A Philosophical History of Documentary, 1895-1959

This book presents a chronology of thirty definitions attributed to the word, term, phrase, and concept of documentary between the years 1895 and 1959. The book dedicates one chapter to each of the thirty definitions, scrutinizing their idiosyncratic language games from close range while focusing on their historical roots and concealed philosophical sources of inspiration. Dan Geva's principal argument is twofold: first, that each definition is an original ethical premise of documentary; and second, that only the structured assemblage of the entire set of definitions successfully depicts the true ethical nature of documentary insofar as we agree to consider its philosophical history as a reflective object of thought in a perpetual state of being-self-defined: an ethics sui generis.

Presents a chronology of definitions attributed to the concept of "Documentary" Argues that each definition is an original ethical premise of documentary Frames and re-contextualizes the signification and scope of documentary's fragile and sophisticated ontology

Autorentext
Dan Geva is an associate professor at Beit-Berl College, a research fellow at the University of Haifa, an award-winning documentarian, and founder of "The Ethics Lab" (CILECT, 2017). He is the author of Toward a Philosophy of the Documentarian; A Prolegomenon (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018) and The Ethics Lab Guidebook CILECT, 2019).

Inhalt

Chapter 1: Introduction. Chapter 2: 1895; The Lumière Brothers.- Chapter 3: 1896; Georges Méliès.- Chapter 4: 1898; Bolesaw Matuszewski.- Chapter 5: 1908; Burton Holmes.- Chapter 6: 1912; Edward Curtis et al.- Chapter 7: 1917-1921; Blaise Cendrars.- Chapter 8: 1922; Dziga Vertov.- Chapter 9: 1924; Robert Flaherty.- Chapter 10: 1926; John Grierson.- Chapter 11: 1927; Esphir Shub.- Chapter 12: 1928; Alexie Gan.- Chapter 13: 1928; Dziga Vertov.- Chapter 14: 1930; Jean Vigo.- Chapter 15: 1930; Joris Ivens.- Chapter 16: 1932; John Grierson.- Chapter 17: 1933; Oswell Blakeston.- Chapter 18: 1933; John Griersonv.- Chapter 19: 1933; Harry Bruce Woolfe.- Chapter 20: 1934; Leo Hurwitz.- Chapter 21: 1934; The All-Union Congress of Soviet Writers of 1934.- Chapter 22: 1935; Paul Rotha.- Chapter 23: 1939; Joris Ivens.- Chapter 24: 1941; Humphrey Jennings.- Chapter25: 1942; Frank Capra.- Chapter 26: 1948; Amos Vogel.- Chapter 27: 1948; The World Union of **** Documentary.- Chapter 28: 1951; A. Nicholas Vardac.- Chapter 29: 1952; Alberto Cavalcanti.- Chapter 30: 1957; Lindsay Anderson.- Chapter 31: 1959; John Grierson.