Essays on Documentary

America is home to five percent of the world’s population and twenty-five percent of the world’s prisoners (Lee). Starting with explaining that America has the highest leading numbers of incarcerated people in a land that is supposed to be free, the documentary “13TH” goes into…

Jennifer Siebel Newsom, writer and a director of “Miss Representation.” In her documentary she argues that mainstream media and culture play a part to the under-representation of women in place of power and authority. The younger generation of girls is targeted audience. The documentary is…

This choice was purely based on its scientific nature, since Part I was highly concentrated on cultural and creative aspects. This is a polarised perspective from even the conference watched. This documentary also incites interest just by its title, because everyone has their own perspective…

 For many decades, going to war has been looked at as a way to make profit. The impact that war has on humans and the environment is absolutely horrific. The way so many countries value money and power over people and peace is disgusting and…

Documentary films are a powerful tool in spotlighting and drawing attention to social issues and problems. 13TH is a title to Ava Du Vernay’s 2016 documentary that focuses on the exploitation of the lope holes on the thirteenth amendment of America’s constitution by some able…

“That’s why when someone asks me about violence, I just find it incredible because what it means is that the person who’s asking that question has absolutely no idea what black people have gone through, what black people have experienced in this country since the…

The film conducts a concrete research into the American system and comes up with shocking statistics. The director relies on several liberals and conservatives whom she interviews to (replace-to) dig in about the African American society has been affected by the prison complex in the…

In the mid-1960s, Malcolm X stated, ‘In the event that you stick a blade nine crawls into my back and haul it out three inches, that it not advance. Regardless of whether you haul it such a distance out, that isn’t advance. Progress is mending…

The documentary Babies follows four children and their journey from newborns to one-year olds. These babies come from different cultures and distant countries, Ponijao from Opuwo, Namibia, Mari from Tokyo, Japan, Bayar from Bayanchandmani Mongolia, and Hattie from San Francisco, California. The film shows how…

The documentary, Waiting for Superman, was eye opening and emotional to me. This film impacted me greatly as a teacher. I was also surprised the amount of empathy I felt for these children whom I have never met. I can interpret that the title of…

Introduction It has now been eight years since the Oscar-winning film ‘The Cove’ sent the small, isolated community of Taiji into the midst of an ever-growing controversial debate surrounding the slaughter of 2047 dolphins and the captivity of 58 dolphins for human entertainment over the…

The Cove documentary works to give logistical evidence against the corrupt practices in Taiji. The background information on what occurs in Taiji that the public isn’t aware of, is explored and explained much further as the film progresses. It is argued that little action has…

Introduction From training dolphins for the famous American TV Series, Flipper, to now being an activist for these mammals, Ric O’Barry has been playing a major role in trying to uncover a dirty secret that is performed by the Japanese fishermen. “The Cove”, an Oscar-winning…

Introduction The prime focus of this essay is to discuss the re-enactments of documentaries. For the purpose of analysis, two documentaries were selected that includes The Cove (2009) which is directed by Louis Psihoyos and Bowling for Columbine (2002) directed by one of the most…

A specific ideological understanding and declaration of solidarity with the goal of radical social-political transformation. “We realized that the important thing was not the film itself but that which the film provoked” – Fernado Solanas (1969). Social documentaries excel at telling complex societal problems and…