This is an edited collection (Palgrave, 2018) by Catalin Brylla and Mette Kramer. It explores the intersection between cognitive and documentary film studies in light of the latest discoveries in the affective and cognitive sciences. Given that most Western societies are mass-mediated cultures in which “reality” is understood through factual media, documentary film has significantly informed the consolidation of the audience’s emotional and cognitive understanding of the world. This understanding is informed by the interplay between two dimensions inherent in the reception of documentary film texts: Firstly, the extra-textual dimension, where truth assertions establish a strong indexical link between representations and their real-life counterparts, and secondly, the intra-textual dimension, where narrative and aesthetic strategies are employed to achieve emotional and cognitive engagement. This interplay has arguably resulted in documentaries exhibiting a far greater potential than fiction films to impact on our attitudes towards, and interaction with, the world, but also on the construction of our own social, cultural, and individual identities.
There has been little convergence between cognitive film theory and documentary film studies. Cognitive film scholars have largely focused on the analysis of fiction film, whilst documentary scholars have deemed cognitive models too limited in that they address only the hardwired attributes of audience reception, thus hypothesizing a universal body of spectators and dismissing individual, social, cultural and historical contexts of authorship and spectatorship. However, a new wave of cognitive film theory has moved from neo-formalist and purely cognitive concerns towards the study of emotional and embodied film engagement, taking into account practical, social, cultural and individual aspects; these in turn can explore fundamental questions within documentary film theory and practice. Thus, cognitive and emotional models have the potential to examine not only narrative-driven and expository documentaries, but also more contemporary and experimental formats, such as essay films, participatory documentaries, docu-dramas, and docu-musicals. In our opinion, this enables an alternative and more scientifically rigorous pursuit of issues central to documentary film studies in areas as varied as ethics, performance, character engagement, mediation and realism.
The book explores a cognitive framework for understanding documentary film texts, production practices, institutions and spectatorship. It seeks an empirically grounded understanding of the reception of documentary films, as well as their production and exhibition, establishing the practitioner or institution as a socio-cultural entity driven by similar emotional and cognitive mechanisms that inform the audience before, during and after the viewing process.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Foreword (Bill Nichols)
- Introduction: Intersecting Cognitive Theory and Documentary Film (Catalin Brylla and Mette Kramer)
Part 1: The Mediation of Realities
- A Documentary of the Mind: Self, Cognition and Imagination in Anders Østergaard’s Films (Ib Bondebjerg)
- Little Voices and Big Spaces: Animated Documentary and Conceptual Blending Theory (Juan Alberto Conde Aldana)
- Documentary Spectatorship and the Navigation of ‘Difficulty’ (John Corner)
- Docudrama and the Cognitive Evaluation of Realism (Torben Grodal)
- The Duties of Documentary in a Post-Truth Society (Dirk Eitzen)
Part 2: Character Engagement
- Characterisation and Character Engagement in the Documentary (Carl Plantinga)
- The Difficulty of Eliciting Empathy in Documentary (Jan Nåls)
- Fake Pictures, Real Emotions: A Case Study of Art and Craft (Aubrey Tang)
- Engaging Animals in Wildlife Documentaries: From Anthropomorphism to Trans-Species Empathy (Alexa Weik von Mossner)
Part 3: Emotions and Embodied Experience
- Collateral Emotions: Political Web Videos and Divergent Audience Responses (Jens Eder)
- Slow TV: The Experiential and Multisensory Documentary (Luis Rocha Antunes)
- Toward a Cognitive Definition of First-Person Documentary (Veerle Ros, Jennifer M. J. O’Connell, Miklós Kiss and Annelies van Noortwijk)
- The Communication of Relational Knowledge in the First-Person Documentary (Mette Kramer)
Part 4: Documentary Practice
- A Social Cognition Approach to Stereotyping in Documentary Practice (Catalin Brylla)
- A Cognitive Approach to Producing the Documentary Interview (Michael Grabowski)
- Documentary Editing and Distributed Cognition (Karen Pearlman)
REVIEWS
Projections – The Journal for Movies and Mind [long review]
Leonardo – The International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology [long review]
“The editors of Cognitive Theory and Documentary Film make ambitious claims about the usefulness of cognitive theory for understanding the documentary as well as the fiction film—and their volume more than delivers. Equipped with a fuller picture of the mind as embodied and socially networked, the authors here offer exciting approaches to a wide range of work including biographies, animations, nature films, docudramas and “fake news” websites, while attending as well to the creative processes and aims of documentary filmmakers.”
Cynthia Freeland, Professor of Philosophy, University of Houston, Texas
“Cognitive film research is about narrative fiction, or so it seems. This milestone volume presents the cognitive approach to documentary. Specialists in the field – some of them documentarists themselves – paint a vivid picture of the rich experiences that an exceptionally multifarious genre gives rise to. They document how people watching documentaries construct and engage with other people, their minds, emotions, realities, truths and actions. Moreover they highlight in convincing detail the amazing variety of aesthetics displayed by documentaries supporting viewers’ experiences.”
Ed Tan, Professor of Media Entertainment, University of Amsterdam
“This unique collection is likely to become a landmark in documentary studies. It is ambitious, innovative, sometimes provocative but always rigorous. Its pioneering approach to the complex relationship between selfhood, emotion, subjectivity, cognition and the art of the record is utterly convincing and inherently valuable.”
Anita Biressi, Professor of Media and Society, University of Roehampton
“Represents a welcome first foray into the relation of cognitive theory to documentary film studies. It not only expands our conceptions of documentary but asks us to consider not only how we see reality through films but how films shape our notions of reality. The ideas are complex but are made more accessible through the straightforward writing of many of its contributors.”
David MacDougall, Professor of Visual Anthropology, Australian National University
“Cognitive Theory and Documentary Film is an exceptionally rewarding read. Featuring probing accounts of such timely topics as post-truth, stereotyping, trans-species empathy, and filmmakers’ use of cognitive theory, the volume more than delivers on its ambitious promises. Featuring a formidable team of contributors and evidencing great clarity of purpose, Cognitive Theory and Documentary Film provides conceptual tools, arguments, and examples that deserve attention, within and beyond the academy.”
Mette Hjort, Chair Professor of Humanities and Dean of Arts, Hong Kong Baptist University
“This collection of essays, through the emphasis on thought processes, brings an original approach to documentary reception and representation. Even more important, this book will expand the reach and boundaries within the study of cognitive theory itself, which can only benefit from the further influence of documentary production on this field. Thus the reader has a view from both ends of the telescope, and in a truly interdisciplinary fashion, which surely has to be welcomed.”
Jane Chapman, Professor of Communications, Lincoln University
“Brylla and Kramer’s impressive interdisciplinary and international selection of scholars lead a ground-breaking extension of cognitivist theory into documentary film studies.”
Trevor Ponech, Associate Professor of English, McGill University