Documentaire

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A film or television program that provides a factual report on a particular subject or event, often involving interviews and real-life footage
2. A non-fictional visual work that explores real-life topics through narrative storytelling and observation, featuring real people and events
3. A type of audiovisual production that presents facts or investigate subjects through detailed analysis, often aiming to inform or educate the audience

Etymology: The English word for this kind of film owes its currency to John Grierson, a Scottish filmmaker who, in a New York newspaper review of Robert Flaherty's "Moana," a study of daily life in Samoa, applied the term to films that observed real people rather than actors. Grierson's usage made the word a label for a whole genre. The French "documentaire" began as an adjective meaning relating to documents, the written records that prove or explain something. Its root is the Latin "documentum," meaning a lesson, an example, or a proof, which itself derives from "docere," to teach. That sense of showing and instructing still sits behind the film meaning, which presents real events as evidence and explanation.

Synonyms: documentary, film, docudrama