Prolegomenas for a phenomenological analysis of documentary narrative

Abstract

We propose to analysis documentary film with phenomenological methodology, having as center the concept of 'staging', or 'documentary mise-en-scène'. The circumstance of the take will be worked as a special space in which works a kind of subjectivity that holds the camera-machine in the world, receiving and addressing the bodies staged toward the spectatorial position. We will analysis 'mise-en-scene' as a reacting procedure towards the camera subjectivity, composed of action and expression. The mise-en-scène of the take varies in history. It figures itself in the modes we call 'constructed', 'direct', 'reflexive', 'interactive', 'performing' and 'corporeal'. In its historical disposition the modes of mise-en-scène are related to specific ideological contexts that will be called 'ethics of documentary'. In this sense, we will mention the epistemological exudative’s assertions that follow the constructed staging in classical documentary; the direct staging that sustain personages by exploring the indeterminacy of the 'verité' style; and the corporeal voice that closes itself as a screen by performance, or as a subject that stages his own body as flesh in the world. (AU)