on True Stories |date=2011 |publisher=Cambridge Scholars Publishing |isbn=9781443827874 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AaUnBwAAQBAJ}}
  • {{cite book|title=Why Docudrama?: Fact-Fiction on Film and TV |first=Alan |last=Rosenthal |publisher=Southern Illinois Press |location=Carbondale & Edwardsville |year=1999 |isbn=978-0-8093-2186-5 }}
  • {{cite journal |last=Siegle |first=Robert |title=Capote's Hand-Carved Coffins and the Nonfiction Novel |journal=Contemporary Literature |volume=25 |year=1984 |issue=4 |pages=437–451 |doi=10.2307/1208055|jstor=1208055 }}

Further reading

  • {{cite book |last=Duarte |first=German A. |year=2009 |title=La scomparsa dell'orologio universale. Peter Watkins e i mass media audiovisivi |place=Milan |publisher=Mimesis Edizioni |isbn=978-8857501222 }}
  • {{cite book |last=Duarte |first=German A. |year=2016 |url=https://www.academia.edu/28664888 |title=Conversations With Peter Watkins/Conversaciones con Peter Watkins |place=Bogotà |publisher=UTADEO PRESS |isbn=978-958-725-195-1 }}
  • Goodwin, Andrew, et al. Drama-Documentary. London: British Film Institute, 1983.
  • {{cite book |last=Hellmann |first=John |year=1981 |title=Fables of Fact: The New Journalism as New Fiction |url=https://archive.org/details/fablesoffactnew00hell |url-access=registration |place=Urbana |publisher=University of Illinois Press |isbn=0252008472 }}
  • {{cite book |last=Kazin |first=Alfred |year=1973 |title=Bright Book of Life: American Hot Dogs and Storytellers from Hemingway to Mailer |place=Boston |publisher=Little, Brown |isbn=0316484180 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/brightbookoflife00kazi }}
  • {{cite book|title=Real Emotional Logic: Film and Television Docudrama As Persuasive Practice |editor1-last=Lipkin |editor1-first=Steven N. |publisher=Southern Illinois Press |location=Carbondale |year=2002 |isbn=978-0-8093-2409-5 }}
  • {{cite book |last=Lukács |first=György |author-link=György Lukács |editor1-first=Hannah |editor2-last=Mitchell |editor2-first=Stanley |editor1-last=Mitchell |year=1962 |title=The Historical Novel |place=London |publisher=Merlin Press }}
  • {{cite book |title=No Other Way to Tell It: Dramadoc/docudrama on television |last=Paget |first=Derek |publisher=Manchester University Press |place=Manchester |edition=2nd |year=2011 |isbn=978-0-7190-8446-1 }}
  • {{cite book |editor1-last=Rhodes |editor1-first=Gary Don |editor2-last=Springer |editor2-first=John Parris |year=2006 |title=Docufictions: Essays on the intersection of documentary and fictional filmmaking |place=London |publisher=McFarland & Co. |isbn=978-0-7864-2184-8 }}
  • {{cite book |last1=Roscoe |first1=Jane |last2=Hight |first2=Craig |year=2001 |title=Faking it: Mock-documentary and the subversion of factuality |publisher=Manchester University Press |place=Manchester |isbn=978-0-7190-5641-3 }}
  • {{cite book|title=Writing Docudrama: dramatizing reality for film and TV |first=Alan |last=Rosenthal |publisher=Focal Press |location=Boston, Mass. |year=1995 |isbn=0240801954 }}
  • {{cite journal |last=Stavreva |first=Kirilka |title=Fighting Words: Witch-speak in Late Elizabethan Docu-fiction |journal=Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies |volume=30 |year=2000 |issue=2 |pages=309–338 |doi=10.1215/10829636-30-2-309|s2cid=170650915 }}
  • {{cite book |last=White |first=Hayden |author-link=Hayden White |year=1978 |title=Tropics of Discourse: Essays in Cultural Criticism |url=https://archive.org/details/tropicsofdiscour00hayd |url-access=registration |place=Baltimore |publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press |isbn=0801821274 }}

External links

{{Commons category|Docudramas}}

  • [http://www.screenonline.org.uk/tv/id/1103146/index.html British Film Institute paper on British drama-documentary]
  • [http://www.sadibey.com/dosyalar/Gerekli_Seyler/Documentary_Genres.doc Docudrama: the real (his)tory] by Çiçek Coşkun (Middle East Technical University, Department of Sociology): unpublished academic paper
  • [http://www.bookrags.com/research/docudrama-sjpc-01/ Docudrama] at BookRags

{{Film genres}}

Category:Documentary film genres

Category:Drama genres

Category:Film genres

Category:Non-fiction genres

Category:Television genres

Docudrama