'Show Us Life': Towards a History and Aesthetics of the Committed Documentary - Tapa blanda

...Excellent critical introduction....Significant contribution to the ongoing project of a living, critical media culture. * John Greyson, Fuse * ...An absorbing anthology...surveying some of the most exciting and exploratory films and filmmakers involved in the complex history of radical documentaries....Timely and significant. * The Independent Review: A Journal of Political Economy * At last, an important anthology on the politics and art of making documentary films. In light of the shortage of material published in book form on this crucial subject, Thomas Waugh's edition of twenty-four articles is welcome and needed. * Cineaste * In addition to providing a masterful introduction, Waugh begins each chapter with succinct, lucid comments.... A valuable contribution to an understanding of documentary film and the rhetoric of social change. * Quarterly Journal Of Speech * ...An ambitious undertaking and a valuable resource for anyone interested in the history and theory of the political documentary. * Susan Ryan, Sightlines *

This anthology of 25 articles is both historical and cross- cultural, covering the pioneering period of the twenties and thirties and the dynamic growth of committed documentary since the sixties; recent feminist initiatives in North America and Britain; committed documentary in the Third World over the last 25 years; the use of film within the American 'New Left;' and the particular problematic of radical film distribution. Contributors include such well-known activists and scholars as Joan Braderman, Julianne Burton, Guy Hennebelle, John Hess, Claire Johnstone, E. Ann Kaplan, Chuck Kleinhans, Julia Lesage, Steve Neale, Bill Nichols, Anand Patwardhan, and Paul Willemen. Filmmakers and collectives discussed include Dziga Vertov, Joris Ivens, Jean Renoir, Frontier Films, Newsreel, Chris Marker, Barbara Kopple, JoAnn Elam, Michelle Citron, Shinsuke Ogawa, Fernando Birri, Patricio Guzman, Santiago Alvarez, Fernando Solanas, Jean-Luc Godard, Anand Patwardhan, and the Nicaraguan Studio 'Incine.'