D.A. Pennebaker and the politics and aesthetics of mature-period direct cinema

In this thesis, I offer a reappraisal of direct cinema through a study of documentarian
\nD.A. Pennebaker’s mature-period direct cinema. This is an unexamined period in
\nPennebaker’s career that offers new perspectives on an often-maligned form of
\ndocumentary. The period under study ranges from 1968 to 1970 and encompasses a
\nrange of films, commercials, abandoned projects and personal works. I focus on three
\nfilms: Eat the Document, Sweet Toronto and One P.M. By shifting the critical focus
\naway from the early and classical period of direct cinema, as well as its ‘canonical’
\nfilms, I ask: How does direct cinema engage with the world in its later stages? What
\ncan be understood about direct cinema by examining works that do not circulate in ‘the
\ncanon,’ and how does this analysis change our perception of it?
\nTwo further questions guide my study of Pennebaker: What are the aesthetic properties
\nand ideological preoccupations that characterise Pennebaker’s mature period? What is
\nthe political address of this set of films and how does that reposition the politics of
\ndirect cinema as a whole? Methodologically, I employ a close textual analysis of the
\nfilms and an historical analysis of the period, conduct personal interviews with
\nPennebaker, and engage with intellectual debates within documentary studies to answer
\nthese questions. My study builds upon recent trends in direct cinema scholarship,
\nwhich have opened up new critical horizons by returning the critical focus to the film
\ntexts themselves and the cultural and social contexts in which they were produced.
\nI contribute knowledge to documentary studies by focusing critical attention on a
\nneglected period in a key documentarian’s career. Additionally, I perform a textual
\nanalysis of the period’s films that focuses on the materiality of sync sound – the crucial,
\nbut largely neglected, aesthetic characteristic of direct cinema – as a means of
\ninvestigating my ideological and political line of questioning. I also develop two key
\nconcepts: the performative documentary, which builds upon existing definitions by
\nWaugh ([1990] 2011), Nichols (1994) and Bruzzi (2006; 2013) and furthers the concept
\nthrough an application of Brecht’s alienation effect; and ‘kinetic progressions,’ which, I
\nargue, is Pennebaker’s cinematic process of signification that exploits classical direct
\ncinema’s emphasis on present-ness and found symbolism to further formally evolve the
\nlanguage of direct cinema in a way that fulfils its potentiality for political discourse.

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