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Mockumentary
A mockumentary (a portmanteau of mock and documentary) is a type of film or television show depicting fictional events, but presented as a documentary. Mockumentaries are often used to analyse or comment on current events and issues in a satirical way by using a fictional setting, or to parody the documentary form itself. The term originated in the 1960s but was popularised in the mid-1990s when This Is Spinal Tap director Rob Reiner used it in interviews to describe that film.
While mockumentaries are comedic, pseudo-documentaries are their dramatic equivalents.[citation needed] Pseudo-documentary should not be confused with docudrama, a fictional genre in which dramatic techniques are combined with documentary elements to depict real events. Nor should either of those be confused with docufiction, a genre in which documentaries are contaminated with fictional elements.
Mockumentaries are often presented as historical documentaries, with B roll and talking heads discussing past events, or as cinéma vérité pieces following people as they go through various events. Examples emerged during the 1950s when archival film footage became available. A very early example was a short piece on the "Swiss spaghetti harvest" that appeared as an April Fools' prank on the British television program Panorama in 1957.[citation needed]
Mockumentaries can be partly or wholly improvised.
Early work, including Luis Buñuel's 1933 Land Without Bread, Orson Welles's 1938 radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds, various April Fools' Day news reports, and vérité-style film and television during the 1960s and 1970s, served as precursor to the genre. Early examples of mock-documentaries include various films by Peter Watkins, such as The War Game (1965), Privilege (1967), and the dystopic Punishment Park (1971).
Further examples are The Connection (1961), David Holzman's Diary (1967), Pat Paulsen for President (1968), Take the Money and Run (1969), The Clowns (1970) by Federico Fellini (a peculiar hybrid of documentary and fiction, a docufiction), Smile (1975), Carlos Mayolo's The Vampires of Poverty (1977) and All You Need Is Cash (1978). Albert Brooks was also an early popularizer of the mockumentary style with his film Real Life, 1979, a spoof of the 1973 reality television series An American Family. Woody Allen's Take the Money and Run is presented in documentary style with Allen playing a fictional criminal, Virgil Starkwell, whose crime exploits are "explored" throughout the film. Jackson Beck, who used to narrate documentaries in the 1940s, provides the voice-over narration. Fictional interviews are inter-spliced throughout, especially those of Starkwell's parents who wear Groucho Marx noses and mustaches. The style of this film was widely appropriated by others and revisited by Allen himself in films such as Men of Crisis: The Harvey Wallinger Story (1971), Zelig (1983) and Sweet and Lowdown (1999).
Early use of the mockumentary format in television comedy can be seen in several sketches from Monty Python's Flying Circus (1969–1974), such as "Hell's Grannies", "Piranha Brothers", and "The Funniest Joke in the World". The Hart and Lorne Terrific Hour (1970–1971) also featured mockumentary pieces that interspersed both scripted and real-life man-in-the-street interviews, the most famous likely being "The Puck Crisis" in which hockey pucks were claimed to have become infected with a form of Dutch elm disease.
All You Need Is Cash, developed from an early series of sketches in the comedy series Rutland Weekend Television, is a 1978 television film in mockumentary style about The Rutles, a fictional band that parodies The Beatles. The Beatles' own 1964 feature film debut, A Hard Day's Night, was itself filmed in mockumentary style; it ostensibly documents a few typical (and highly fictionalized) days in the life of the band as they travel from Liverpool to London for a television appearance.
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Mockumentary
A mockumentary (a portmanteau of mock and documentary) is a type of film or television show depicting fictional events, but presented as a documentary. Mockumentaries are often used to analyse or comment on current events and issues in a satirical way by using a fictional setting, or to parody the documentary form itself. The term originated in the 1960s but was popularised in the mid-1990s when This Is Spinal Tap director Rob Reiner used it in interviews to describe that film.
While mockumentaries are comedic, pseudo-documentaries are their dramatic equivalents.[citation needed] Pseudo-documentary should not be confused with docudrama, a fictional genre in which dramatic techniques are combined with documentary elements to depict real events. Nor should either of those be confused with docufiction, a genre in which documentaries are contaminated with fictional elements.
Mockumentaries are often presented as historical documentaries, with B roll and talking heads discussing past events, or as cinéma vérité pieces following people as they go through various events. Examples emerged during the 1950s when archival film footage became available. A very early example was a short piece on the "Swiss spaghetti harvest" that appeared as an April Fools' prank on the British television program Panorama in 1957.[citation needed]
Mockumentaries can be partly or wholly improvised.
Early work, including Luis Buñuel's 1933 Land Without Bread, Orson Welles's 1938 radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds, various April Fools' Day news reports, and vérité-style film and television during the 1960s and 1970s, served as precursor to the genre. Early examples of mock-documentaries include various films by Peter Watkins, such as The War Game (1965), Privilege (1967), and the dystopic Punishment Park (1971).
Further examples are The Connection (1961), David Holzman's Diary (1967), Pat Paulsen for President (1968), Take the Money and Run (1969), The Clowns (1970) by Federico Fellini (a peculiar hybrid of documentary and fiction, a docufiction), Smile (1975), Carlos Mayolo's The Vampires of Poverty (1977) and All You Need Is Cash (1978). Albert Brooks was also an early popularizer of the mockumentary style with his film Real Life, 1979, a spoof of the 1973 reality television series An American Family. Woody Allen's Take the Money and Run is presented in documentary style with Allen playing a fictional criminal, Virgil Starkwell, whose crime exploits are "explored" throughout the film. Jackson Beck, who used to narrate documentaries in the 1940s, provides the voice-over narration. Fictional interviews are inter-spliced throughout, especially those of Starkwell's parents who wear Groucho Marx noses and mustaches. The style of this film was widely appropriated by others and revisited by Allen himself in films such as Men of Crisis: The Harvey Wallinger Story (1971), Zelig (1983) and Sweet and Lowdown (1999).
Early use of the mockumentary format in television comedy can be seen in several sketches from Monty Python's Flying Circus (1969–1974), such as "Hell's Grannies", "Piranha Brothers", and "The Funniest Joke in the World". The Hart and Lorne Terrific Hour (1970–1971) also featured mockumentary pieces that interspersed both scripted and real-life man-in-the-street interviews, the most famous likely being "The Puck Crisis" in which hockey pucks were claimed to have become infected with a form of Dutch elm disease.
All You Need Is Cash, developed from an early series of sketches in the comedy series Rutland Weekend Television, is a 1978 television film in mockumentary style about The Rutles, a fictional band that parodies The Beatles. The Beatles' own 1964 feature film debut, A Hard Day's Night, was itself filmed in mockumentary style; it ostensibly documents a few typical (and highly fictionalized) days in the life of the band as they travel from Liverpool to London for a television appearance.