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Postclassical Nonfiction: Narration in the Contemporary Documentary by CHRIS CAGLE Abstract: This article examines contemporary mainstream documentaries for tiie patterns througin wiiich they create meaning and argument. Rather than exhibiting hybridity, these fiims reiy on postclassicai narration in their combination of traditionai formai documentary form with direct cinema's open argumentation. E ach semester, in my Introducdon to Film Analysis course, I teach a unit on documentary form, drawing indirecdy on BiU Nichols's now-famous typol- ogy of the modes of documentary. For the introductory audience, I leave off the more complicated categories like performative documentary and add a "pseudodocumentary" or "mockumentary" mode to correspond to one discussed in the textbook I use. Otherwise, I dudfully describe and illustrate these approaches to documentary making—expository (direct presentadon of argument), observa- donal (aiming for direct experience of a phenomenon), interacdve (pardcipatory reladonship between social actor and documentarist), and refiexive (commentary on documentary making)—and I suggest how they help one interpret a documentary much as one would read a ficdonal füm. I also use historical examples Uke ro 1930s government documentary or 1960s cinema vérité to illustrate the categories, § much like Nichols does. It can be difficult for novice students (among others) to talk H about nonficdon füm with analydcal distance, and I remain convinced of the udlity s of a simplifying model, one that groups füms and provides a vocabulary to discuss ^, how these films create meaning. g A couple of nagging problems have persisted for me, however. The categories I work weü enough for selecdvely chosen historical examples but hold less explana- Q tory power for contemporary work. Even a PBS documentary as formally straight- s' forward as Bruce Palling's Vietnam: A Television History (1983) is not purely expository ^ or interacdve in its argumentation. The contemporary theatrical feature, the very S sort of documentary my students are likely to champion, is even further removed J 1 Bill Nichols, Representing Reaiity (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991), especially chapter 2; see I also his addendum on performative documentary in Blurred Boundaries (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, •^ 1994) and his reformulation in introduction to Doci/menfa/y (Bloomington; Indiana University Press, 2001). -o Chris Cagle is Assistant Professor in the Film and Media Arts Department at Temple University. His research interests o inetude postwar Hollywood änema, social theory, and documentary studies. He is currently working on a book on the Hol- @ lywood social-problem film. www.cmstudies.org 52 | No. 1 | Fall 2012 45 Cinema Journal 52 | No. 1 i Fall 2012 from the clarity of the modes-of-documentary model. Therefore, to apply a modes- of-documentary understanding to contemporary documentary is, by necessity, to ac- knowledge definitional problems. The response from documentary scholars has varied, but two major views have challenged Nichols. The first, an anti-foundationalist one, considers taxonomy an incomplete or problematic endeavor for such a complex beast as nonfiction representation. For Stella Bruzzi, for instance, the very drive to taxonomize is proof that Documentary Studies has not kept up with poststructuralist developments in critical theory. A second approach is to embrace the confusion of documentary modes. Paul Ward argues against Bruzzi and others who would throw the baby of categorization out with the bathwater of taxonomic reification. He writes, "There have always been so-called 'reflexive' documentaries, and there continue to be 'expository' documentaries in the present. It is more to do with how these modes are taken up and used in specific contexts that is of interest—and this can be conceived as a type of 'hybridity' in documentary—rather than looking for new modes. "^ Hybridity apdy describes the stylistic bricolage of a number of "new documentaries," an umbrella term for contemporary füms resisting traditional documentary formulas—films such as Tarnation (Jonathan Caouette, 2003), Capturing the Friedmans (Andrew Jarecki, 2003), and Fah- renheit 9/11 (Michael Moore, 2004). Ward's line of argument also dovetails with work on what might be considered non-Griersonian nonfiction genres (the essay film, the animated documentary, the science füm, and the home movie) or the more poetic and auteur-oriented art documentary (the works of Werner Herzog or Agnès Varda, say).