Media Education (Mediaobrazovanie). 2023. 19(4) Copyright © 2023 by Cherkas Global University
Published in the USA
Media Education (Mediaobrazovanie)
Issued since 2005. ISSN 1994-4160 E-ISSN 1994-4195
Media Education (Mediaobrazovanie)
2023. 19(4): 581-588
DOI: 10.13187/me.2023.4.581 https://me.cherkasgu.press
Cityscapes and Social Issues: A Critical Examination of Cities in Documentary Film
Nimisha Yadav a > *, Shrutimita Mehta a
a The NorthCap University, Gurugram, Haryana, India
Abstract
Documentaries are a medium for capturing the reality of people by constructing their everyday life. They are narratives told using sound and moving pictures that highlight the world's wonder, complexity, and contradictions. These moving photographs visually express the life of people, the hardships and the events revolving around them. Non-fiction films dramatise factual information to the readers instead of presenting creatively, and are compelling, informative and appreciated as they represent the events without moulding them. Documentaries attempt to enlighten, educate, and raise awareness by utilising interviews, archive material, reenactments, and narration. They also present a non-fictional perspective that frequently challenges and broadens viewers' perception of the world. The documentaries epitomise the social, cultural and economic facets by portraying the lives of people living in different parts of the world. The present paper studies how cities are represented through documentaries and analyses non-fiction films as a platform for encapsulating the authenticity of the select cities. The analysis includes documentaries Calcutta (1969) by Louis Malle, Bombay Our City by Anand Patwardhan and Dilli by Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh. The study attempts to understand the economic disparity, social problems and other struggles in the lives of people living in cities through documentaries made on Indian metropolitan cities.
Keywords: documentary, city, urban living, poverty, slums, film studies.
1. Introduction
History is witness to the fact that documentaries have been used as effective mediums to present information about any event, place or person through moving pictures and actual footage and photographs. Powerful images, interviews and information are used to signify truth and facts. John Grierson, who coined the term, is also considered the father of documentary film. He first used the term 'documentary' in a review of Robert Flaherty's film Moana (1926) on 8th February 1926, published in the New York Sun. After the first recorded mention of the term 'documentary', non-fiction films were used as a propaganda tool for governments, as they were a good way of narrating compelling stories having a social impact. "The best non-fiction films are best not because they are the most informative or the most persuasive or the most useful, but because they are the most creative, effective, and valuable human documents that can be made from the circumstances represented in them" (Waugh, 1977).
What are documentaries?
Documentary film has been defined as a "motion picture that shapes and interprets factual material for purposes of education or entertainment" (Britannica Dictionary 2003). Various
* Corresponding author
E-mail addresses: nimisha20cld002@ncuindia.edu (N. Yadav)
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documentaries are used to educate people, bring changes or provide information on different subjects. They reflect society as it is, and the audience understands concepts explained by visualising the descriptive pictures of the everyday life of people living in cities. "Beyond art, beyond drama, the documentary is also evidential, scientific" (Winston, 1995).
By watching documentaries, the audience has a better social understanding of society as they believe these non-fictional movies present facts. The perception goes that images and the sounds the camera represents aren't fake because documentaries capture information without altering reality. Inevitably, filmmakers have captured the reality and socio-economic struggle of people living in cities throughout history. Brian Winston, in "Claiming the real: The Griersonian documentary and its legitimations", writes,
"I know of no theoretical position, no definition of documentary that does not in some way reference the relationship to the real - from the phrase coined by John Grierson, the founder of the British documentary film movement, who described it as the "creative treatment [that is, image making] of actuality [that is pre-existing reality]' to Michael RenoVs "direct ontological claim to the real': "Every documentary issues a "truth claim" of a sort, positing a relationship to history which exceeds the analogical status of its fictional counterpart"(Winston, 2008).
People living in metropolitan cities experience various social issues in their daily lives, and by reflecting on those socioeconomic problems, documentaries have been used extensively to improve society for future generations.
The objective of the study:
The following are the primary objectives of the study:
- To understand the depiction of different Indian cities through documentaries,
- To study and evaluate the representation of social issues through documentaries.
2. Materials and methods
Numerous research articles have been published examining documentaries representing life.
In 1988, in his research, The Documentary Idea: A Critical History of English-Language Documentary Film and Video, Ellis Jack highlighted the characteristics of documentaries that differ from other film types. The researcher focused on mapping out the beginning of the concept of documentary from 1922 onwards and highlighted various definitions of the documentary. The study was done to understand documentaries' concepts, characteristics and origins (Ellis, 1989).
