Language of lens in documentaries

Portrait of Hiralal Sen (top), Biren Das Sharma

Indian film scholar professor Biren Das Sharma of Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute in Kolkata delivered the lecture on "Camera Language in Documentary Films". In his lecture he provided the background of South Asian documentary filmmaking and analysed the visual styles in four types of documentaries.

According to Biren: "The history of the first institutional endeavour in documentary filmmaking in the subcontinent dates back to the period of the Second World War. At that time German documentary films were influential and the Germans used the medium very effectively for the propaganda of the Nazi ideology. Three types of documentaries -- biographical, policy propaganda and films glorifying future -- were dominant then. In 1942, Paul Zils, a renegade German started making propaganda films in India for the British following the conventions of the Germans. Thus, the visual style of the Germans was accumulated in the Indian film culture, which continues to dominate the styles of propaganda films. A strong flow of propaganda films was thus established in India.

"In expository documentary, the audience is addressed directly to present reality's surface. The 'voice of god' style narration is used to guide the audience and to interpret what is going on the screen. The function of visuals is limited only to illustrate the narration.

"In the observational documentary, the life of the subject is observed. These films do not place a narrator between the film's content and the audience. The directors want the documentaries to be more self-explanatory. However, not many observational documentaries are made in the subcontinent.

"In interactive documentary, the director records the activities of certain people or group. The transition between scenes is not always smooth, as noticed in other documentaries. The camera works as the medium of interaction between the director and the people. Camera provokes the voice of these people; director's opinions are not dominant. This trend is gaining popularity nowadays.

"In self-reflective documentary, the director expresses his or her opinions or inner sensibility. The subject matter of the film is given a very personal treatment. This type of documentary is rare in the subcontinent."

The lecture was followed by screenings of Terminus (1961), a documentary by John Schlesinger, one of the pioneers of British Free Cinema Movement and I for India (2005), a documentary film by Sandhya Suri, which was awarded Himal prize for second best film recently.

BFFS organises various programmes concerning creative, aesthetic, thematic and technical aspects of film and filmmaking. Eminent filmmaker and film society activist Morshedul Islam presided over the programme.