CHAPTER 7 Structure fr- it is sometimes thought that the structure of a nonfiction film arises naturally from its subject matter, just as a road follows the contours of the terrain on which it lies. However, we can also build the road high above the ground on pylons, run it through tunnels beneath the earth, and dig and blast the terrain to suit the road builders. I have claimed that the nonfiction film, similarly, may legitimately represent a subject in a variety of ways, and in diverse structures. It is true that in a historical documentary, the order of projected world events must correspond to the chronological order of, actual events. If I make a documentary about the beating of Rodney King {event A), the criminal trial of the policeman who beat him {event B), and the ensuing riots in Los Angeles {event C), the projected world of my documentary should represent the events as having occurred in the order: A, then B, then C. However, the discursive presentation need not follow such an order. I may first recount event C, then examine events B and A as causes. Or in a film about the policemen's trial, I may first briefly cover A and C to provide context, then go on to examine the trial (B) in greater detail. As I argued in Chapter Five, the discursive order of presentation may differ from the order of events as they are thought to have occurred. Form does not naturally follow content, and the structure of a nonfiction film depends as much on the rhetorical choices of the filmmaker as it does on subject matter. w ľ h r ¥ Rhetorical and Other Structures Narrative is but one means of structuring the projected world of the documentary. Nonfictions also use associational, categorical, and rhetorical forms. Associational structure emphasizes likenesses or relationships between entities, as The Bridge juxtaposes various elements of a bridge, Chronicle of a Summer features interviews about "happiness," and In Heaven There is No Beer chronicles Polka music by 120 Structure 121 showing a sequence of dances and clubs, culminating in the annual "Polkabration." Associational structure well fits the open voice, as it i squires only the loosest of structures, and can be based on likenesses (ir similarities of any sort, including the contiguities of a single location, event, or institution. Thus Wiseman's explorations of institutions follow a loose associational form, as do numerous other observational tilms. Although, at its simplest, categorical form may consist of a mere list of entities, it is often conventionally structured, featuring definition, classification, and comparison and contrast. It may consist of a catalogue of parts or elements, together with an explanation or analysis. An analysis distinguishes between the parts of the thing described. Functional analysis goes a step further, determining the function of the parts in relation to the whole. Causal analysis determines the function of the parts as they cause and effect one another. Alain Resnais' Night and Fog {1955), in its formal voice, analyzes the horrifying phenomenon of the Nazi concentration camps by giving a catalogue of the various elements that ensured their "efficient" operation. We see the transportation of people to the camps in trains, the social designations and hierarchies in the camp, living conditions, medical facilities and cruel medical experiments, camp prisons, gas chambers, and ovens for the disposal of bodies. We also see the Allied arrival at the camps after the defeat of the Nazis. At each point, the voice-over offers explanations of what we see, or statements that describe what we are not shown. "Many are too weak to defend their rations against thieves." "They take the dying to the hospital." The film's music, although muted, gives a clear context of sorrow to the subject. The end of the film offers a firm conclusion, and an explicit context in which to put the prior information. The Nazis ensured that nothing would be wasted in their drive to exterminate millions of people. We see piles of eyeglasses, women's hair to be used to make cloth, human bones for fertilizer, bodies for soap, and skin for paper. The appalling cruelty and destruction of life is apparent, and the voice-over intones: "There is nothing left to say." But in the conclusion of the film, and in its alternating black and white footage of the past with color footage of the present, the discourse does make explicit claims that sum up the warning central to the film. The explicit point is that we must be ever vigilant to prevent similar occurrences in the future. "War nods, but has one eye open," the voice-over says. The scourge of the death camps is _still_.amQng us.......... 122 Rhetoric and Representation in Nonfiction Film Lee Grant's Academy Award-winning Down and Out in America (1986) stands at the shading between the formal and open voices, and between categorical and associational form. Its use of voice-over narration is a technique associated with the formal voice, since it carries much of the information of the film, clearly identifying the images and illustrating their pertinence for the broader issue - unemployment and poverty in America. The film begins to analyze the situation by partitioning it into several categories: farmers having financial difficulty and losing their farms, workers facing unemployment due to industrial plant closings, a parking lot in Los Angeles - Justiceville - turned into a living space for the homeless, and Hispanic families in New York renovating abandoned apartment houses. In the last segment, the film focuses on a particular family of six who lack the resources to escape —theirdismaHife-m-a-welfare hotel. The