Types of Documentary

There are six different types of documentaries, poetic documentaries, expository documentaries, observational documentaries, participatory documentaries, reflexive documentaries and performative documentaries. These are described further below.

Poetic Documentaries
This type of documentary was first established during the 1920's as a response to early fiction films. They did not follow continuity editing but order images in terms of associations and patters, time and space. There were no characters in them but people appeared as individuals just like any other person in the world. These fiction films were disconnected, vague and yet poetic. Their disruption of the logistics of time and space, logic that was preferred by fiction films at the time, could also be thought of as the new version of cinematic narratives. The 'real world', also known as the 'historical world' was fragmented and then reconstructed to provide a fictional film, a documentary. Poetic documentaries focused on aesthetically pleasing images rather than a typical linear structure. This type of documentary is often used when presented facts about artists such as dancers.

Expository Documentaries
This type of documentary are targeted specifically at the viewer by talking directly to them through the use of a reliable commentary or voiceover with titles which propose a strong view about a certain subject. This type of documentary are used when trying to persuade the viewer, for example, Loose Change would be considered as expository. They sometimes use a rich and booming male voice to put their point of view across. The voiceover is often full of knowledge and sounds objective. There are no principal images but they are used to reinforce an argument in order to persuade the audience. The language used constantly attempts to make the audience analyse the images in a certain way. When an historical documentary uses the expository mode, it will be doing so to show us one interpretation of the past event rather than providing the audience with all of the facts and allowing them to have their own opinion.

Observational Documentaries
These documentaries are simply just an study of lived life without too much interference with the subject. Producers who follow this mode feel that poetic documentaries are too abstract and expository documentaries are too educational. The first observational documentaries were in the 1960's when developments in technology made it possible to use lightweight cameras as well as portable sound equipment for coordinating sound. This type of documentary often avoided the use of a voiceover, music and reconstructions. The aim of observational documentaries is for a quick understanding and disclosure of a character in everyday life situations.

Participatory Documentaries
These documentaries believed that you could film an event without influencing or scripting the event for the camera. They imitate what anthropologists practice, participant observation. The director is part of the documentary giving the audience an idea of how the footage has been affected by the presence of the director and a camera. According to Bill Nichols, an American historian and theoretician of documentaries, "The filmmaker steps out from behind the cloak of the voiceover commentary, steps away from poetic meditation, steps down from a fly-on-the-wall perch, and becomes a social actor (almost) like any other. (Almost like any other because the filmmaker retains the camera, and with it, a certain degree of potential power and control over events.)" The relationship between the filmmaker and the subject becomes a principal theme of the documentary. Edgar Morin, a French philosopher and sociologist, and Jean Rouch, a French filmmaker and anthropologist, founded cinéma vérité (truthful cinema) in response to this type of film making. The saying refers to the documentary showing the truth of an encounter rather than the absolute truth.

Reflexive Documentaries
This type of documentary is not seen as an obvious presentation of the world but focus on their own construction and the way it is represented. One question which can be asked to sum up this type of documentary is, 'How does the world get represented by documentaries?' These documentaries make the audience think about the accuracy of documentaries in general, making it the most self conscious of all the different types. It is very doubtful of realism. Reflexive documentaries may use the alienation techniques of Bertolt Brecht, a German poet, playwright and theatre director, to shock us and to make what we see and how we see it feel strange and unusual.

Performative Documentaries
These emphasise subjective experiences and the emotional response to the world. They are extremely personal and unconventional to other documentary types. They are slightly poetic and experimental, possibly including theoretical reconstructions to make the audience feel what it could feel like to gain a certain perspective to the world that you would not normally have. This type of documentaries might reach out to certain groups of people, for example, women, ethnic minorities, homosexuals etc. allowing them to talk about themselves. They are often a mixture of different techniques from fiction or avant-garde films. Promising documents often draw links between personal accounts or experiences and bigger political or historical events.