Abstract
In Nonfiction Film: Theoretical Frameworks Southern discusses historical definitions of the documentary film and theoretical standpoints that attempt to define nonfiction as a film form in terms of stylistic techniques, audience reception and philosophical concepts of non-/fiction. Southern analyses post-modern and post-structural nonfiction film theories in relation to concepts of nonfiction modes, ‘objectivity’, ‘reality’ and ‘truth’, which she applies to her analysis of the Ministry of Education films in the following chapter. Southern asserts that the concepts of ‘objectivity’, ‘truth’ and the representation of reality form a complex interrelationship within the discourse of nonfiction, constructed through the audience’s engagement with the text and its indexing. In creating this discourse, she argues, the audience must be complicit with the text, raising questions of ‘objectivity’ and reliability.
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Filmography
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Southern, A. (2016). Nonfiction Film: Theoretical Frameworks. In: The Ministry of Education Film Experiment. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59230-9_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59230-9_5
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