1st Edition

Approximation Documentary, History and the Staging of Reality

By Stella Bruzzi Copyright 2020
    252 Pages
    by Routledge

    252 Pages
    by Routledge

    In our era of ‘fake news’, Stella Bruzzi examines the dynamism that results from reusing and reconfiguring raw documentary data (documents, archive, news etc.) in creative ways.

    Through a series of individual case studies, this book offers an innovative framework for understanding how, in our century, film and media texts frequently represent reality and negotiate the instabilities of ‘truth’ by ‘approximating’ factual events rather than merely representing them, through juxtaposing disparate, often colliding, perspectives of history and factual events. Covering areas such as true crime, politics and media, the book analyses the fluidity and instability of truth, arguing that 'approximation' is more prevalent now in our digital age, and that its conception is a result of viewers’ accidental or unconscious connections and interventions.

    Original and thought-provoking, Approximation provides students and researchers of media, film and cultural studies a deeper insight into our understanding and acceptance of what truth really means today.

    Introduction

    Chapter One: Archive and the power of actuality

    Chapter Two: ‘9/11’ as ‘Not 9/11’: United 93 and Man on Wire

    Chapter Three: Mad Men and the incidental events of the 1960s

    Chapter Four: Documentary and the law: true crime and observation

    Chapter Five: Political mimicry: from mimesis to alternate history

    Chapter Six: Documentary re-enactment: the ‘model’ approximation

    Biography

    Stella Bruzzi is Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at University College London (UCL) and Fellow of the British Academy. She has published widely in the areas of documentary, costume and masculinity in Hollywood. Her publications include Undressing Cinema: Clothing and Identity in the Movies, New Documentary and Men’s Cinema. Approximation is an output from a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship.