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Utility for the Utilitarian: Documentary's Uses for Other Kinds of Non-Fictional Film

image of Utility for the Utilitarian: Documentary's Uses for Other Kinds of Non-Fictional Film

While Utilitarian film has often been viewed as a sub-set or close relation of documentary studies, this chapter considers the distinctions between the two, and the informative and productive ways that these distinct fields shore up each other's definitional boundaries.

The recent Utilitarian Filmmaking in Australia (1945-1980) research project offers concrete examples of how several different kinds of Utilitarian film (sponsored works by commercial entities and government bodies, ‘data’ and scientific filmmaking, raw footage) are related to documentary forms. It also demonstrates the way this oft-maligned film form stands adjacent to documentary politics and poetics. In considering utilitarian films through a media archaeological lens, these works offer the reminder of documentary's broad ranging, multimedia history throughout the 20 century.

Keywords: Australia ; Documentary ; Industrial Film ; Sponsored Film ; Utilitarian filmmaking

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References

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  1. Acland, Charles R. and Wasson, Haidee (eds) (2011), Useful Cinema, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  2. Albera, Francois and Tortajada, Maria (eds) (2010), Cinema Beyond Film: Media Epistemology in the Modern Era, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  3. Albera, Francois and Tortajada, Maria (eds) (2015), Cine-Dispositives: Essays in Epistemology across Media, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  4. Ansara, Martha and Milner, Lisa (1999), ‘The Waterside Workers Federation Film Unit: The forgotten frontier of the fifties’, Metro, 119, pp. 28–39.
     [Google Scholar]
  5. Barber, Stella (2022), ‘Woomera's women: Camera operators on the Anglo-Australian rocket range 1947–1970, a case study of Laurine (Hall) East’, Studies in Documentary Film, 16:3, pp. 258–273.
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  6. Barsam, Richard Meran (1974), ‘Defining non-fiction film’, in G. Mast and M. Cohen (eds), Film Theory and Criticism, New York, London and Toronto: Oxford University Press, pp. 366–78.
     [Google Scholar]
  7. Broderick, Mick (2022), ‘Filmic mutation: British nuclear tests in Australia 1952–1963’, Studies in Documentary Film, 16:3, pp. 274–97.406
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  8. Broderick, Mick, Gibson, Ross, Hughes, John and Williams, Deane (2016), ‘Utilitarian filmmaking in Australia (1945–1980)’, DP160101536. Grant proposal to the Australian Research Council.
     [Google Scholar]
  9. Chen, Hongwei Thorn, and Gräfe, Sophia (2021), ‘Mapping the non-theatrical field: A useful teaching bibliography’, JCMS Teaching Media 6:1, Winter: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/idx/j/jcms/18261332.0060.607/-mapping-the-nontheatrical-field-a-useful-teaching?rgn=main;view=fulltext.
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     [Google Scholar]
  11. Elsaesser, Thomas (2016), Film History as Media Archaeology, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  12. FitzSimons, Trish, Laughren, Pat and Williamson, Dugald (2011), Australian Documentary: History, Practices and Genres, Port Melbourne: Cambridge University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  13. Fox, Broderick (2018), Documentary Media: History, Theory, Practice, 2nd ed., New York: Routledge.
     [Google Scholar]
  14. Franju, Georges (1949), The Blood of the Beasts, DVD, France: Criterion Collection.
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  15. Grierson, John (1933), ‘The documentary producer’, Cinema Quarterly, 1:2, pp. 7–9.
     [Google Scholar]
  16. Grierson, John (1985), ‘1940: Memorandum to the right honourable, the prime minister’, in A. Moran and T. O'Regan (eds), An Australian Film Reader, Sydney: Currency Press, pp. 72–78.
     [Google Scholar]
  17. Gunning, Tom (1986), ‘The cinema of attraction: Early film, its spectator and the avant garde’, Wide Angle, 8:3–4, pp. 63–70.
     [Google Scholar]
  18. Hediger, Vincenz and Vonderau, Patrick (eds) (2009), Films That Work: Industrial Film and the Productivity of Media, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  19. Hughes, John (2018), ‘From cold war to hot planet: Australia's CSIRO film unit’, Studies in Documentary Film, 12:1, pp. 72–96.
     [Google Scholar]
  20. Hughes, John (2019), ‘Zubrycki's point: Amongst Equals, utilitarian film in the Australian labour movement’, Studies in Documentary Film, 13:2, pp. 103–26.
     [Google Scholar]
  21. Hughes, John (2022), ‘Film for a Purpose: A pictorial introduction’, Studies in Documentary Film, 16:3, pp. 204–18.
     [Google Scholar]
  22. Lazzarato, Maurizio (2002), ‘From biopower to biopolitics’, Pli, 13, pp. 99–113.
     [Google Scholar]
  23. Levin, Donald (2006), ‘Reconstructing reality: The industrial film as faux documentary’, in G. D. Rhodes and J. P. Springer (eds), Docufictions, Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Company, pp. 88–101.
     [Google Scholar]
  24. Martin, Adrian (2014), Mise en Scène and Film Style: From Classical Hollywood to New Media Art, London: Palgrave Macmillan.
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  25. Moran, Albert (1991), Projecting Australia: Government Film since 1945, Sydney: Currency Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  26. Nichols, Bill (2010), Introduction to Documentary, 2nd ed., Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  27. Ostherr, Kirsten (2011), ‘Health films, cold war, and the production of patriotic audiences’, in C. R. Acland and H. Wasson (eds), Useful Cinema, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, pp. 103–22.
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  28. Parikka, Jussi (2012), What is Media Archaeology? Cambridge: Polity Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  29. Plantinga, Carl (2005), ‘What a documentary is, after all’, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 63:2, pp. 105–17.
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  30. Ramos, Fernão Pessoa (2019), ‘What is documentary mise-en-scène? Coutinho's mannerism and Salles's “Mauvaise Conscience”’ in D. Williams (ed.), Ten Years of Studies in Documentary Film, Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 95–107.
     [Google Scholar]
  31. Russell, Grace C. (2022), ‘“Women in industry are not meant to be weightlifters”: Gender and the Australian industrial workplace safety film’, Studies in Documentary Film, 16:3, pp. 245–57.
     [Google Scholar]
  32. Safety in the Meat Industry (c.1957–60), Australia: Camera Kraft.
  33. Sconce, Jeffrey (1995), ‘“Trashing” the academy: Taste, excess and an emerging politics of cinematic style’, Screen, 36:4, pp. 371–93.
     [Google Scholar]
  34. Skvirsky, Salome Aguilera (2020), The Process Genre: Cinema and the Aesthetic of Labor, Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  35. Williams, Deane (ed.) (2019), Ten Years of Studies in Documentary Film, Abingdon: Routledge.
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  36. Williams, Deane and Russell, Grace C. (2022), ‘The utilitarian film dispositive’, Studies in Documentary Film, 16:3, pp. 219–31.
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  37. Williams, Deane, Russell, Grace C. and Broderick, Mick (2022), ‘Special issue introduction: Utilitarian filmmaking in Australia 1945–80’, Studies in Documentary Film, 16:3, pp. 193–203.
     [Google Scholar]

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