* The Documentary Studies research agenda therefore has often seen documentary modes per se as categories flattening the complexity of documentary or has argued that contemporary documentary in its art-füm or more mainstream versions is inclined to hybridity. To some extent, Bruzzi and Ward are both right. Treating intellectual models as things-in-themselves is problematic, and new types of contemporary nonfiction media challenge previously defined documentary forms. (Calling them "postmodern documentary" is perhaps fitting.) Nonetheless, despite the conceptual problems of categories, there are regularities in how documentaries present information and en- gage spectatorial experience. And despite the flourishing of hybrid documentary styles in the new documentaries, institutionally dominant documentary forms are hybrid only in the most legalistic sense. Henry Hampton's Eyes on the Prize (1987), for example, mixes explanatory written text, interviews, and voice-over narration and hence 2 Stella Bruzzi, New Documentary, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge, 2002). 3 Paul Ward, Documentary: The Margins of Reality {Lor\áon: Wallflower Press, 2005), 22. See also Matthew Bernstein, "Documentaphobia and Mixed Modes: Michael Moore's Roger & Me," in Documenting the Documentary, ed. Barry Keith Grant and Jeannete Sloniowski (Detroit, Ml: Wayne State University Press, 1998), 397-415. 4 See, for instance. Ward, Documentary; Laura Rascaroli, "The Essay Film: Problems, Definitions, Textual Commit- ments," Framework 49, no. 2 (Fall 2008): 24-47; Timothy Corrigan, "The Essay Film as a Cinema of Ideas," in Global Art Cinema, ed. Rosalind Gait and Karl Schoonover (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 218-235; Eric Ames, "Herzog, Landscape, and Documentary," Cinema Journal A8, no. 2 (Winter 2009): 49-69; James Moran, There's No Place Like Home Wc/eo (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002). 46 Cinema Journal 52 I No. 1 I Fall 2012 expository and interactive modes, yet the effect is not truly a mixed narration but rather a stable formal approach. Anecdotally, I can attest that my students, like me, are likely to find the film more transparent and coherent in its information, argument, and emotional experience than "purer" examples of expository or interactive documentary. This paradox deserves unpacking. Where the taxonomies and models of documentary have moved, in Copernican fashion, from basic generalizations to increased complications and exceptions, a Keplerian alternative should be possible. As useful as the modes-of-documentary model is, I propose that institutionally dominant documentary in the United States tends toward either classical or postclassical narration. Each combines multiple modes into a coherent and unified meaning system. Classical documentary approaches its subject matter with transparent style and economy of communication. Its mainstay is the hegemonic form of the public-broadcast documentary, exemplified by Eyes on the Prize or, more recently. Ken Burns's series; classical form continues to exert its force as an aesthetic norm today. At the same time, contemporary documentaries increasingly draw on a looser narration without sacrificing the closure of argument of the traditional documentary. They lie, that is, between the classical documentary and the alternatives that have challenged classicism. For this reason, it makes sense to posit the existence of a postclassical documentary that differs from more traditionalist documentary and from art documentaries by seeking a middle-ground signification of "democratic" documentary within the context of Griersonian nonfiction. Three films illustrate the nature and scope of postclassical documentary narration. Hoop Dreams (Steve James, Fred Marx, and Peter Gilbert, 1994) was a crossover theatrical feature straddling the Griersonian ethos of pubHc-broadcast documentary and the emotional identification of narrative füm. Daughter fiom Danang (Gaü Dolgin and Vi- cente Franco, 2002) is an example of a newer style of public-broadcasting documentary centered on personal narrative, yet recognizably conforming to the conventions of public-television and social-problem documentaries. Hebetica (Gary Hustwit, 2007), a film about the eponymous design font, is a theatrical feature in the "quirkumentary" vein, drawing simultaneously on technology and design cultures and on social history Each would seem to exemplify hybridity. Hoop Dreams, as some critics have noted, synthesizes cinema vérité with expository documentary. Daughter fiom Danang imports the performative documentary into the public-broadcast milieu. Hebetica combines participatory interviews and expository montage. From another perspective, however, these mixtures are in fact variations on a common formal and political sensibility. They are the collective result of an aesthetic rebellion against classical documentary forms that nonetheless does not sacrifice key classical aims. As films produced outside of the entertainment industry, these recent documentaries have their own institutional history, but in their aesthetic rebellion they parallel some of the developments in the fiction film over the past decades. They militate