Verano, Frank (2016) D.A. Pennebaker and the politics and aesthetics of mature-period direct cinema. Doctoral thesis (PhD), University of Sussex.

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Abstract

In this thesis, I offer a reappraisal of direct cinema through a study of documentarian
D.A. Pennebaker’s mature-period direct cinema. This is an unexamined period in
Pennebaker’s career that offers new perspectives on an often-maligned form of
documentary. The period under study ranges from 1968 to 1970 and encompasses a
range of films, commercials, abandoned projects and personal works. I focus on three
films: Eat the Document, Sweet Toronto and One P.M. By shifting the critical focus
away from the early and classical period of direct cinema, as well as its ‘canonical’
films, I ask: How does direct cinema engage with the world in its later stages? What
can be understood about direct cinema by examining works that do not circulate in ‘the
canon,’ and how does this analysis change our perception of it?
Two further questions guide my study of Pennebaker: What are the aesthetic properties
and ideological preoccupations that characterise Pennebaker’s mature period? What is
the political address of this set of films and how does that reposition the politics of
direct cinema as a whole? Methodologically, I employ a close textual analysis of the
films and an historical analysis of the period, conduct personal interviews with
Pennebaker, and engage with intellectual debates within documentary studies to answer
these questions. My study builds upon recent trends in direct cinema scholarship,
which have opened up new critical horizons by returning the critical focus to the film
texts themselves and the cultural and social contexts in which they were produced.
I contribute knowledge to documentary studies by focusing critical attention on a
neglected period in a key documentarian’s career. Additionally, I perform a textual
analysis of the period’s films that focuses on the materiality of sync sound – the crucial,
but largely neglected, aesthetic characteristic of direct cinema – as a means of
investigating my ideological and political line of questioning. I also develop two key
concepts: the performative documentary, which builds upon existing definitions by
Waugh ([1990] 2011), Nichols (1994) and Bruzzi (2006; 2013) and furthers the concept
through an application of Brecht’s alienation effect; and ‘kinetic progressions,’ which, I
argue, is Pennebaker’s cinematic process of signification that exploits classical direct
cinema’s emphasis on present-ness and found symbolism to further formally evolve the
language of direct cinema in a way that fulfils its potentiality for political discourse.

Item Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Schools and Departments:	School of Media, Arts and Humanities > Media and Film
Subjects:	P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) > PN1993 Motion pictures
Depositing User:	Library Cataloguing
Date Deposited:	30 Nov 2016 09:32
Last Modified:	16 Mar 2022 15:37
URI:	http://srodev.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/65757

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