The Technique of Film and Video Editing, 5th Edition

 

 

CHAPTER 27

Innovations in Documentary II

 

Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004), by Michael Moore, represents a watershed in documentary film history. On one level, having earned almost $200 million, including ancillary revenue, it is the most commercially successful documentary of all time. Earnings rivaled the vast majority of dramatic films made in 2003. On another level, however, the film demarks the adoption of dramatic-entertainment values as opposed to the educational-informational values more often associated with the documentary. Fahrenheit 9/11 was certainly not the first documentary to do so; Moore’s film was simply the documentary that garnered the most attention for doing so.

Other areas of the media, particularly news broadcasts on television, ...