'11x 18': A Documentary Analysis

1710 Words4 Pages

Yusuke Ito
10/23/2014

In Bill Nichols’s “Introduction to Documentary”, he categorizes six different modes for documentary filmmaking. The poetic mode, expository mode, observational mode, participatory mode, reflexive mode, and performative mode. My paper is going to describe particular artists, often associated with the documentary filmmaking style, and how they used the “observational mode” as a way to explore their understanding of place through time.

“11x14” ”(1977), by James Benning is re-presents the American Midwestern landscape through the window of 11x14 format. It is a non-literary documentary film, a non-conventional narrative, and finds meaning in the space and construction of film. 11X14 opens with a lengthy shot from the back of the Evanston Express (a carriage ride into downtown Chicago). 11X14 includes two other extremely long shots, constructing three ambiguous plot strands dispersed …show more content…

In one of my video piece, I want to use fixed camera as a way to contemplate on the Morandi’s last painting from 1963. Zoomed in form a distance, with telescope lens, to simply observe the painting for a long time, as the painting should present itself to the viewer. Morandi paints in pale, nearly dead color, which itself cannot or will not rise to full spectrum. It will not reach across space to communicate visual power, but makes you reach across space toward it. We do the walking. The painting does the waiting. It lets you, in fact invites you to walk past it and ignore it. However, during the busiest time of the day, crows of businessman and traffic, people doing what they need to do, will be walking in front of the camera. The rupture of vision and noise of the city as an unease of contemplation. I hope to create a tension in the pace of the painting and pace of the

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