Intelligence Work - The Politics of American Documentary

Erscheinungsjahr 2008
ISBN: 978-0-231-14206-9
Verlag: Columbia University Press

Buch, Englisch, 432 Seiten, Format (B × H): 164 mm x 236 mm, Gewicht: 734 g

Reihe: Film and Culture Series

Intelligence Work establishes a new genealogy of American social documentary, proposing a fresh critical approach to the aesthetic and political issues of nonfiction cinema and media. Jonathan Kahana argues that the use of documentary film by intellectuals, activists, government agencies, and community groups constitutes a national-public form of culture, one that challenges traditional oppositions between official and vernacular speech, between high art and popular culture, and between academic knowledge and common sense. Placing iconic images and the work of celebrated filmmakers next to overlooked and rediscovered productions, Kahana demonstrates how documentary collects and delivers the evidence of the American experience to the public sphere, where it lends force to political movements and gives substance to the social imaginary.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Kahana, Jonathan

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Theater- und Filmwissenschaft | Andere Darstellende Künste Filmwissenschaft, Fernsehen, Radio
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politische Systeme Zentralregierung

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of IllustrationsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction. The Intelligence Work of Documentary: Publics, Politics, IntellectualsPart I. The Sentiment of Trust: The Documentary Front and the New Deal 1. National Fabric: Authorship, Textuality, and the Documentary Front2. Voice-Over, Allegory, and the Pastoral in New Deal DocumentaryPart II. Lyrical Tirades: New Documentary and the New Left 3. Revolutionary Sounds: Listening to Radical Documentary4. Documentary Counterpublics: Filming PrisonPart III. The Public Sphere of Suspicion: Documentary in the New Obscurity 5. The Vision Thing: Documentary, Television, and the Accidental Power of the President6. Tense Times: Documentary Aporias; Or, the Public Sphere of SuspicionNotesFilmographyIndex

Über Autor(innen)

Jonathan Kahana is assistant professor of cinema studies at Tisch School of the Arts at New York University.