June 07, 2021
A good story has been the hot commodity of nonfiction films in recent years – but they only give viewers the power to identify with their subjects rather than understand them
Less storytelling, please: why documentaries will benefit from getting real
“Main character. Three acts. Heroic journey. Climax. Resolution. Nothing else seems to suffice in today’s documentary marketplace. A good story reigns supreme,” writes the Toronto-based film-maker Brett Story in an essay for World Records Journal about “story” as documentary’s hottest commodity. She’s not wrong: looking back at the highest grossing nonfiction films of the last 15 years or so – films such as March of the Penguins, Amy, Won’t You Be My Neighbour?, Three Identical Strangers and Free Solo – they all adopt flashily “cinematic” structures. Whether they’re character studies or social issue films, each follows a familiar arc with three distinct components: setup, confrontation and denouement. It’s telling that the Netflix-produced My Octopus Teacher, which casts a Hollywood love story between film-maker Craig Foster and his cephalopod instructress, captured the hearts of Oscar voters, winning best documentary at this year’s Academy Awards.
With the intellectual property market booming, there is pressure on those who work in nonfiction – film-makers, long-form journalists, audio producers – to shoehorn the lives of real people into the tried and tested template of classic storytelling. In his 2014 bestselling book on screenwriting Into the Woods, BBC TV producer John Yorke says that “storytelling is hardwired into human perception”. This shape, we’re told, is how we naturally make sense of the world.
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