Crafting Truth

LOUISE SPENCE is a professor of cinema studies at Kadir Has University in Istanbul and the coauthor of the award-winning Writing Himself into History: Oscar Micheaux, His Silent Films, and His Audiences (Rutgers University Press). VINICIUS NAVARRO is an assistant professor of film studies at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

"Spence and Navarro create a beautiful, accessible synthesis of the ideas underpinning documentary thinking, the key scholars addressing these ideas, and a diverse filmography representing those texts. It sets the foundation for understanding the form as it has developed so far and provides a starting point for understanding the form as it will evolve in the future."(Studies in Documentary Film) "Highly recommended. Perhaps mandatory for students of film, mass communication, and journalism."(Choice) "Crafting Truth delivers an intelligent and inspiring introduction to documentary studies through an original framework that powerfully attends to the complex politics, aesthetics, ideas, and forms at the heart of the genre." - Alexandra Juhasz (co-editor of F is for Phony and documentary videomaker) "Crafting Truth introduces readers to some of the basic questions guiding contemporary discussions of the documentary. Authors Louise Spence and Vinicius Navarro structure their book around thoughtful considerations of general concepts like authenticity, evidence, and responsibility; structural organization of rhetoric and argument; and formal techniques like editing, camerawork, and sound in order to ask: how do documentaries proclaim themselves authentic?" (Cineaste) "Crafting Truth addresses all the main issues involved in studying the documentary, cleverly illustrated by recent examples while not forgetting necessary consideration of the canon-a very valuable account." - Brian Winston (University of Lincoln, UK) "A novel and illuminating introduction to key concepts in documentary. The distinctive cast to the book makes it an extremely welcome contribution to the field." - Bill Nichols (author of Engaging Cinema: An Introduction to Film Studies) "Spence and Navarro create a beautiful, accessible synthesis of the ideas underpinning documentary thinking, the key scholars addressing these ideas, and a diverse filmography representing those texts. It sets the foundation for understanding the form as it has developed so far and provides a starting point for understanding the form as it will evolve in the future."(Studies in Documentary Film) "Highly recommended. Perhaps mandatory for students of film, mass communication, and journalism."(Choice) "Crafting Truth delivers an intelligent and inspiring introduction to documentary studies through an original framework that powerfully attends to the complex politics, aesthetics, ideas, and forms at the heart of the genre." - Alexandra Juhasz (co-editor of F is for Phony and documentary videomaker) "Crafting Truth addresses all the main issues involved in studying the documentary, cleverly illustrated by recent examples while not forgetting necessary consideration of the canon-a very valuable account." - Brian Winston (University of Lincoln, UK) "Crafting Truth introduces readers to some of the basic questions guiding contemporary discussions of the documentary. Authors Louise Spence and Vinicius Navarro structure their book around thoughtful considerations of general concepts like authenticity, evidence, and responsibility; structural organization of rhetoric and argument; and formal techniques like editing, camerawork, and sound in order to ask: how do documentaries proclaim themselves authentic?" (Cineaste) "A novel and illuminating introduction to key concepts in documentary. The distinctive cast to the book makes it an extremely welcome contribution to the field." - Bill Nichols (author of Engaging Cinema: An Introduction to Film Studies)

• Acknowledgements IntroductionPART ONE. GENERAL CONCEPTS1. Authenticity 2. Evidence 3. Authority 4. Responsibility PART TWO. STRUCTURAL ORGANIZATION5. Argument 6. Dramatic Stories, Poetic and Essay Documentaries PART THREE. FORMAL TECHNIQUES7. Editing8. Camerawork 9. The Profilmic 10. Sounds (coauthored with Carl Lewis) Index