# data[].attributes.body
This is an excellent step-by-step break down of how to critically analyse a documentary.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Editor's Note: This article is adapted from the fourth edition of Sheila Curran Bernard's Documentary Storytelling: Creative Nonfiction on Screen (Focal Press 2016).
Audiences often respond to documentary work primarily in terms of its content or issues raised. In some ways, this is a mark of success, in the same way that people binge-watching a television drama may not take the time to notice how carefully the various subplots were constructed over an entire season, or how readers of a terrific mystery novel race through the pages to find out who did it.

Done well, craft should feel inevitable, seamless and invisible. Characters are simply alive; the flow of ideas and plot feels organic; the argument seems well built and earned. But people who want to create novels or episodic television or documentaries need to figure out how that success was achieved. This article offers a few ways to analyze documentary films as a way of letting those films' creators-the team of people behind the production-teach you themselves.
The Opening Sequence
The opening sequence, beginning with the film's first frame, may be as short as a minute or as long as 10 minutes; each film is different. But in general, the opening sequence contains the DNA of the entire film to come. It sets out the promise between filmmaker and audience, making clear at least some of the film's rules of engagement, such as what the film is about, how the story will be told, with what elements the story will be told, and why it matters-why this film is worth an audience's time and attention.

After you've watched this sequence, ask yourself some questions, such as: * What is this film is about? * Where is this film is headed? * What are the top three-to-five bullet points that the filmmaker has used to grab my attention and immerse me in the film, making me want to watch?

Here's an example of an opening sequence, from the powerful documentary (dir./prod.: Orlando von Einsiedel; prod.: Joanna Natasegara; editor: Masahiro Hirakubo). At the first frame of action, we enter with a group of men in uniform; it's revealed that they are part of a funeral procession. The scene is vérité; there is no text or voiceover to place us. At the graveside, a man speaks: "Protect us, and help us to account for each day of our lives." In voiceover, we hear another man: "Oh, Congo. Our dear Ranger Kaserka died trying to rebuild this country." As we leave the gravesite, the unaccompanied singing of the mourners gives way to recorded music, and the film cuts to aerial footage traveling low along a river. This image becomes black and white, giving way to carefully selected archival imagery, including footage, a map and stills. Over these visuals, with the theme song continuing, the filmmakers add 13 blocks of text that give the viewer historical and thematic context. These bring us from 1885 ("Africa carved into colonies ruled by European nations.") to 2003 ("First democratic elections in 40 years.").

Three minutes into the film, over a shot of people lined up to vote, the film dissolves back to an aerial over water, then tilts up to reveal mountains. A new series of lower thirds begins, over present-day footage:

2010: Oil discovery claimed in eastern Congo under Lake Edward in Virunga National Park.

A home to thousands of people and the last mountain gorillas.

2012: Instability returns.

A minute later, another aerial follows a small plane over a field, in which we see rangers patrolling. The film title comes up, and then the opening sequence, including the music, ends. The film then moves into a new, second sequence.

To summarize: In less than five minutes, the opening of Virunga has set forth where we are, why we're there and what the problem is-as well as its deep historical precedent. We don't know everything, and that's as it should be. Virunga, like any good film, unfolds over time. It asks the audience to work as it watches, making connections, seeing irony, coming to realizations. We've seen a range of compelling, disturbing and breathtaking footage.

In terms of film storytelling, it's useful to note that the film did not start at "the beginning," with archival images and facts about 1885. That would have been dull, because we're not yet motivated to care. It started with vérité footage of a funeral. The scene lasts about a minute and a half, and raises questions: In Congo, a man has died "trying to rebuild this country." Why does it need rebuilding? Why are people being killed for their efforts? Who are these men in their uniforms, carrying guns?

The aerial along the water breaks us out of the funeral scene and brings us into the historical montage, which, as noted, runs from 1885 to the elections in 2003. Another aerial breaks this up, which has the effect of drawing additional attention to a newer, current threat (which will turn out to be a focus of this film): the discovery of oil under Lake Edward. The montage continues, but it's more localized now, and we move closer to the communities at risk and learn that instability has returned. This is the film's launching point.
Delivering on the Promise: The Rest of the Film
Now you're going to go through the entire film, slowly, looking out for the central elements of documentary filmmaking, such as:

What is the central argument being made by the filmmaker?

What evidence does the filmmaker offer in support of the argument?

How is this story told? Do you see a central narrative-a forward moving story, or train, that makes you want to keep watching?

Once you've identified the train/narrative spine, where and in what context does it return? Is it there at the film's end? Does the film satisfactorily conclude the story it promised in the opening?

