New article: Music as an Element of Narration in Poetic Documentaries
Music, sound and rhythm, as aesthetic means of design, have been part of the tradition of poetic documentary film from its early history. This paper, written by BU鈥檚聽, discusses various examples of this genre, all of which use soundscapes, sound design, and music. Music can be either specially composed for the film or previously published.
Internationally known for their musical and poetic qualities are films such as聽Man with a Movie Camera聽(Dziga Vertov 1929),听Rain聽(1929) by Joris Ivens, and聽Berlin, Symphony of a Great City聽by Walter Ruttmann (1929), to name but a few outstanding examples. Among the most recent documentaries using music as a narrative element are聽The End of Time聽by Peter Mettler (2012) and聽Pearl Button聽by Patricio Guzm谩n (2015). The notion of music and rhythm as embodying meaning also applies to silent films, such as Manhatta聽(Strand and Sheeler 1921), a poetic documentary about Manhattan.
鈥楶oetic documentaries鈥� use sounds of the environment as well as music to convey a dramaturgical meaning. How these sounds inform the conceptualisation and realisation of creative/poetic documentaries is the central focus of this paper.