film straddles the boundaries between the open and formal voices because explicit analysis occurs only within, and never between, each of these partitioned scenes; the relationship between scenes is one of association but never explicit analysis. The voice-over describes each situation, but draws no comparisons between them. Down and Out in America stops short of coming to any generalized conclusions about what the several scenes add up to, refraining from linking the various situations with generalized comments on the state of poverty in America. The film remains open in this respect, because it leaves the viewer to come to her own conclusions. Other films feature a rhetorical structure. In the realm of rhetoric, some make a distinction between persuasion and argument. Argument is typically thought of as a formal, logical process. To settle a matter by formal argument is to appeal to reason. To make an argument is to claim that a conclusion, usually in the form of a proposition, merits be- . lief on the basis of salient evidence, true premises, and valid reasoning. Persuasion, on the other hand, is a much less formal process - the art of getting someone to do or believe what you want them to do or believe. We might describe such a process not as argument, but as "artistic proof."1 Following Aristotle's Rhetoric, successful persuasion wins assent to the will of the persuader, and depends on dispositio, or structure, elocutioy or style, and inventio, argument or proof. Three types of "proof" equip the persuader: (1) ethical proof - the presumed character and credibility of the persuader, (2) emotional proof - the persuader's ability to stir the emotions, and (3) demonstrative proof - the appeal to evidence (testimony, statistics, examples). In the case of demonstrative Structure 123 truth, the aim is to present evidence in the best possible light, so that it is persuasive (although not necessarily accurate or authentic). Whereas the aim of formal argument is to establish a reasonable conclusion, the end of persuasion, or artistic proof, is to win the assent of the listener or spectator.. J AH films are rhetorical in the sense that they imply an ideological po- \ sition toward their subject. One could say that all films of the formal | voice are persuasions, since they proselytize - implicitly or explicitly - I for their ideological position, and since their function is to teach and i explain. But not all films employ overt artistic proofs as their overall organizational principle. Explicit argument and artistic proof are often antithetical to the whole project of the open voice, because they eschew the teaching function (and thus presume to persuade the spectator of 'very little). Nonetheless, the discourse in such films often smuggles in [rhetorical material, and no nonfiction film can escape rhetoric entirely. i The formal voice, on the other hand, often makes use of explicit strate- igies of persuasion to win the spectator's assent. With few exceptions, a persuasive case in a formal film is stated verbally by a voice-over narrator or interviewee. To structure a film as an artistic proof usually requires the use of language. Only verbal or other symbolic discourse, perhaps in tandem with images, can explicitly make complex arguments and persuasive cases. Willard Van Dyke's Valley Town, for example, makes its position verbally explicit. Over shots of men working on an airplane engine, the voice-over sums up the film's argument: "Let's keep the workers up to date. Let's keep their i skills as modern as the new machines." In addition, films of the formal | voice do not simply include local rhetorical moments (as in open films), ; but are often globally structured according to an artistic proof that be-| comes the motivating principle of the work. A clear example of rhetorical structure is CBS Reports' 1960 "Harvest of Shame," an hour-long episode featuring Edward R. Murrow as voice-over narrator. "Harvest of Shame" is structured as an artistic proof, bringing evidence and emotional appeals to bear on a set of propositions to which the film wishes to gain assent. (This is a rare example of a network documentary that sharply criticized American society, placed blame for a social problem squarely on a particular group, and advocated specific legislation to alleviate the problem.) The propositions can be condensed into two general theses. The first is that migrant workers suffer under inhumane living and working conditions. The second is that federal legislation is needed to alleviate the problem. 124 Rhetoric and Representation in Nonfiction Film The overall rhetorical structure is very simple, as the film (1) presents visual evidence and oral testimony in making its case, (2) makes an emotional appeal for action, and (3) suggests a plan of action, in that order. It also couches its rhetorical structure within an overarching narrative movement, a cyclical journey as we follow the migrants from job to job and from location to location. Formal Narrative Structure Any film that recounts a chronology of events makes use of a narrative structure. In their narrative structure, nonfiction films of the formal voice share important structural similarities with classical fiction films. One of the means by which David Bordwell, Janet Staiger, and Kristin Thompson characterize the classical Hollywood style of filmmaking is through Hollywood's discourse about itself in trade manuals, memos, production and screenwriting books, etc.2 To characterize what is "classical" about nonfiction films of the formal voice by similar means, however, would be impossible. Trade manuals for nonfiction film are not only less common