The Documentary Film Art and the Truth Question is a recent research work by (Ekpenyong, 2007). The researcher questions if the documentary is a truthful cinema or the extent to which it tells the truth to the audience. The research analyses the views of critics having different opinions and compares documentary films with fiction films. Some critics believe that documentaries present 'factual information', whereas others believe that they expose the 'socio-political' condition to bring a change in society.
In 2018 Won- Leep Moon, in his research Documentary and its Realism, tried to study the 'expository documentary and the 'non-expository documentary to understand documentary realism. In the study, 'observational realism' was an important concept as it is closely associated with documentary realism. It aimed to show that since the concept of documentary is confusing, the researcher contributes to finding the source of the problem. The researcher also studied 'Gregory Currie's theory by studying "Visible Traces: Documentary and the Contents of Photographs" to understand Casablanca and Reborn, the non-fictional films (Moon, 2018).
John Grierson published his research article First Principles of Documentary in the book Grierson on Documentary, edited by Forsyth Hardy. After examining documentaries, Grierson highlights that non-fiction films are not lecture films or films that expose; rather, they reveal things in an aesthetic sense. Different principles were emphasised to understand the usage of documentaries. Grierson compared documentaries with studio films and illustrated that studio films fail to open up to the world, whereas documentaries photograph the living world (Grierson, 1932-34).
In 2015 Pol Capdevila published his research work titled The Objectifying Documentary: Realism, Aesthetics and Temporality, where he studied objectifying documentaries. The researcher focused on understanding the characteristics of the realist style in a documentary, developing the objectifying documentary concept, and describing its visual and narrative strategies. In addition, the case study method was used to analyse and understand the visual strategy of objectifying documentaries (Capdevila, 2015).
Alexandras Valsamis published his research titled Documentary Film as Evidence in the Digital Era in 2013. The researcher understands the representation of social reality through digital technology by conducting qualitative research. The study also highlights that a non-fiction film is considered a shred of evidence if a documentary does not omit facts. Case study of recent films on protests, such as This is What Democracy Looks Like, Into the Fire and Bahrain: Shouting in the Dark, has been used to understand the concept (Valsamis, 2013).
Research Gap- It is evident that extensive research has been done to understand the concept of documentaries. There is also research on documentaries used as a medium of representing reality and as a piece of evidence to reflect society. However, less work is done on documentaries reflecting the socio-economic reality of Indian metropolitan cities.
Earlier research reflects documentaries as revealing the reality of a society, but the researchers have not focussed on how cities have been presented through documentaries and how cities can be used to represent the reality of life.
Theoretical Framework- The present study comprehends different documentaries based on Indian cities and understands social inequality and power relations reflected in the physical organisation of the space.
By understanding Pierre Bourdieu's theory of spatial segregation, the present study will understand how different neighbourhoods and spaces are portrayed in the documentaries to highlight the power and inequality present in the cities.
In Bourdieu in the City: Challenging Urban Theory, Pierre Bourdieu gave his theory of spatial organisation, which explores the city through 'the trialectic of symbolic space', 'social space' and 'physical space'. The trialectic of symbolic space refers to the mental categories through which we perceive and organise the world, social space refers to the distribution of capital in its different forms, and physical space refers to the built environment (Wacquant, 2022).
Bourdieu's emphasis on the significance of cultural and symbolic practises in the reproduction of social structures and power relations is one of the main contributions of his work to urban theory. This significantly impacts comprehension of how urban environments are created and experienced and how social and economic power is allocated in metropolitan areas. According to Bourdieu, social and cultural factors influence how people use and perceive space, and the physical organisation of space reflects and reinforces preexisting power relations. He explains that the city's physical layout reflects the present or existing power relations. Different social groups, such as rich and poor, can reflect the city's economic inequalities, and the public space designs can reflect the values of those who hold power in the city. He contends that a society's dominant culture and ideology are created and reinforced through architecture, urban planning, and other cultural practices, affecting how various social groups use and perceive space. Social inequality and power relations are reflected in the physical organisation of space. So, people with distinct lifestyles, tastes and values are directly linked to their societal position. For example, in cities, wealthy people live in houses in the suburbs, whereas the marginalised poor do not have advantages and live in slums.
Research Questions
Based on the review of literature, the following research questions have been framed:
RQ1. What are the various ways in which different Indian cities are portrayed in documentaries, and how effectively do these films address social issues within those cities?
RQ2. How does Pierre Bourdieu's theory of spatial segregation and power and inequality help to understand the social and economic dynamics portrayed in documentaries that explore urban landscapes?
