CONCLUSION

It can be seen in the examples of Paul Watson’s work that one could identify many formalist tendencies theorised by the early formative thinkers. The question this implies is can such theories be applied to contemporary documentary as a whole or is this simply a formalist branch of a theory akin to auteurism. Without proper investigation this question will remain unanswered here, however, I would suggest in contemporary documentary there is a greater reliance on the processes found in fictional narrative based filmmaking. If we look at the current trend of the ‘docudrama’ for example, we find the boundaries between fact and fiction are growing evermore blurred. Now, this certainly is not the case with Paul Watson’s distinctive brand of observational documentary, but what this does point to is that contemporary documentary form is evermore looking to alter our perspectives of reality. Rather than simply document and record, it is striving subvert; this certainly suggests a future of a formative nature. Something which can be answered within this analysis is, for all the pioneering theories of film criticism that formalism has influenced, it has certainly overlooked the potential of documentary as a distinctly artistic mode of filmmaking. Indeed, in ‘The Photoplay: A Psychological Study‘ Hugo Munsterberg, one of earliest propagators of formalism in film, makes a direct attack on the properties of documentary filmmaking, deducing that cinema could only be considered an art form in the pursuit of fictional narrative rejecting documentary as a mere slave to societal functions (Dudley, 1976, p16). Further, the area of disparity still remains, in David Bordwells contemporary revision of the formalist approach to narrative analysis, it is clear even in the title of his book ‘Narration in the Fiction Film’ the role of Documentary has no place in formalist conceptions of narrative analysis and modes of filmmaking. In my own view, documentary most certainly holds a place formative film theory. Perhaps the best argument or statement for this comes from the founder of what we consider to be filmic documentary itself, John Grierson. In his original conception of the term he considers the purpose of documentary to exist “as the creative treatment of actuality” (Grierson cited in Ellis and McLane, 2005, p4). For me, the emphasis on creativity here suggests that contemporary documentary narrative is not only a direct decedent of twentieth century formative film theory but is, in many respects, a twenty first century reformulation.