than those for fiction, but with few exceptions, they do not treat the structure of the films.3 For example, an early handbook of documentary film production, W» Hugh Baddeley's The Technique of Documentary Film Production, wholly ignores the structuring and composition of documentary discourse.4 Baddeley's book is highly technical, covering such topics as budgets, equipment, editing, and distribution. This neglect of narrative structure has stemmed in part from the widespread idea that the documentary, as a representation of reality, should be formed "in sympathy" with its subject. What is usually meant by such a claim is that the documentary must somehow copy, trace, or imitate reality not simply in its model of the real (the projected world), but in its discursive presentation. In his book, Directing the Documentary, Michael Rabiger writes that the documentary "owes its credibility to acts, words, and images quite literally plucked from life and lacking central authorship." In fiction, Rabiger writes, the artist "has control over the form in which content is expressed," whereas in the documentary, "freedom of expression is severely curtailed by the idiosyncratic nature of the given materials, even circumscribed by them."5 Once again, the correspondence theory of nonfiction film raises its head. The projected world of a nonfiction film is a model of the actual world. The subject matter of the nonfiction film may circumscribe that i Structure 125 model. Responsibility requires that the filmmaker give up an element of freedom in the name of accuracy, for to preserve truth in discourse, one's assertions, to the best of one's knowledge, must be accurate. But this does not require that the discourse not manipulate projected world data in myriad ways, both structurally and stylistically. For any given subject, one can devise numerous and diverse means for its presentation. A highly structured, stylized discourse may still assert true propositions and function as nonfiction. The ethical filmmaker strives for accuracy in representation; yet to claim that each subject naturally requires a particular documentary form goes too far. The assertion of truth claims, and even what might be called "accurate portrayal," can come in many varied packages. When one examines the structure of many narrative nonfiction films, one sees repeated patterns - conventional structures. The constant repetition of these structures leads to one of two conclusions. Either the world is naturally structured according to the dictates of conventional structures, or the Schemas with which documentarists work impose a conventional structure onto their subject. I suspect the latter. If nonfiction filmmakers take structure for granted, the result is that many implicitly embrace canonical structures inherited from prior documentary practice, from the classical fiction film, and from time-honored conceptions of narrative, rhetoric, and composition. Whether employed intentionally or not, these structures are derived from centuries of discursive and artistic practice, having classical formal qualities such as unity, coherence, emphasis, harmony, and restraint. Such a discourse defines its dominant topic, distinguishes the relevant from the irrelevant, and subordinates minor to major topics. Since it explains phenomena, the formal voice selects, unifies, orders, and gives emphasis to appropriate elements of the projected world. These are features so ingrained in the Western viewer's mind that they qualify as Schemas, extrinsic norms we expect to find in many documentaries. Beginnings Temporal ordering principles, along with voice and style, are primary means by which the discourse develops the projected world as a model, and thus makes assertions and implications about the actual world. The beginning of a formal nonfiction film - the titles and credit se-^Í^cCa prologue, and preliminary exposition - carries as much weight 126 Rhetoric and Representation in Nonfiction Film as does the beginning of a classical fiction film. This "classical" beginning serves both a formal and an epistemological function. Formal narrative structure follows canonical story formats in positing an initial "steady" state that is violated and must be set right. In both fiction and nonfiction film, the violation of the steady state is a catalyst for further textual movement, whether it be narrative or argument. Robert Flaherty's The Land (1942), for example, begins by showing idyllic scenes of American farming, while the voice-over urges that this is good land and these are good people. But these harmonies are soon interrupted when the discourse introduces a significant, threatening problem - widespread erosion. Because the steady state -good farmers farming profitably on good farms - must be restored, the discourse now is driven forward by the need to find a solution to the —probtemrThe^steady state has been made unstable, and according to the conventions of the canonical story format, must be set aright. Humphrey Jennings* The Silent Village (1943) reenacts the Nazis' brutal treatment of the people of a small mining town in Czechoslovakia during World War II. The opening sequence is a poetic celebration of life before the Nazi occupation. We see church sanctuaries filled with singing parishioners, busy workers and the sounds of heavy machinery, children watching a Donald Duck cartoon, miners drinking at a pub, a mother combing a child's hair. The sequence is comprised solely of these sorts of atmospheric images accompanied by diegetic sound. The voice-over then announces that such was village life before the Fascists. We then see the first signs of the Nazi occupation - a black car with a loudspeaker, blaring propaganda. Again, the steady state has been violated, and the movement of the narrative typically works to reinstate such a state. í The violation of the steady state is the formal function of such a beginning; its epistemological function is to raise the question or questions that the narrative will gradually answer. Whether or not a steady | state has been violated, the epistemological function of the beginning is always present. It initiates the cognitive processes of the spectator, encouraging hypothesis- and inference-making about the narrative and the knowledge it (ostensibly) imparts. The beginning of the film suggests frames of reference that the viewer may employ in comprehending | the text. These frames enable the spectator to fill in narrative or exposici tional gaps with appropriate data. The formal narrative film is an \ erotetic narrative of the sort I described in Chapter Five; it encourages J the spectator's attention by posing questions and answers, or problems Structure 127 and solutions, by the end of the film having answered most of the salient questions posed, and having offered solutions to problems it identifies. No clearly identifiable steady state exists in Pare Lorentz's The Fight for Life (1940). The narrative immediately confronts the spectator with a crisis situation, in which the delivery of a child results in the mother's death. Exposition is delayed until after the event. Then the doctor walks solemnly through the rain, his interior monologue (in voice-over) both asking the relevant questions and stimulating the dramatic progression of the narrative, as the doctors search for safer methods of delivering babies. It is common for documentaries - as for fictions - to assume, rather than initially represent, a normal, or desirable state of affairs. In this case, the steady state is a society in which maternity is safe for both mother and child. In Fires Were Started (1943), director Humphrey Jennings begins the exposition with explanatory titles, telling the spectator that the film is a story of English firemen during the Nazi bombings of London. Preliminary exposition and the steady state occur simultaneously, apparently during a lull in the bombings. The voice-over introduces us to each of the auxiliary firemen who people the film, while the group gathers around a piano, singing a jolly fireman's song. With the drone of enemy planes overhead and the blasts of exploding incendiary bombs, the firemen's narrative proper begins. Rather than an explicit posing of questions, thgjgising oLquestions here is implicit^as in most fiction. The spectator is cued to ask the questions herself. Will the bombing start fires, and will the firemen be able to put them out? What are their methods? How will they hold up in times of extreme danger and stress? Will any of the men be hurt? The formal disruption of the steady state and the epistemological function of raising pertinent questions occur here simultaneously, as the narrative begins its dramatic and epistemological movement, which is eventually brought full circle to a satisfying and symmetrical end. The beginning of a classical narrative structure, then, serves to catalyze the dramatic movement of the narrative and open the viewer's play of question and answer. But it does more than serve as catalyst for i the succeeding narrative elements. It also serves as exposition, creating a frame by which the narrative action can be understood. Exposition I in the formal narrative documentary serves roughly the same function • as it might in fiction. The function of exposition, Meir Sternberg , writes, is to 128 Rhetoric and Representation in Nonfiction Film ... introduce the reader into an unfamiliar world ... by providing him with the general and specific antecedents indispensable to the understanding of what happens in it. [The reader] must usually be informed of the time and place of the action; of the nature of the fictive world peculiar to the work or, in other words, of the canons of probability operating in it; of the history, appearance, traits, and habitual behavior of the dramatis personae; and of the relations between them.6 The spectator of the formally-structured nonfiction film is provided the same sort of information about a projected world presumed to be a model for actuality. Because its goal is to impart knowledge of the events it depicts, formal exposition tends toward absolute clarity; it thus narrows possible interpretations in favor of the one preferred by the discourse. The formal documentary takes full advantage of the "primacy effect." We are all familiar with the explicit expositional technique of network television documentaries. In the CBS television documentary series, The Twentieth Century, which aired from 1957-1966, Walter Cronkite appeared in the prologue of each episode to introduce the subject, explain its significance to the interests of the spectator (assumed to be American, lover of freedom and liberty, anti-Communist, etc.), and imbue the events with a moral import. Such is the typical means of exposition of network documentaries centered around a well-known anchor. Other methods of exposition include introducing the spectator to important characters through image and voice-over. In the ethnographic film Dead Birds (1963), the exposition introduces the spectator to its two major subjects - Wayak, an adult male warrior, and Pooah, a small boy. The voice-over gives the two well-defined psychologies (as they might have were they characters in a classical fiction film), and describes the goals by which they live their lives. When first introduced to Wayak, we