{"product_id":"kill-the-documentary-jill-godmilow-9780231202770","title":"Kill the Documentary: A Letter to Filmmakers, Students, and Scholars","description":"\u003cp\u003eCan the documentary be useful? Can a film change how its viewers think about the world and their potential role in it? In \u003ci\u003eKill the Documentary\u003c\/i\u003e, the award-winning director Jill Godmilow issues an urgent call for a new kind of nonfiction filmmaking. She critiques documentary films from \u003ci\u003eNanook of the North\u003c\/i\u003e to the recent Ken Burns\/Lynn Novick series \u003ci\u003eThe Vietnam War\u003c\/i\u003e. Tethered to what Godmilow calls the \"pedigree of the real\" and the \"pornography of the real,\" they fail to activate their viewers' engagement with historical or present-day problems. Whether depicting the hardships of poverty or the horrors of war, conventional documentaries produce an \"us-watching-them\" mode that ultimately reinforces self-satisfaction and self-absorption. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn place of the conventional documentary, Godmilow advocates for a \"postrealist\" cinema. Instead of offering the faux empathy and sentimental spectacle of mainstream documentaries, postrealist nonfiction films are acts of resistance. They are experimental, interventionist, performative, and transformative. Godmilow demonstrates how a film can produce meaningful, useful experience by forcefully challenging ways of knowing and how viewers come to understand the world. She considers her own career as a filmmaker as well as the formal and political strategies of artists such as Luis Buel, Georges Franju, Harun Farocki, Trinh T. Minh-ha, Rithy Panh, and other directors. Both manifesto and guidebook, \u003ci\u003eKill the Documentary\u003c\/i\u003e proposes provocative new ways of making and watching films.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Jill Godmilow\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0231202776\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780231202770\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Columbia University Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 03\/22\/2022\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 224\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.70lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.20h x 6.10w x 0.60d","brand":"Jill Godmilow","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":43994634911999,"sku":"9780231202770","price":30.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_76af71bd-d2e0-43c0-8b1e-f3c44ab0a436.jpg?v=1683331313","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/kill-the-documentary-jill-godmilow-9780231202770","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}