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Product Description
Review
"[Nichols'] has written a road-block of a book which reconfigures the debate on the documentary at a new level of sophistication and complexity which can only be ignored at the risk of ignoring the whole area of documentary film." -- Sight and Sound " ... the most important book on documentary film yet published." -- Canadian Journal of Film Studies "... a valuable and important book ..." -- The Year's Work in Critical and Cultural Theory
Product Description
"Representing Reality" is the first book to offer a conceptual overview of documentary filmmaking practice. It addresses numerous social issues and how they are presented to the viewer by means of style, rhetoric, and narrative technique. The volume poses questions about the relationship of the documentary tradition to power, the body, authority, knowledge, and our experience of history. This study advances the pioneering work of Nichols's earlier book, "Ideology and the Image".
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
If you want to understand documentaries, and their pervasive influence on discourses, then this is a book that you must read ("must" in the Anglo-Americn sense, not in the South African sense of "ought to"). The added bonus is that, in passing, the author defines and determines terms like dead time, interview, metonym, metaphor, evidentiary editing, movement, period, etc, and also the prominent ideas of writers such as Foucault, Lyotard, Baudrillard, Sartre, Jameson, etc, when you thought you knew what they were all about, but needed someone like Bill Nichols to put you straight. Two criticisms. Firstly it could have been written as a text book with headings, sub-headings, and a glossary of terms, which would have made it easier to read, but it would not have allowed Bill Nichols to amuse and delight us with his erudition and perceptive use of language. Secondly, it is out-of-date, and although it refers to a rich mine of documentaries, they are all old. That is not a fault of the author, he chose old films, but because it was published in 1991, and the films he mentioned were brand new then.
Format:Paperback
I bought this book as a reference material recommended to me by my university lecturer for my dissertation.
Usually, I find this type of book to be very dull, even though it is an area I'm interested in, I find it difficult to read in depth about the genre. However, with THIS book, I found it very enjoyable to read and Nichols explains terms and his own theories in ways which are very easy to understand. It was a great help to my dissertation and contains heaps of extensive research and useful explanations of his own theories.
Highly recommended.
Usually, I find this type of book to be very dull, even though it is an area I'm interested in, I find it difficult to read in depth about the genre. However, with THIS book, I found it very enjoyable to read and Nichols explains terms and his own theories in ways which are very easy to understand. It was a great help to my dissertation and contains heaps of extensive research and useful explanations of his own theories.
Highly recommended.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4 reviews
11 of 13 people found the following review helpful
great book for learning about doc. concepts and issues
28 Oct 1998
Format:Paperback
the book has a lot of useful insights and info about doc. it is harder than the Barnouw book because it is less chatty but it is also rich in food for thought. It takes up things like ethics and documentary style, how different kinds of documentary are similar and different, and how the human body is a really important topic in documentary, pornography and anthropology.
11 of 14 people found the following review helpful
A Due Question for Documentary
17 Mar 2001
Format:Paperback
Representing Reality theorizes documentary in all-round perspectives. Among others, I think this book is important especially in that it raises the question of reality per se. Documentary has always been marginal not only in discourse but also in cinema industry, under the poor understanding of reality. I think Nichols's notion of "reflexivity" is a key concept itself in understanding documentary, which also provides a good alternative reading regarding what is documentary or not. I think this book will give you a great deal of food for thought, when you have ever contemplated what is real and when we become to question about what we are seeing, not only in films but also in real life.
1 of 6 people found the following review helpful
a trip to unreadable
3 Jan 2007
Format:Paperback
This attempt at discussing documentary film is fraught with difficulties for the reader. The prose is clumsy, circumstantial and muddled to the point that I found myself reading passages aloud to others for help. Unfortunately none was forthcoming.There is little excuse to buy this book when there are so many good ones such as those by Barnouw and Jacobs which area clear and informative.
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