3. Discussion
In her published work titled Documentary Film, Truth and Beyond: On the Problems of Documentary Film as Truth-telling, Anne Lill Rajala discusses the disclosure of the truth in documentaries. The documentary film genre is frequently viewed as distinct from fiction and news, yet as something that informs us of reality and makes a claim to being true. Some people define a documentary movie as merely "art" without distinction from fiction. Her research examines documentary film as a form of truth-telling or a claim to the truth. These, in turn, are connected to knowledge and what we understand to be true or accurate (Rajala, 2017).
Muzahid Sharif, in his study of Postcolonial Indian Nonaction Cinema: The Documentaries of Satyajit Ray, has briefly covered the background of factual films in India and reviewed and evaluated
Satyajit Ray's documentaries from the viewpoints of postcolonialism, content, and aesthetics. He also discusses the style and philosophy of his documentaries in his essay (Sharif, 2018).
In order to build narrative visualisations using video Judd D. Bradbury and Rosanna E. Guadagno in Documentary narrative visualization: Features and modes of documentary film in narrative visualization, examines the format and methods of documentary filmmaking. It covers the documentary film's structural elements with examples pertinent to narrative visualisation. They offer content creators particular ways to increase engagement with their content by giving a clear foundation for the building of documentary narrative visualisation (Bradbury, Guadagno, 2020).
Vladimir Rizov in Eugène Atget and Documentary Photography of the City, discusses the documentary photography of Eugène Atget in late 19th and 20th century Paris. It explores Atget's position as a photographer and provides an analysis of a single image, and talks about it in relation to Jacques Ranciere and Charles Baudelaire's work (Rizov, 2020).
In her article The political in Indian documentary film: Material and aesthetic interventions, post-economic liberalization, (Kishore, 2014) examines the varied forms of political knowledge and intervention being articulated by Indian filmmakers through an analysis of two recent films, Nero's Guests and Development at Gunpoint, as well as the background of the filmmaker collective Vikalp (The Alternative).
In Based on actual facts": Documentary Inscription in Fiction Films (Carrera, 2019) examines how documentary language is incorporated into fiction films through the use of phrases like "based on actual facts" and similar expressions like "based on real events," "based on a true story," "inspired by a true story," etc.
Cagle (Cagle, 2012) in Postclassical Nonfiction: Narration in the Contemporary Documentary investigates the methods used by today's major documentaries to construct meaning and argument. These films combine formal, traditional documentary form with open reasoning, but instead of displaying hybridity, they rely on postclassical narration.
Herzog, Landscape, and Documentary by Eric Ames examines Werner Herzog's use of the landscape as a stage for expressing his view of the documentary as a devalued genre of cinema. An alternative documentary epistemology that largely refers to the inner realm of affect and to embodied knowledge forms arises from this sarcastic performance (Ames, 2009).
The immersive turn: hype and hope in the emergence of virtual reality as a nonfiction platform by (Rose, 2018) analyses and contextualises this shift towards virtual reality while taking into account the cutting-edge aspects of the format and its unique appeal for journalism and documentaries. In order to do this, I consider the discourses and interests that have coalesced to support the acceptance of virtual environments as venues for addressing the real.
Jake Chapman Reeder in The function of narrative in interactive documentary demonstrates how a theory of narrative can be created that can account for interactive documentary characteristics that are distinct from those seen in conventional documentaries by approaching the subject of narrative coherence as a phenomenological premise. The philosophical method of Paul Ricoeur will be modified and expanded upon in order to rethink the function of narrative in interactive documentaries (Reeder, 2020).
Sandra Gaudenzi, in her article The Living Documentary: From Representing Reality to Co-creating Reality in Digital Interactive Documentary, examines the various ways that interactive documentaries affect, form, and shape us. It contends that interactive documentaries are opportunities to create and experience reality rather than merely representing reality. The research focuses primarily on digital interactive, participative, and experiential documentaries (Gaudenzi, 2013).
Sertaç Timur Demir's article The City on Screen: A Methodological Approach on Cinematic City Studies,2014, dealt with how the city is cinematised and how cinematic imagination fictionalises itself in the city. He highlights that cinema captures the city as if it were an eye and illustrates that the relationship between the city and cinema is strong and well-established. He also demonstrated how every type of film, whether popular or independent, fantastical or realistic, meaningless or didactic, has a unique dimension that invariably gathers and interprets a unique aspect of the city (Demir, 2014).
In The Documentary Film Art and the Truth Question, Ibok Ekpenyong examines the complex relationship between truth and art in the documentary film genre. He claims that although documentaries are frequently perceived as objective representations of truth, they are highly subjective works of art influenced by the director's decisions and viewpoint. He uses case
studies that are very helpful since they give specific illustrations of the theoretical ideas covered in the book (Ekpenyong, 2009).
