To Film Oneself Being: The narrative present tense in autobiographical documentaries
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14591/aniki.v9n1.792Keywords:
Autobiographical documentary, temporality, narrative, chronology, direct cinemaAbstract
This article discusses how a narrative “present tense” is transposed to autobiographical and personal documentaries. Films in which filmmakers-autobiographers seek to transpose the “present” of a lived experience through synchronic sound-image methodologies have been part of the history of documentary film since the late 1960s. Aspects of the transposition of an autobiographical present tense, however, still permeate the contemporary filmography of different countries. The article explains such transposition of a present time in autobiographical narratives through three perspectives: (1) the everyday life as thematic material of the autobiographical narrativity; (2) the chronological temporality as reference and support structure for the autobiographical narrative; (3) the dialogical interaction between filmmaker and filmed people as manifestation of the autobiographical present through the emergence of affective bonds.
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