The prolific filmmaker and theorist Mark Cousins returns to the festival circuit with his 16-part project, The Story of Documentary Film. Recently, he presented the segment 1970s at the Cannes Film Festival. The film is a two-halves project that narrates the production of non-fiction in the decade. Firstly, in the Part 1: Pathfinder, the director analyzes the movements that are opposed to the Cinema Verité and Direct Cinema, creating their approaches to documentary film. In Part 2: Everywhere, Cousins completes the overview of the productions across the world, especially throughout the political turmoils in different areas of the world, and how they affected filmmaking. Hence, the effort by the Irish director is an exercise of theorizing cinema, a historiography that respects his interests in formal inventions and innovations. Thus, it is joyful to delve into the explorations of the productions that shaped the history of non-fiction, influencing modern directors.
First of all, the approach is a direct follow-up to Cousins’ The Story of Film: An Odyssey. Released in 2011, it is a 15-volume project of the century of film, which got a feature sequel in 2021 with A New Generation. Also, the 2004 book of the same title is a quintessential read for those studying the art form, different movements, historical background, and intricacies of cinema. Fifteen years later, the essayist managed to deliver his hour-long pieces on the trajectory of filmmaking, especially its political importance. In Pathfinder, he begins the film by playing a Grease excerpt, the classic musical that he argues symbolizes the nostalgia in film of that decade. Following that, he establishes that non-fiction looked to the new instead of the past. We hear about Artavazd Peleshian’s Seasons of the Year, a groundbreaking documentation of the life of shepherds in Armenia and the juxtaposition to Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. In the first half, the director expands on the results of the new waves of film throughout the world.
Cousins explains the multiple new devices incorporated into non-fiction that are still popular. An example of that is the Participant Observers approach, popularized by the legendary Frederick Wiseman, who released his masterful Welfare in 1975. The strength of the film is not the interviews or the themes, but how Wiseman constructs tension by not interfering directly, leaving it to the editing room. In this sense, the didactic and curious writing of the Irish theorist instigates the audience to comprehend the formal and aesthetic changes. When necessary, he even links a film to an older project, therefore constructing a parallel between efforts from different contexts of artistry and production. In the 1970s, the volume of the series carries the strength of one of the most radical eras of filmmaking, where directors become authors and decide to explore the possibilities of the film form. It is clear in the first portion of the two that form this project.
In the same sense, the second piece of the decade, Everywhere, is more of a general and less specific view of the productions in specified corners of the globe. The director expands on the importance of the trilogy, Battle of Chile, by Patrício Guzmán, who captured the election of the left-wing president Salvador Allende, the pressure by the CIA, and the coup d’Etat that took him down, leading to one of the most brutal dictatorships in the South Cone. Despite the bold formal elements, the three-part journey by the Chilean is also an act of risk, the director and his camera people documenting the violence of the military, and refusing to bow down to the regime. Similarly, the travel to China is about an Italian master, Antonioni, who shot Chung Kuo, a documentary filmed under the communist regime, filming mostly in close-ups. Hence, Cousins explains the absence of the independent documentary schools in China due to the Mao administration, but it would surge in the following decade. Yet, Everywhere is not as engaging in its study of the form as Pathfinder, which benefits from themes and topics that appeal to the lovers of film history.
Still, fifteen years after The Story of Film, the highly prolific Mark Cousins invites us to reflect on the complexity of the history of non-fiction. In an era where debates about the public funding of docs and the usage of Generative Artificial Intelligence spark in the United States and the world, the Irish director looks back to all of the complicated elements that led to the historiography of non-fiction that we have today. In the 1970s, we understand the motives that led to hundreds of classic documentaries: the lack of funding, and filmmakers would experiment and confront governments. In a sense, Pathfinder is a demonstration of how to understand society through film, and Everywhere shows that the revolution of form goes beyond the United States and Europe. More than a study of history, it is also an invitation to replicate the originality of the past to fight against the demons that threaten the non-fiction today.
The Story of Documentary Film (The 1970s) recently played at the Cannes Film Festival.
Learn more about The Story of Documentary Film (The 1970s) at the Cannes website for the title.
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