against the notion that dominant aesthetic tendencies in contemporary documentary narration are any more resistant to generalization than the aesthetic tendencies of earlier, more canonical productions. Beyond examples that mark a rupture from documentary's Griersonian heritage—whether the auteur documentary, the postmodern feature documentary, or the new political documentary—a typical form of 47 Cinema Journal 52 i No. 1 I Fall 2012 contemporary documentary has been hiding in plain sight, with both continuities and departures from earüer documentary style. Classical and Postclassical Documentary Narration. Two examples from documentaries made roughly a few years apart demonstrate the limits of the modes-of- documentary model and the broader historical change in how documentaries tend to be put together. The first, the third episode of Fyes on the Prize, about the Nash- ville lunch-counter sit-ins, borrows entire scenes from a vérité-style J^BC White Paper (1960-1980) episode, "Sit-in" (1960). Eyes uses one incident from "Sit-In" as part of a turning point in the civil rights movement and in the city: the mob attack on an African American arcade worker. The sequence begins with a social actor's testimony, as Nashville merchant Bernie Schweid describes in a talking-head interview the effect of black boycott and white flight on the Nashviüe business community. He intones over images of disorderly crowds, "That was the main feeüng I remember about those times: fear." Then, an abstracted voice-over (civil rights figure Julian Bond, who is credited but nonetheless speaks with voice-of-God authority) remarks that nonpro- testing African Americans also faced violence. The füm proceeds to a few seconds of vérité footage (from "Sit-In") of white teens fighting an outnumbered black teenager before Bond's voice-over returns: "Nashviüe, the moderate Southern city, looked on in disbelief." The next shot shows an arrest amid a gathered crowd. In a brief scene, a combination of intellectual montage and sound-image relationship creates a complex exposition. White violence, the documentary suggests, led to a crisis in the moderate white Southerner's understanding of race relations, which in turn led to a key turning point in history. The second example. Hoop Dreams, creates a similarly complex exposition through its interplay of editing and sound. In a scene depicting one of its social-actor pro- tagonists, Arthur Agee, at practice with the St. Joseph's High School basketball team, voice-over narration speaks over a shot: "Arthur wins the starting point-guard position on the freshman team." Two shots foüow in the haüway, one framing a slogan on the wall ("He Gonquers and Labors"), continuing what appears as one motif through- out the film. A shot of Arthur dribbling and passing the bau cuts to one of Goach Gene Pingatore watching from the bleachers, and Pingatore's testimony begins in voice-over as another shot of Arthur appears: "When Arthur started at St. Joseph's, he was a good kid from what we saw, but he was very immature." Only then does the film provide the talking-head interview footage for Pingatore's testimony: "He might have been a little more disruptive, speaking out, getting into childish things." The fol- lowing shots are of Arthur sulking during a game whüe the voice-over continues: "He wasn't used to the discipüne or control. He reverted back to his environment, where he came from." In this brief scene, the documentary suggests an interior insight behind the external appearance of Arthur's not fitting in, as weü as the abstract idea of social determinism. What these two examples have in common is their mixing of documentary modes. In each, expository (voice-over), observational (handheld, silent), and interactive (talking head) formal devices are combined in a short span of screen time, but in each, no cinematic punctuation marks the transition from one mode to another. Rather, each 48 Cinema Journal 52 I No. 1 I Fall 2012 seamlessly absorbs the spectator in its argument and its invocadon of the social actors' experiences. One could argue that a given mode, such as the expository, is dominant, but if so, then why does each seemingly need the other subsidiary modes to get its informadon across? Remove one mode from either of the two films, and the argument becomes less seamless, less transparent. Key informadon gets lost. Transparency is a haUmark of classical narradon in the flction füm, and classical documentary, too, depends on unobtrusiveness. Much as classical narrative fums avoid formal excess and construct a diegesis that seems to have its own spadal and temporal reality, classical documentaries present their argument about actuaUty footage whüe making this presentadon seem naturally to come from the footage itself.^ Hayden White notes that (written) narradve historiography acts as if history "speaks itself" and that "we can comprehend the appeal of historical discourse by recogniz- ing the extent to which it makes the real desirable . . . and does so by its imposidon, upon events that are represented as real, of the formal coherency that stories pos- sess." Classical documentary is organized along this principle, according to three tendencies. First is the "voice" that Pascal Bonitzer has described in documentary: the reUance on the soundtrack to anchor, in expository fashion, the meaning of actuaUty footage that is separated temporally and spatially from the voice.' Eyes on the Prize takes actuaUty footage (e.g., a fight between teens, an arrest) and uses voice-over narradon about historical events to affix meaning to that actuaUty footage. For instance, the cut from Schweid to a young white man being arrested occurs just when Schweid says the word fear, the look on the man's face apdy iUustrates the idea of white fear but also, in and of itself, is relatively meaningless without the voice-over to code it as "fear." Second is a conceptually oriented structure that groups actuality footage together according to broader ideas. The fight scene in Eyes takes on historical significance because of its place in a larger structure about the rise of the sit-in movement and the reacdon it caused; personal fear becomes a moment of historical peripeteia. Third is a closed argumentadon unequivocal in its meaning; closure is a particular hallmark of the historical-recoUecdve documentary, which ascribes the fixity of history to its subject matter.^ Whereas Eyes on the Prize serves as an ideal type for mixed-mode classical documentary narradon. Hoop Dreams departs nodceably from classical narradon. The most immediate difference is its lack of an abstract voice-over narradon, aside from the most basic exposidon: "Arthur wins the stardng point-guard position on the freshman 5 David Bordweli, Narration in the Fiction Film (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985); David BordweU, Janet Staiger, and Kristin Thompson, The Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film Style and Mode of Production, 1917-1960 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985). 6 Hayden White, The Content of the Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical Representation (Baitimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987), 21. 7 Pascal Bonitzer, "The Siiences of the Voice," trans. Philip Rosen and Marcia Butzei, in Narrative, Apparatus, Ideol- ogy: A Film Theory Reader, ed. Philip Rosen (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), 332. 8 This argument dravis on Philip Rosen's reading of JFK: A Time Remembered (Mark Oberhaus, 1988). Rosen's reading is ultimately about the historicity of documentary images, but in general the genre of the recollective-historical documentary illustrates classical narration so weli because of its relations between voice-over and footage. Change Mummified: Cinema, Historicity, r/7eo/y (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000). 49 Cinema Journal 52 I No. 1 Fall 2012 team" (Figure 1). Instead, social-actor tesdmony, in the form of Coach Pinga- tore's comments, anchors the meaning of the image (Figure 2). The pace of the edidng is different, allowing more time for observational footage of its social actors. In comparison to the scene in Eyes, the editing both andci- pates more of what the spectator will see (Pingatore's words come before his image) and withholds information for longer periods of time. It is pardy, but Figure 1. Hoop Dreams departs noticeably from classical narration, lacking abstract voice-over narration. not wholly, classical. Furthermore, the Instead, we see Arthur win the starting point-guard po- ironic juxtaposidon of Arthur Agee sition on the freshman team, and then . . with the "He Conquers and Labors" banner in Hoop Dreams introduces a self-conscious editorializing, a strategy that would disrupt the straightforward argument of Eyes on the Prize. On all these counts—narradonal ambiguity, duration, and ironic editing—Hoop Dreams borrows from classical documentary's putadve opposite, direct cinema or cinema vérité. Carl Plandnga notes that this tradition shows rather than tells, exploidng the Figure 2. ... social-actor testimony, in the form of indexical qualities of the medium to Coach Pingatore's comments, anchors the meaning of the fullest: direct cinema focuses on the image, serving a narrator function vicariously (Fine Line Features, 1994). the experiendal dimension to provoke a spectatorial impression, however se- lective, of being present at the profümic event. Perhaps most important, direct cinema's argumentadon is open rather than closed, is at least pardy ambiguous, and is implied rather than explicit.