False documentary – Wikipedia

The false documentary (in English pseudo-documentary ) is a narrative expedient of the audiovisual world in which fictitious and fantasy events are presented as if they were real through the artifice of a documentary language.

A more correct definition is “fake documentary”, since the word “false” presupposes a willful misconduct that in this kind of works is completely absent.

Corresponds only in part to the mockumentary (Crasi di mock , “make the verse” e documentary ^[first] ), as the latter, although not representing neanch’esso real events, has mainly parodic intentions, where the pseudo-documentary generally has narrative intentions.

The pseudo-documentary should not even be confused with the docu-drama or documentary, or those documentaries who, for narration needs, fill with elements of fiction or reconstructions reworked gaps in the narration of historical events that really happened: for example a struggle between Two dinosaurs, likely but that no one has ever seen from the true to be able to describe it, or reconstructions of the aspects of the life of a civilization of the past that actually existed, but whose daily activity is only inferred indirectly by the available finds.

A pseudo-documentary presents itself as a documentary, or by cutting and style as if it resumed aspects of reality, but it is actually a product of fiction .
Where the mockumentary It is, as mentioned, a typical satirical/parodic device, the false documentary finds field of election in horror cinema or in the thriller: starting from the second half of the nineties, the tendency to produce films with the technique is spread of the false documentary which, compared to the classic cinematographic narrative in which fiction is explicit to the viewer from the beginning, also nursing the feeling of being faced with an event that really happened.

Among the most used narrative artifices in this genre is that of the “video found” (in English found footage ), is used to make a whole film, such as Rec , UFO Abduction O The Blair Witch Project , or to support part of the narrative, as in Do not open that door , Cannibal Holocaust O The fourth type ), in which the video found, generally amateur, is not the subject of the film but is reproduced during the film to show the adventures of the protagonists.

Another technique, less used, is that of the creation of newspaper articles concerning facts and plot characters (see The hills Have Eyes , Wrong Turn – Il bosco ha fame ). More complex to make, but very effective is the creation of fake vintage cameriornals, which sometimes represent short false documentaries inserted in gender feature films mockumentary (As for example, Woody Allen does in his Zelig or as it happens in Fascists on Mars ).

Among the initiators of the genre is Peter Watkins, who with The War Game (1965) A nuclear attack on England told in documentary style, winning the Oscar just as best documentary. The first example of a false documentary of a modern mold is conceived by Eric Idle, a member of the Monty Python, with his All You Need Is Cash (1978), parodic documentary that tells the story of The Rutles, a fictitious band and parody of The Beatles. In this documentary there are Mick Jagger, Paul Simon and Bill Murray in the role of themselves, talking about The Rutles or telling anecdotes to make the documentary realistic to the public, supported by performances of great actors such as John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd and Michael Palin, Beyond George Harrison himself. Other humorous masterpieces of the genre are the aforementioned Zelig by Woody Allen e This is Spinal Tap by Rob Reiner. Among the television productions they can remember Forgotten Silver At Peter Jackson, Ghostwatch by Stephen Volk, the award -winning TV series Modern Family , the series American Vandal and the British series The Office Designed by Ricky Gervais, together with his US remake, from whose co-creator Greg Daniels the series was also born Parks and Recreation with the same narrative style. Other authors of mockumentary of a certain fame are Peter Greenaway ( The falls ) E Kim Ki-Duk ( Arirang ).

The false documentary technique was also used in animation; One of the first examples is the stop-motion short film Creature Comforts (1989) by Nick Park. There are elements of the false documentary also in the feature film Surf’s up – the kings of the waves (2007).