Documentary Is/Not a Name

There is no such thing as documentary-whether the term designates a category of material, a genre, an approach, or a set of techniques. This assertion-as old and as fundamental as the antagonism between names and reality-needs incessantly to be restated, despite the very visible existence of a documentary tradition. In film, such a tradition, far from undergoing crisis today, is likely to fortify itself through its very recurrence of declines and rebirths. The narratives that attempt to unify/purify its practices by positing evolution and continuity from one period to the next are numerous indeed, relying heavily on traditional historicist concepts of periodization.