^ Another way of stadng the difference between classical documentary and direct cinema is by disdnguishing between deducdve and inducdve approaches at the level of both producdon and spectatorial experience. The direct- cinema shooting style famously changed the documentary production process. Instead of shooting actuality footage to illustrate an idea or to capture a planned event, direct- cinema fümmakers sought to observe and respond to events and to make, in Rich- ard Leacock's words, "an uncontrolled cinema."'" Consequendy, they ran up high shoodng rados with the expectadon of making coherent feature- or broadcast-length 9 Carl Plantinga, Rhetoric and Representation in Nonfiction Fiim (Cambridge.- Cambridge University Press, 1997), 116-118. 10 Richard Leacock, "For an Uncontrolled Cinema," Fiim Cuiture, nos. 22-23 (Summer 1961); 23-25. 50 Cinema Journal 52 No. 1 Fall 2012 documentaries in the editing process." Structure steps in to fill the gap and provide coherence for the otherwise disorderly amassing of detail. The multivocal potential of actuality footage leads direct cinema to mimic some of classicism's conceptual structure, and in direct cinema the editor thus functions much like a writer.'^ This structure differs from the deductive, expository argument of the classical documentary. Instead, direct cinema highlights juxtapositions, selections, and motifs. Law and Order (Frederick Wiseman, 1969) builds up from observations of daüy police activ- ity, as in these connected scenes from the first third of the film: • Shots of a police officer riding in his patrol car • An officer intervenes in a domestic dispute • An officer writes a report for a mugging and helps the victim to recover her purse • Policeman rides across town • Arrest of a drunk escalates as the officer responds to the man's insults with force • Two policemen puU their cars next to each other and talk about soaring tensions and gang violence in the city • Two policemen break into a building and chase after an African American teenager, who struggles and whom they proceed to arrest with excessive force None of these scenes provides exposition through voice-over, identifying tities, or contextual editing. As with some fictional art cinema, the spectator is thrust into the scenario in medias res, without cues as to how to read the larger meaning or argument of the events. Eventually, a structure emerges: we are witnessing a rough alternation between law enforcement's "big" challenges and its insignificant ones. In between are behind-the-scenes glimpses of law enforcement culture. When, toward the film's end, a Richard Nixon political rally stressing a law-and-order agenda comes to town, the observations and juxtapositions of the füm take on a new, larger meaning. Implicitiy, the füm critiques the American right's law-and-order ideology as simplistic, since it is unaware of the challenges of law enforcement or the ingrained social conflict that "law" and its enforcement entail. law and Order—and direct cinema in general—tends to present an open argument. The critique of sDent-majority politics requires considerable inference work on the spectator's part and, moreover, is hard to establish definitively as a critique. Hoop Dreams, by contrast, is not nearly so ambiguous, inductive, or open in its argument. It invokes inductive structure without sacrificing clarity and presents moments of temporary rather than sustained ambiguity. For this reason, the füm is a key and influential example of documentary postclassicism, which contains elements of both classical and direct-cinema documentary. Here the analogy with fiction cinema is instructive. Hollywood classicism usually designates a bounded period of studio filmmaking in which industrial structure and 11 Barry Keith Grant notes that Frederick Wiseman's shooting ratios range from 10:1 to 30:1. Five Films by Frederick Wiseman (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), 4. 12 On the commentary track for the Criterion Collection DVD of Grey Gardens (David Maysles, Albert Maysles, Ellen Hovde, Muffie Meyer, and Susan Froemke, 1975), director-editors Ellen Hovde and Muffie Meyer describe this process of writing through editing, noting for instance the significance of opening with the approach to the Grey Gardens house. 51 film aesthetics maintained a stable system; since both industry economics and film style have changed, many scholars refer to a postclassical period that departs from some classical norms while maintaining others. Early claims of what constitutes this postclassical style varied considerably, with scholars pointing to an emphasis on spectacle over narrative, to high-concept visuals, and to a breakdown of classical editing norms under the influence of advertising and music video. Moreover, in addition to film style, postclassicism has been deployed as a periodizing concept for histories of the film industry and for models of film spectatorship.'