Who are the people in the film? What role does each play in the overall story?

What other elements stand out in this film? For example, does something stand out in terms of editing, music or cinematography?

Can you identify individual sequences (akin to chapters) that have a unique focus and a clear beginning, middle and end?

Do you see how the ordering of these sequences also advances the overall narrative?

Does the film's pacing feel slow to you? Does it feel dense with information? Just right?

Compare and Contrast
Another exercise that's useful is a "compare and contrast" between two or more films on the same general subject. This exercise is about really seeing how these films are constructed, as opposed to just deciding if you prefer one to the other. Does one version talk at you and the other engage you, and if so, why? Does one leave the audience with more parts of the puzzle to solve, and is that process satisfying? Does one feel more or less honest or manipulative, and if so, why? In thinking about the answers, consider also the experience of the filmmakers, the purpose for which the film was made and the audience the film eventually reached.
Write a Close Analysis of One Aspect of the Film
A good film analysis asks the viewer to consider one aspect of the craft, studying the film closely in order to make and support an argument about that one aspect, with evidence. You might want to figure out how a filmmaker did something that you found particularly effective, or you might want to figure out why something confused or annoyed you. You might look at a particular idea or thread that runs through a film, teasing it apart to see where and how it appears and with what overall effect.

You want to avoid writing a plot synopsis, film review, opinion piece or film "report" (like a book report), that merely observes. Similarly, a review tends to use adjectives (powerful, blistering, boring, heartbreaking) or make judgments. The trick is to turn the judgment into a question. For example, while a review might note or critique a filmmaker's choice, an analysis would consider what was gained or lost by that choice. Also, it's important that these analyses adhere to a single focus. Rather than spend a paragraph looking closely at the role of re-enactments, and then a paragraph looking at the use of title cards, and then a paragraph considering the filmmaker's choice not to identify talking heads, it's much more valuable to take one thread or idea and look closely at it as it's demonstrated in a range of craft choices.
Reaching Audiences
Learning from top documentarians by closely watching their work-often multiple times-is one of the best ways to figure out their strategies for reaching audiences. As Virunga director Orlando von Einsiedel says, "Your film could be about the most important social issue in the entire world, but if it's a really difficult film to watch-because it's boring, for instance-you're going to limit your audience to a very small number of people, and therefore you're going to have a lot less impact on the social issue you care about." For von Einsiedel and his team, this meant that filmmaking choices were made on the basis of what would drive the narrative forward, and making tough choices along the way. He explains, "When I say the narrative, in the case of Virunga, I mean the oil story and the growing war story and then how elements of the two stories potentially intersect." By closely watching Virunga, viewers can see how the other issues the film raises, such as poaching and deforestation, provide context, but are then minimized in favor of this more focused narrative.
Sheila Curran Bernard is an Emmy and Peabody Award-winning filmmaker and an associate professor at the University at Albany, SUNY. For more information, see www.sheilacurranbernard.com.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Keep a Close Watch: Analyzing a Documentary's Strengths and Weaknesses

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Editor's Note: This article is adapted from the fourth edition of Sheila Curran Bernard's Documentary Storytelling: Creative Nonfiction on Screen (Focal Press 2016). Audiences often respond to documentary work primarily in terms of its content or issues raised.

# data[].attributes.body
This e-journal is dedicated to the academic analysis of film, and is a good place to find ideas on how to discuss style and filmic conventions.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
An online journal devoted to the art & culture of cinema, we set the standard for professional, high quality film-related content on the Internet.

# data[].attributes.body
This example demonstrates how film reviews generally have a less formal writing style which showcases the writer's unique writing "voice".

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
One of the main factors in the making of a truly great comic book movie is the quality of the villain. It's no coincidence that the most favourably reviewed superhero movie of all time, The Dark Knight, also contains the definitive bad guy: Heath Ledger's chillingly demented Joker. Likewise, the most satisfying comic book heroes are never the squeaky clean, morally unimpeachable do-gooders. They are troubled individuals with closets overstuffed with skeletons: they are the tortured Bruce Wayne in Batman Begins; Iron Man wrestling with his tainted entitlement; Black Widow, so lasciviously in touch with her own treachery.

So, the logic follows, how about a film in which even the good guys are bad? Surely a movie that is entirely populated by the most nefarious rogues from the grubbiest corners of the DC universe should be a riot. What could be more fun than watching bad people do bad things in the service of good? Unfortunately, even a film full of villains needs a credible antagonist, and this is one of the many problems with Suicide Squad. Enchantress (Cara Delevingne) and her brother, who can shoot metal lasers out of his arms, have baffling motives for world domination. And their method, which involves forming a humanoid army with heads that look like evil blackberries, is no less confusing. The film-makers forgot the golden rule: a comic book movie is only ever as good as its main villain.

Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn pops out of the murky underworld palette, a flash of toxic neon perkiness

The hiring of David Ayer to write and direct the first screen outing for the eponymous antihero task force, which tackles crime in exchange for commuted prison sentences, seemed like a promising move. Ayer's best work as a writer - Harsh Times, Training Day, End of Watch - kept the audience on side with characters whose moral ambivalence frequently tipped over into gleeful corruption and self-destruction. But the gift for dialogue that was so flashily evident between the bantering, badass cops in End of Watch is absent here. While the film is not intended to be an overt comedy in the style of , some humour is essential to mitigate the sensory assault of the action. A well-crafted wisecrack is one of the most efficient ways of giving a character depth. The lack of quotable lines here goes alongside the fact that only a handful of the characters have been developed into anything more than pencil sketches.

The most memorable, by no small margin, is Margot Robbie's minxy troublemaker, Harley Quinn. Styled like a demon cheerleader crossed with a fairground sideshow, she pops out of the murky underworld colour palette, a flash of toxic neon perkiness. She's a pressure cooker without a lid, a venomous injection of fun into every scene in which she appears. It's Quinn, rather than her boyfriend, the Joker (Jared Leto, all metal teeth and method acting), who leaves the lasting impression, not least because the Joker turns out to be an unexpectedly minor character in this film.

Will Smith's Deadshot is also reasonably well defined, though due to either Smith's inherent likability or the script's emphasis on Deadshot's doting relationship with his daughter, it's easier to accept the humane aspect of his personality than the sociopathic killer. Less well served is Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney), who is more a list of Australian cultural cliches than a character. Katana (Karen Fukuhara) is little more than a samurai sword and a grudge. And Killer Croc (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) struggles to convey much in the way of personality from under the layers of distracting prosthetics.

You could argue that Akinnuoye-Agbaje doesn't get enough lines to explore the nuances of his character. However, it's worth remembering that Vin Diesel's Groot in Guardians of the Galaxy had just one, repeated over and over, and he still managed to be the most sympathetic presence in the film. Ultimately, this overpopulated screenplay might have worked better if a few of the peripheral characters had been stripped away, allowing the more textured ones greater screen space.

Suicide Squad trailer: DC's superhero ensemble comedy starring Will Smith - video

The film is not without technical issues. The production design works rather well. Oliver Scholl (best known for Edge of Tomorrow) delivers a sleazy, stylish look, which is suitably brash and confrontational. But the special effects are unconvincing, and cinematographer Roman Vasyanov's decision to shoot a pivotal battle with the characters silhouetted in thick smoke is as incomprehensible as the scene is indecipherable.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Suicide Squad review - in dire need of real evil

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
One of the main factors in the making of a truly great comic book movie is the quality of the villain. It's no coincidence that the most favourably reviewed superhero movie of all time, The Dark Knight, also contains the definitive bad guy: Heath Ledger's chillingly demented Joker.

# data[].attributes.body
While short, this documentary review is an good example of a review that critically discusses a documentary's central argument/thesis.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
How far you can swallow Gameau's thesis may also depend on your reaction to the man himself.

★★☆

Trailer: Hell's Kitchen Australia

The twenty-first century has seen few documentaries more influential than Morgan Spurlock's Super-Size Me, an anti-fast-food polemic built around the Jackass-style stunt of eating nothing but McDonald's for a month. That Sugar Film, from the Australian actor Damon Gameau, follows a similar program to the point where it could reasonably be called a direct imitation.

The gist of Gameau's message is that sugar, rather than fat, is the main culprit to blame for rising levels of obesity and related ills such as diabetes. To demonstrate, he starts consuming the equivalent of 40 teaspoons of the stuff each day - approximately the national average - and documenting the consequences, sticking all the while to supposedly healthy, low-fat foods.

As propaganda, That Sugar Film is often powerfully effective, going in especially hard against soft drink manufacturers, and exposing some of the dubious claims of the health food industry (though this latter theme could have been pursued further).

What limits the film is that its central method of argument is unscientific by definition, despite the facts and figures provided by a slew of presumed experts. Simply put, Gameau's one-man experiment is not rigorous enough to prove anything at all, however striking his results seem.

How far you can swallow Gameau's thesis may also depend on your reaction to the man himself - who sports permanent stubble and dark grey knitwear and generally comes off as the type who could be classified as a "hipster" if that term hadn't lost all meaning.