Another essay, How Real is the Reality in Documentary Film? by Jill Godmilow and AnnLouise Shapiro, investigates how representation and truth interact in documentary filmmaking. The writers contend that documentaries are subjective interpretations influenced by several variables, such as the filmmaker's viewpoint, viewer expectations, and the social and political environment in which they are produced, rather than accurate depictions of reality. The authors provide an overview of the history of documentary film, ways in which different strategies are used to construct a particular representation of truth and the ethical implications of documentary filmmaking (Godmilow, Shapiro, 1977).
Carl Plantinga published an article What a Documentary Is, After All in 2005, examining what makes a documentary film. According to the author, the commitment to accurately portraying reality characterises the documentary cinema genre as a whole. In his analysis, he looks at the numerous definitions of documentary filmmaking that have been put forth over time. He observes that most definitions of the genre concur that documentaries are founded on the representation of reality, even though there is no one definition for the genre. The author continues by examining how documentarians depict reality in their films. He observes that whereas some filmmakers adopt a direct strategy, others employ more individualised and experimental methods (Plantinga, 2005).
4. Results
Calcutta (1969)
Calcutta (1969), a documentary by the famous French director Louis Malle captures the dynamism and extremes of the Indian city Calcutta (now Kolkata) using video clips of people. Malle has divided into different parts where he presents people bathing and washing their clothes in ghats, walking towards buses on Howrah bridge and nuns driving around Calcutta in little trucks to help the sick people and several other everyday scenes from the metropolitan. By delving into people's everyday life, Malle showcases people struggling to get work in a big city and social and political turmoil. As per Bourdieu's theory, the power and resource struggle occurs in urban spaces due to social and economic inequality mirrored through how cities are spatially organised. The documentary delves into the real problems people in Calcutta face, bringing to the fore the social dilemmas faced by them. On the one hand, he shows sick people living on the streets taken to city hospitals by the police. On the other hand, he shows the elite class right in the middle of Calcutta enjoying rounds of golf. Malle continues to direct our thoughts towards the economic disparity of the city by listing the history of the colonial city and also by discussing the slums of the gigantic city. The director shows the slum area and comments,
"This shantytown is located in the very heart of Calcutta. It's not an exception. Isolated at the country's easter edge, this gigantic city is in economic recession. A vestige of colonialism, it's poorly adapted to the new Indian economy. Living conditions here grow continually worse. And yet still immigrants pour in" (Malle, 1969).
The documentary is set after independence; therefore, Malle projects how people poured into the cities to work, but the condition in Calcutta worsened, resulting in people getting no work, sleeping and eventually dying on the streets. The unskilled workers who travelled from the neighbouring states to find work in the city could barely survive by pulling rickshaws. The city's living conditions were terrible as job opportunities were fewer and the number of workers was more.
According to Bourdieu's theory, the struggle for resources and power in urban areas involves physical resources, cultural capital, and symbolic power. In the documentary, the city's predominant cultural forms reflect and support social inequity. For example, Malle's camera captures the lavish colonial-era architecture and furnishings of the city's buildings and serves as a reminder of Calcutta's past under imperial control and economic exploitation.
Dilli by Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh
Dilli, a short documentary on Delhi by Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh, released in 2011, is a beautiful and powerful documentary capturing people living in the metropolitan city having different desires and dreams. The documentary captures the city's beauty on the one hand and reveals the harsh reality of the city on the other. It captures the voice of different people, such as factory workers, slum dwellers, painters, vendors, and many others who were struggling in the city. The documentary focuses on the struggle of poor people in a city they call 'Dilli'. Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh show the life of struggling people in a metropolitan city by sharing their experiences. Through their
camera, the directors present how people move to cities for work, a better life, and opportunities to work hard and earn a living. A painter says, 'What is a city? and answers, "When I was in my village, I used to imagine what Delhi would look like. I had heard that Delhi is a beautiful place. So, I decided to come to this city" (Thomas, Ghosh, 2011).