* A clear objection to the possibüity of a postclassical documentary is the tenuous- ness of the term postclassical itself David BordweU in particular resists the generalizations of the postclassical camp: Some scholars suggest that U.S. studio filmmaking since 1960 or so has en- tered a "post-classical" period, one sharply different from the studio era. They argue that the high concept blockbuster, marketed in ever more diverse ways and appearing in many media platforms, has created a cinema of narrative incoherence and stylistic fragmentation. Yet these judgments aren't usually based upon scrutiny of the movies. Scholars who have analyzed a range of films have argued persuasively that in important respects, Hollywood storytelling hasn't fundamentally altered since the studio days. ... In representing space, time, and narrative relations (such as causal connections and parallels), today's films generally adhere to the principles of classical filmmaking.'^ Instead of postclassicism, Bordweii prefers a model of "intensified continuity," which he defines as a specific version of contemporary fiction narration that stresses continuities with classical norms. Kristin Thompson takes issue with the periodization implied by postclassicism, stating, "In our book [The Classical Hollywood Cinema, coauthored with Bordweii and Janet Staiger], we had limited our survey to pre-1960 cinema because the breakdown of the studio structure and the competition from television led to a different situation in Hollywood. We did not, however, say that classical filmmaking died then. Quite the contrary; we said that it had endured through those changes in the industry."'^ Both Bordweii and Thompson stress the systematic quality of classical film language and its storytelling power. 13 Thomas Schatz, "The New Hollywood," in Film Theory Goes to the Movies: Cultural Analyses of Contemporary Film, ed. James Collins, Hilary Radner, and Ava Preacher Collins (New York: Routledge, 1993), 8-37; Justin Wyatt, High Concept: Movies and Marketing in Hoiiywood (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994); Thomas Elsaesser and Warren Buckland, "Classical/Post-Classical Narrative," in Studying Contemporary American Film: A Guide to Movie Analysis (London: Arnold, 2002), 26-79. For a wide range of definitions of postclassical style, see Contemporary Hollywood Cinema, ed. Steve Neale and Murray Smith (London: Routledge, 1998). 14 Neale and Smith, Contemporary Hollywood Cinema-, Miriam Hansen, "Early Cinema, Late Cinema: Permutations of the Public Sphere," Screen 34, no. 3 (Autumn 1993): 197-210. 15 David Bordweii, "intensified Continuity: Visual Style in Contemporary American Film," Film Quarterly 55, no. 3 (Spring 2002): 16-28. 16 Kristin Thompson, "Classical Cinema Lives! New Evidence for Old Norms," Observations on Film Art (.b\og), Febru- ary 12, 2007, http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/2007/02/12/classical-cinema-lives-new-evidence-for-old-norms/. 52 Cinema Journal 52 ¡ No. 1 Fall 2012 Gritics of the postclassicism concept have a point, in that generaüzations about spectacle- or action-driven narrative can be facüe. Nonetheless, postclassicism can refer less to a replacement of classical norms than to a recaUbration of them. The most compeüing accounts demonstrate how contemporary narrative füms selectively gran art cinema and neoreaüst style onto classical storytelling Eleftheria Thanouli, for example, remarks of Natural Born Killers (Oüver Stone, 1994), "On the one hand, it presents a remarkable styüstic freedom and experimentation with different discontinu- ous techniques, while, on the other, it maintains an essential narrative coherence . . . [that] contributes to the progression of the story."" Her observation could describe many postclassical füms. Even a straightforward romantic comedy üke Made of Honor (Paul Weüand, 2008) breaks the 180-degree line in a decidedly unclassical manner, whereas Ocean's Twebe (Steven Soderbergh, 2004) demonstrates that jump cuts and blockbuster appeal are not incompatible. On the basis of a wide sampüng of contemporary examples, Thanouli argues that narrative form, spatial construction, and cinematic time have all moved toward hypermediation and knowingness—in short, toward an appropriation of formalism within classical forms.'^ For Bordwell and Thompson, the abüity of the commercial Hollywood film to absorb the stylistic influences of art cinema, the avant-garde, and television advertising is proof of the flexibiüty and vital- ity of the classical system. From another perspective, the absorption itself constitutes postclassicism. Gertainly, as Murray Smith argues, postclassicism is not the only model for understanding contemporary fikn aesthetics, yet a periodization dividing classical and postclassical cinema does have explanatory power.'' If the term postclassical provokes debate when appüed to fiction füm, its appüca- tion to documentaries is rare, perhaps previously nonexistent. Instead, other names of succession, such as the "postmodern" or the "new documentary," emphasize the breaking or bending of traditional Griersonian tenets.