hear: His name means "wrong." For as a child he showed unreasonable rage. As a man he learned to govern his temper, and though neither very rich nor very powerful, he has the respect of all with whom he lives. He is a warrior, a farmer, and leader of a band of men who guard the most dangerous sector of a frontier which divides themselves from the enemy. In formally structured nonfiction films, exposition often includes spoken or written discourse, since verbal discourse is an efficient and codified means to fix interpretive Schemas. i Structure 129 In Chapter Five, I described Meir Sternberg's classification of the various ways exposition may be positioned within a narrative. Because the function of the formal voice is primarily to impart knowledge, exposition tends to avoid "artfulness," and is preliminary rather than delayed, and concentrated rather than distributed. This is the simplest, least mentally taxing approach (for the spectator), but perhaps also the least formally interesting. The Wilmar Eight (1980), a Lee Grant film about eight employees of a small Minnesota bank who go on strike, concentrates its exposition before showing the women's ordeal. The first titles urge the political standpoint of the film with a rhyming ditty: The banks are made of marble With a guard at every door, The vaults are stuffed with silver That the people sweated for. Over shots of people shovelling snow and the women picketing on a bitterly cold winter's day, the voice-over then explains their situation succinctly and generally: On December 16,1977, in Wilmar, Minnesota, eight women, employees of the Citizen's National Bank, walked out of their jobs and went on strike. They walked a picket line for the next year and a half, through the bitter cold of two Minnesota winters, isolated in their own community. This exposition sets the framework for the entire film. We know both the political sympathies of the narration and how the discourse will represent the struggle (as long, difficult, and lonely). The remainder of the film unfolds the drama of the strike in roughly chronological order. By in media res, Sternberg means a discursive change in the chronological sequence of projected world events. This often entails plunging the discourse into a narrative occasion and the delay of expositional and narrative antecedents. Consider the in media res opening of Robert Epstein's The Times of Harvey Milk (1984). This film is a narrative history of the political career of Harvey Milk, sometime supervisor of the 5th district in San Francisco and outspoken gay activist. The film begins with news footage showing then-mayor Diane Feinstein announce the shooting of Milk and Mayor George Mosconi. Over a black and white photograph of the two, the voice-over repeats the news of their assassinations. This is succeeded by another photograph, this time of Harvey Milk alone, as the voice-over intones: "Harvey Milk had served 130 Rhetoric and Representation in Nonfiction Film only eleven months on San Francisco's board of supervisors, but he had already come to represent something far greater than his office." The film's opening, then, immediately plunges the spectator into the "middle" of the story, creating dramatic interest that will help sustain the narrative history of Milk's career leading up to that crisis point. Even here, though, the plunge is brief and relatively conservative; the spectator is soon given a full account of the gaps in knowledge opened by the beginning. The exposition proper begins immediately following the reports of the murders, and from this point on the discourse parallels the chronological order of projected world events. To sum up, beginnings in classical structure serve formal, epistemo-logical, and expositional functions. A narrative usually begins with the violation of a steady state, which serves as a catalyst for further actions ancťeventsrThe-epistemological function is to raise the questions that the narrative gradually answers. The opening thus serves as a catalyst both dramatically and epistemologically. The beginning also functions as exposition, creating a frame of reference by which the events of the narrative may be understood. Endings ■The end of the formal narrative documentary has both a dramatic func-; tion and an epistemological goal, as does the beginning. The dramatic function is much the same as for the canonical fiction. The end of the classical fiction film typically brings a decisive victory or defeat to the I protagonist, or the clear achievement or nonachievement of goals by the major characters. The epilogue often celebrates the stable state achieved by the major characters (reinforcing the tendency to a happy ending) and reinforces the thematic motifs appearing throughout the film.7 Because it is also heavily indebted to canonical story formats, formal structure in nonfiction film often shares many of these characteristics. By the end of Raymond Boulting's Desert Victory, Rommel and the German armies have been routed in North Africa. The celebration in the epilogue is a patriotic salute to England, including a shot of the British flag. At the end of Farrebique, the old patriarch has died, but his eldest son has taken his place, telling his wife that there will always be a new spring and a new beginning. He cuts bread at the family table, as the patriarch previously did at the film's onset, giving the end a strong sense of symmetry. Target for Tonight (1941), a Harry Watt fi]m about ä Structure 131 a British bombing raid over Germany, ends with the success of the mission in the face of incredible odds. The pilots head off to bed, while one ground officer says to another, "Well, old