From the outset, we're encouraged to view That Sugar Film not just as a healthy-eating manifesto but a personal story. Gameau embarks on his sugar regime just as he's expecting his first child with his girlfriend Zoe Tuckwell-Smith (familiar from TV's Winners and Losers).

By Gameau's account, Tuckwell-Smith is the real health enthusiast of the household; on some level he seems to be competing with her, jokingly yet pointedly comparing her expanding belly with his own. But whatever issues are being worked out here, they remain largely subtextual.

Gameau's mock-innocent, ingratiating manner slightly recalls Russell Brand, and like Brand he borrows rather too much from the conventions of children's entertainment - wheeling on Stephen Fry to recite doggerel verse in the style of Dr Seuss, and closing things out with a deliberately lame but colourful musical number. Ironically, you could call it sweetening the pill.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
That Sugar Film review: Powerful propaganda proves little

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
How far you can swallow Gameau's thesis may also depend on your reaction to the man himself. ★★☆ The twenty-first century has seen few documentaries more influential than Morgan Spurlock's Super-Size Me, an anti-fast-food polemic built around the Jackass-style stunt of eating nothing but McDonald's for a month.

# data[].attributes.body
This example demonstrates how the writer of a review can break down the construction of a documentary's argument.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
At the height of the Beltway sniper terror in Washington, there was no serious call for gun control. But the DC police advised citizens to walk in brisk zig-zags. It's the kind of thing that makes Michael Moore's angry and uproarious documentary about America's toxic love affair with weaponry very relevant. Already it's a word-of-mouth box-office smash, and a Cannes award-winner. The problem is that each screening is liable to be a liberal rally where the converted get well and truly preached to. Both performances I've been to have ended with fervent applause and a great deal of earnest Europeans streaming back out into the foyer, their determination re-doubled and re-tripled never to agree with the American practice of spraying the nearest McDonald's with bullets before turning the gun on oneself. They look like the same movie-buff sophisticates who adore the gun-totin' movies of Tarantino and Ford.

Yet gun control does not appear to be precisely what Moore is calling for. In fact, it's not entirely plain what he is calling for, or where he believes the problem to reside. One second he's implying that free-and-easy gun laws are the problem; the next, he's pointing out that Canada, with its equally lax gun rules, and equally lavish consumption of violent Hollywood movies, has a tiny murder rate. (Moore incidentally neglects to give the murder-rate as a percentage of the population.) One minute he's saying that violence is endemic in the US, the next he's saying that it's a paranoid suburban myth fuelled by the nightly news; this last certainly gets a much rougher ride from him than does that other media sensationalist Marilyn Manson.

Even the film title's meaning is ambiguous. The kids who shot up Columbine high school went bowling at 6am on the terrible day, so is bowling perhaps the problem? Bafflingly, this heavy-handed sarcasm might equally be deployed by the rightwing firearms apologists whom Moore clearly loathes. So the making of this documentary was clearly a journey of discovery for Moore himself, who makes no bones about not having the answers. Refreshing, but exasperating too.

This is a very big, brawling mix of ideas and interviews, with wacky clips, spoofs and pastiches, some devastatingly funny and pertinent, some of them pretty lame. Moore begins with an extraordinary interview with a Michigan bank which gives rifles to all new customers; he wonders aloud if a bank really wants a whole lot of people with guns around. He takes in an interview with the survivalist militia weirdos, and a very scary guy with swivelling eyes who was acquitted, by a whisker, of the Oklahoma City bombing. He shows horrifying CCTV footage of the Columbine massacre, and talks to survivors of that and other grotesque tragedies over which Americans helplessly shrug. (How incredible to compare Britain's fierce legislative response to Dunblane.)

And armed - to use an unfortunate phrase - with the National Rifle Association membership card he's had since winning a marksmanship prize as a teenager, Moore interviews Charlton Heston, whose pro-gun rallies were clearly designed to keep giving the old boy fixes of public adulation unavailable from his dwindling big-screen presence. Could it be that America's addiction to firearms is connected to the decline of Charlton Heston's movie career? Mr Heston himself says that America's gun-related violence is down to having more "ethnicity" than other countries, a remark he clearly regretted the instant it left his lips.

Moore scrambles around the film like a big shaggy dog, jumping up and knocking things over, excitably putting together all sorts of possible connections. He's not always convincing, though, when he draws wide-ranging parallels with the US's military adventures, overt and covert. The handgun psychologically equivalent to the B-52? A little glib.

I will say this, though: at the point where Charlton Heston wanders abstractedly away when the questioning gets too hot, with Moore in angry pursuit, the ageing actor suddenly wears an expression of weary, wounded blankness very similar to Ronald Reagan's when he was being questioned about the Iran-Contra scandal.

