The Authorial Voice, Witnessing and the Documentary

Central to our understanding of both history in the form of written text to the documentary is the relationship of the authorial voice, the narrative, and our access to the events discussed. In the historical text this has been centred on a linear narrative and the voice of the author. In documentaries our access to events becomes more central. With this our relationship between witnessing the events and the narrative becomes the realm of the authorial voice. This brings forward the questions not just of truth but also of how narrative controls our access to that truth. Central to this question of voice is the relationship between the filmmaker and the witness. In this paper we will look at how new forms of documentary has developed to centre the voice of the witness more into the narrative and the narrative structure. We will see how new forms of presentation are being developed to address these changes. We will also briefly look at the difference between documentary and non-fiction film trying to untangle a confusion between the two that leads to false notions of what a documentary is.