Representing Reality: Issues and Concepts in Documentary

Representing Reality theorizes documentary in all-round perspectives. Among others, I think this book is important especially in that it raises the question of reality per se. Documentary has always been marginal not only in discourse but also in cinema industry, under the poor understanding of reality. I think Nichols's notion of "reflexivity" is a key concept itself in understanding documentary, which also provides a good alternative reading regarding what is documentary or not. I think this book will give you a great deal of food for thought, when you have ever contemplated what is real and when we become to question about what we are seeing, not only in films but also in real life.

the book has a lot of useful insights and info about doc. it is harder than the Barnouw book because it is less chatty but it is also rich in food for thought. It takes up things like ethics and documentary style, how different kinds of documentary are similar and different, and how the human body is a really important topic in documentary, pornography and anthropology.