The seismic events of September 11 presumably happened in the middle of the production schedule, inspiring Moore to open up his focus very wide to global, geo-political questions, when he might have been better off concentrating on the domestic American scene: that is, the mechanics and economics of power which underpin gun outrages. But Moore tactlessly raises the element of race, though with a different perspective from Heston. The underclass is what scares America's whites into owning guns, and it's the underclass themselves who are largely the victims of the crime from which the Wasp patricians can insulate themselves.

This is a remarkable film in its way. It isn't afraid to go back to first principles, or to sound callow or earnest or uncool. And Moore really does look like a lone figure in the American media mainstream, challenging gun culture - a heresy in which the rest of Hollywood's pampered progressives have no interest. For most of them, there are no votes, and no ticket sales, in saying that guns aren't sexy. It's a pleasure to a hear a dissenting voice.
Topics

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
At the height of the Beltway sniper terror in Washington, there was no serious call for gun control. But the DC police advised citizens to walk in brisk zig-zags. It's the kind of thing that makes Michael Moore's angry and uproarious documentary about America's toxic love affair with weaponry very relevant.

# data[].attributes.body
This example includes the discussion of several documentary techniques, such as the use of statistics/data, interviews and anecdotes. However, the review is quite brief.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Mr. Spurlock, originally from West Virginia, works in the good-natured, regular-guy populist style of documentary rabble-rousing pioneered by Michael Moore. He is a bit less confrontational than Mr. Moore (as well as thinner), but he similarly relishes letting polite, well-scrubbed corporate flacks entangle themselves in bureaucratic doublespeak. In this case, everyone in the food industry seems to want nothing more than to educate consumers, especially young ones, to make good choices.

Anyone who has watched commercial children's television -- where the majority of the ads hawk food of dubious nutritional merit -- has seen such education in action. There is a funny, revealing sequence in which Mr. Spurlock goes to several McDonald's restaurants in search of posters and handouts with nutritional information and discovers that they are difficult to find and sometimes not available at all. There is a heartbreaking moment when an overweight girl worries that she will never lose weight because she can't afford to eat two sandwiches a day from Subway, the diet that made Jared Fogle into the chain's favorite spokesman.

There are also interviews (some conducted over cheeseburgers and soft drinks) with nutritionists, lawyers and David Satcher, the former surgeon general of the United States, all of whom raise alarm about heart disease, juvenile diabetes and other scourges of a society built on cheap, convenient and abundant calories.

The arguments in ''Super Size Me'' will be familiar to readers of Eric Schlosser's best-selling ''Fast Food Nation,'' and like that book, Mr. Spurlock's film is as much about corporate power as it is about health. His conclusion is that it's us or them, that we should kill McDonald's before McDonald's kills us. This may be a little melodramatic, but it should nonetheless give you pause. In any case, it seems more likely that we will continue to live in a fast-food world, perhaps more warily (and more queasily) in the wake of Mr. Spurlock's experience. His movie, which opens nationally today, goes down easy and takes a while to digest, but its message is certainly worth the loss of your appetite.

SUPER SIZE ME

Directed by Morgan Spurlock; director of photography, Scott Ambrozy; edited by Stela Gueorguieva and Julie (Bob) Lombardi; music by Steve Horowitz and Michael Parrish; produced by Mr. Spurlock and The Con; released by Roadside Attractions and Samuel Goldwyn Films. Running time: 96 minutes. This film is not rated.

WITH: Morgan Spurlock, Ronald McDonald, Dr. Daryl Isaacs, Dr. Lisa Ganjhu, Dr. Stephen Siegel, Bridget Bennett, Eric Rowley, Alexandra Jamieson and Dr. David Satcher.
Correction: May 12, 2004, Wednesday A film review in Weekend on Friday about ''Super Size Me,'' a documentary on fast food and obesity, attributed a distinction erroneously to Texas, one of the places to which the filmmaker traveled. It is not the largest state in the union; Alaska is. (The most populous state is California.) The review also misstated the type of diabetes associated with poor nutrition and being overweight. It is Type 2; juvenile diabetes is an autoimmune disorder, now known as Type 1.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
FILM REVIEW; When All Those Big Macs Bite Back

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Mr. Spurlock, originally from West Virginia, works in the good-natured, regular-guy populist style of documentary rabble-rousing pioneered by Michael Moore. He is a bit less confrontational than Mr. Moore (as well as thinner), but he similarly relishes letting polite, well-scrubbed corporate flacks entangle themselves in bureaucratic doublespeak.