According to Bourdieu's theory, Delhi's physical layout reflects the conflicts and disparities between various social groups. The documentary demonstrates how the city's neighbourhoods are frequently divided along racial, religious, and class lines, with multiple people occupying separate areas of the city. In addition, the documentary showcases slum areas where thousands of inhabitants survive in deplorable conditions. As soon as the city's physical layout started changing, the state of poor people worsened. In Delhi, these workers lived in slums of bamboo, rope, and plastic sheets built near the construction areas. These slums were unauthorised and were therefore demolished as soon as the government decided to construct buildings. Even some schools like Pragati Wheel School, Viklang Basti Informal School, night shelters such as Kalkaji night shelter, and camps such as Madrasi Camp and Sai Baba Camp got demolished. "These slums were demolished for 'city beautification' and 'security reasons' prior to the Games... to create a world-class, slum-free city" (Thomas, Ghosh, 2011). The abolition of these slums and camps to build buildings highlights that life for poor people, especially those living in slums, is problematic and insecure. Another interaction with a slum dweller highlights that these slum dwellers are thrown out of their houses in seconds. It took them many years to build a house, but they were thrown away in seconds since the property was unauthorised. The documentary also spatially divides the rich and poor people. In an interaction, a child says, "Only people with a lot of money can survive in Delhi" (Thomas, Ghosh, 2011). People in slums question their survival and share the benefits and luxurious life rich people have. If they were rich, they could buy a house, and then they would belong to the city. Through the interviews with poor people, the directors showcase the poor condition of people living in slums and their hope to become rich to end this division between societies and belong to Dilli.
Bombay Our City by Anand Patwardhan
Bombay Our City, a 1984 documentary by Anand Patwardhan, explores the complex social and economic life of Bombay, one of the largest metropolitan cities. The documentary focuses on the experiences of marginalised communities in the city, such as textile mill employees, slum residents, and social justice campaigners. Through personal interviews of people living in slums, the documentary examines several themes, including sexism against women, labour exploitation, poverty, and living in slums. The film also shows the resilience of Bombay's citizens, who fight for their rights and dignity. The movie also discusses Mumbai's political situation, mainly how corruption and political favouritism influence urban planning initiatives. It demonstrates how politicians and developers frequently work together to evade labour and environmental laws in the name of profit, which results in the eviction of entire villages and the depletion of natural resources (Patwardhan, 1984).
Through some interviews, the director highlights that people migrated to the city for work and better life, but they have no job or house to survive. Slums are densely inhabited neighbourhoods known for their substandard living conditions and dearth of essential amenities, including access to clean water, sanitary facilities, and healthcare. The documentary showcases the struggling life of poor people, where the houses made by these dwellers were constantly demolished. However, those dwellers built their homes again to survive in the city as they had no other place to reside. In an interview, the Municipal Commissioner stated that these slum dwellers should return to where they came from. The documentary draws attention to the social injustices and inequities in the city and how these injustices are reflected in how the city is spatial. The deprived conditions of poor people without access to resources, space, and food show how different groups in Bombay struggle for basic necessities. The movie, for instance, emphasises how many of the city's poorest and most marginalised citizens stay in its slums and are compelled to live in crowded, unhygienic conditions. The movie also demonstrates how wealthy and middle-class individuals frequently reside in gated communities or exclusive areas isolated from the rest of the city, representing the geographic distinctions between various social categories. This spatial division between the two societies highlights the power struggle between the rich and the poor. The documentary also demonstrates how underprivileged neighbourhoods, considered barriers to progress and economic prosperity, are frequently displaced by the construction of high-rise structures and commercial complexes.
Media Education (Mediaobrazovanie). 2023. 19(4) Table 1. City in Documentaries
S. No. Documentaries Theory of Spatial Organisation by Pierre Bourdieu
1 Calcutta (1969) Social and economic inequalities in the city. Spatial division is the result of power struggles between social groups. Economic factors shape access to resources and opportunities.
2 Bombay Our City
3 Dilli
5. Conclusion
The directors present the city's complexity and diversity through powerful and thought-provoking documentaries. The present research has taken three documentaries to analyse the issues emerging in different Indian metropolitan cities. The selected documentaries demonstrated how urban space is a location of power and resource struggles and how social inequality gets reflected in the city's physical layout.
From wealthy families to poverty-stricken families, from giving a physical description of the city to everything in between, the directors have captured the city's fabled, messy and realistic picture. Although people got opportunities, still, it was hard for these people who were thrown out of their unauthorised homes by the government to survive in a city. It brings forward questions such as: Can these slum dwellers call this city their home? Will they ever have a place of their own? Or are they going to relocate every now and then?
Documentaries give valuable insights into the complex and multifaceted nature of urban life and highlight the importance of understanding the socio-economic context of cities to address the challenges and struggles people face. The applications of Pierre Bourdieu's ideas shed light on the intricate social and economic dynamics of urban life in India and show how spatial organisation both reflects and maintains inequality and power. These documentaries challenge the audience to think critically about the cities we live in.
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