^" Beyond those füms that challenge documentary norms, however, a large number of contemporary documentaries maintain a straightforward nonfiction style while moving away from a strictly classical documentary narration. These documentaries differ noticeably from an earüer gen- eration of conventional documentary with extensive voice-over narration. Unlike the new documentary, furthermore, these füms do not generaüy challenge documentary truth claims, foreground cinematic style, or trade in ambiguity. This category of films has gone relatively unnoticed and thus lacks a name; the notion of postclassical documentary can designate the middle ground between the classical tradition and challeng- ing new-documentary forms. Postclassical documentary does not exhibit the styüstic traits of postclassical narrative füms. Rather, postclassical fiction füm and postclassical documentary both tend to 17 Eleftheria Thanouli, Post-Classical Cinema: An Internationai Poetics of Film Narration (London: Wallflower Press, 2009), 96. 18 Ibid., 173-182. 19 Murray Smith, "Theses on the Philosophy of Hollywood History," in Neale and Smith, Contemporary Hollywood Cinema, 1-20. 20 Bruzzi, New Documentary; Linda Williams, "Mirrors without Memories: Truth, History, and the New Documentary," Film Quarterly A6, no. 3 (Spring 1993): 9-21. 53 Cinema Journal 52 No. 1 I Fall 2012 assume art narradon into classical narradon. In pracdce, this means that postclassical narradon combines elements of classical and direct-cinema narradon. Its structure and argumentation suggest the openness of direct cinema without reUnquishing the clarity of classical documentary Its soundtrack, like direct cinema's, eschews voice- of-God-style narration, yet its social actors provide voice-over narradon in a classical manner. Its edidng draws on both the inteUectual montage of classical documentary and the real-dme aesthedc of direct cinema (Table 1). These categories describe ideal types, and many documentaries faU outside of these narradonal patterns, whereas others fit the generaUzadons only imperfectly. None- theless, as representative postclassical documentaries like Hoop Dreams, Daughter from Danang, and Helvetica demonstrate, it is remarkable how consistent and stable the narradon system has been for contemporary documentaries that vary in type and producdon circumstances. Classical documentaries do condnue to be made (those airing on PBS Frontline are good examples), but there has been a shift in dominant narradonal styles within the documentary field. The reasons for this shift are up for debate, but a few causes seem likely. Foremost is the poUtical economy of American public-television funding: first the budget cuts of the 1980s and the balkanized system that foUowed "led stadons to embrace programming that would appeal to middle-class viewers to bring in more donadons and subscripdons."^' The poUdcal batdes over public funding, moreover, have Ukely encouraged producers and makers to personalize poUtical or social issues as a means of inoculadng themselves against charges of bias. Finally, the box-oflice success of theatrical-release new documentaries has led some filmmakers to depart from tradidonal documentary aesthedcs, even in expository or issue-oriented fums. In short, the economic and insdtudonal basis of documentary fümmaking has changed and with it, so has documentary aesthedcs. Character-Driven Documentary: Hoop Dreams and Daughter from Danang. As with most historical periodization, the dividing Une between classical and postcias- sical documentary is not stark. Already in the direct-cinema movement one can find instances of a central quality of postclassicism: the use of social tesdmony voiced over actuaUty footage to anchor meaning. Union Maids (Jim Klein, Miles Mogulescu, and JuUa Reichert, 1976), for instance, places sound from interviews with three women labor activists over photographs and archival footage of 1930s labor strife. Reliance on this practice was only sporadic in recent decades, but what was once a Umited formal trope has become widespread, developing into a stable part of the postclassical narrational system. The main site and conduit of this change has been what many in the documentary field caU the "character-driven documentary."^' This format has 21 B. J. Bullert, Public Television: Politics and the Battle over Documentary Film {Ne\n Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers Univer- sity Press, 1997), 17. 22 Noel King critiques the film for this practice in "Recent 'Political' Documentary: Notes on Union Maids ana Harlan County, USA," Screen 22, no. 2 (1981): 7-18. 23 See production guidebooks for documentary makers, such as Michael Rabiger, Directing the Documentary, 4th ed. (Amsterdam: Focal Press, 2004), 137-138; and Dorothy Fadiman and Tony Levelle, Producing with Passion: Mak- ing Films That Change the World (Studio City, CA: Michael Weise Productions, 2008), 151-168. 54