Welcome to Francis Academic Press

Academic Journal of Humanities & Social Sciences, 2023, 6(8); doi: 10.25236/AJHSS.2023.060804.

The Observational Aesthetics of Honeyland (2019)

Author(s)

Tongtong Guo

Corresponding Author:
Tongtong Guo
Affiliation(s)

The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK

Abstract

The observational documentary has always been under-represented in the documentary genre. Without narrative techniques and editing, the long observation of a subject makes the film lack a climax in the traditional sense. However, this type of documentary, which aims to observe, has become the closest to life itself and the closest to the “truth”. This type of documentary brings an aesthetic of observation that resonates more with the viewer than other types of documentary. The reason for this is the purpose of studying the emotional interaction between the subject and the viewer in observational documentaries.

Keywords

Observational documentary; Honeyland (2019); Aesthetic value

Cite This Paper

Tongtong Guo. The Observational Aesthetics of Honeyland (2019). Academic Journal of Humanities & Social Sciences (2023) Vol. 6, Issue 8: 19-23. https://doi.org/10.25236/AJHSS.2023.060804.

References

[1] Allen, R. C., & Gomery, D. (1985). Film history: Theory and practice. McGraw Hill.

[2] Bradbury, J. D., & Guadagno, R. E. (2020). Documentary narrative visualization: Features and modes of documentary film in narrative visualization. Information Visualization, 19(4), 339-352.

[3] Brown, B. (2012). Cinematography: theory and practive image making for cinematographers and directors. Routledge

[4] Canet, F. (2013). Chop Shop and Foreign Parts settle on the fuzzy boundary between fiction and documentary: new representations of New York City in Contemporary Cinema. CINEJ Cinema Journal, 2(2), 38-50.

[5] Grimshaw, A., & Ravetz, A. (2009). Rethinking observational cinema. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 15(3), 538-556.

[6] Harrah, D. (1954). Aesthetics of the film: the Pudovkin-Arnheim-Eisenstein theory. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 13(2), 163-174.

[7] Hight, C. (2008). Mockumentary: a call to play. New perspectives, new practices.

[8] Kuhn, A. (2002). Family secrets: Acts of memory and imagination. Verso.

[9] Meloni, G. N. (2019). Tamara Kotevska, Ljubomir Stefanov, Honeyland, North Macedonia, 2019, 87’. Anuac, 8(2), 313-315.

[10] Nash, K. (2011). Documentary-for-the-other: Relationships, ethics and (observational) documentary. Journal of Mass Media Ethics, 26(3), 224-239.

[11] Nichols, B. (1995). Documentary and the Coming of Sound. Documentary Box, 6, 1-8.

[12] Orange, M. (2020). The Real Real: Documentary Then and Now. Virginia Quarterly Review, 96(3), 162-166.

[13] Taubin, A. (2019). The Truth Hurts. Film Comment, 55(2), 62-63. 

[14] Young, C. (1975). Observational cinema. In P. Hockings (Eds.), Principles of visual anthropology (pp.99-113). Walter de Gruyter.

[15] Derrick, C. R. O. (2012). The Zulu Mask: The Role of Creative Imagination in Documentary Film. Routledge.

[16] Ward, P. (2006). Documentary: The margins of reality. Columbia University Press.