boy, how about some bacon and eggs?" In all of these cases we find strong closure at the level of j projected world and the discourse. Also notice the tendency for a happy ending, as in the classical fiction film. Exceptions to the canonical paradigm exist, of course. The end of The Silent Village finds the entire village devastated by the Nazis. Although the end is decisive, it is not happy. The men have been shot, the women and children sent to concentration camps, the town's buildings burned to the ground, and its name taken off the face of the map. Near the end the camera slowly pans across burned items in the smoldering ruins of a house - a sewing machine, a coffee pot, the cracked photograph of a man. After a shot of a burning church, the last image is of broken household items strewn haphazardly in a rocky stream. Although the happy ending is not present here, and although the discourse deems it unnecessary to interpret the projected world events for the spectator, the film works to give a rigorous sense of closure nonetheless. i The overarching function of the ending is epistemological rather than dramatic. Formal endings guide the backward-directed activity of j the spectator in comprehending the film. The ending may fill in gaps, sum up main points, or suggest a "correct" frame by which the previous data can be interpreted. This backward-directed activity can be I achieved by "retrospective additional patterning," by which the end I adds to or alters the epistemological framework constructed earlier in the text. Or the end may simply reinforce the frame that has been previously constructed. For example, in showing the cultural life of the tribe it represents, Dead Birds concentrates on the men and their warlike rituals. The epilogue, in voice-over, sums up the film's interpretation of these rituals and what they mean to the culture that practices them: "They kill to save souls, and perhaps, to ease the burden of knowing what birds will never know, and what they as men, who have forever killed each other, cannot forget." War rituals, the voice-over suggests, are a way for this culture to confront their ultimate fate of death. They neither wait for death, nor take it lightly when it comes; instead, they "passion" fate. I The end of the formal narrative documentary parallels the overall epistemological function of the text, providing full, clear, high-level I l^owledge of the ostensible truth. It accomplishes this by answering 132 Rhetoric and Representation in Nonfiction Film salient questions earlier raised, summing up, reinforcing main points, 1 or providing a frame for interpretation. There is a tendency toward a happy ending in films of the formal voice, but more universal is closure, i if not in the projected world and the discourse, then in the discourse alone. This move toward closure is fitting for the general function of I the formal voice - imparting knowledge about the actual world. Dramatic Structure and Representation Hayden White observes that historians do not simply find stories in the actual world, as though they are there to be plucked, like ripe apples from a tree. If one writes narrative history one must give narrative form to what White calls the chronicle - a simple list of events in chronolog-^cahTřííeřr^eaievents, White claims, do not offer themselves naturally as stories.8 We may translate White's claim into my terms; real events may dictate certain characteristics of the projected world of the nonfíction film, but they do not determine the discursive presentation. The historian must choose a beginning, a first event from the infinite number available. Similarly, the narrative must conclude, not merely end. This involves again choosing a last event to depict, and investing it with historical significance. Of the infinite number of events he could represent, the historian mjust choose what to depict and omit. In addition, the writing of narrative history involves more than establishing a sequence of events; the events must be given a structure of meaning. Every narrative history weights events with a significance for some individual or group, be it a nation, race, or smaller group of peers. Thus, White claims, every narrative history must moralize the events it depicts. A narrative is never a perfect copy of the world in all of its plenitude, but a particular representation from a point of view, given a significance according to the author's perspective at a particular historical juncture.9 John Grierson held that the documentary film consists of "arrangements, rearrangements, and creative shapings of natural material."10 Hayden White offers a provocative account of possible means by which that "natural material" is shaped. All histories, he claims, combine data, theoretical concepts for explaining those data, and a narrative structure; all histories have a deep structural content that is poetic and imaginative. White describes histories as having several levels of conceptualization.11 In the first instance is the chronicle, a mere list of historical events in chronological order. Next comes the story, through 1 Structure 133 which the chronicle is fashioned into a narrative that features a beginning, ending, and dramatic structure. Within a narrative, data can be explained in various ways; White writes of explanation by emplotment, explanation by argument, explanation by ideological implication, and tropes of discourse. White observes that histories are fashioned in part on broad structural levels, or literary tropes. Here White follows Northrup Frye who, in his Anatomy of Criticism, traces five types, or strata, of plot structure in Western literature: myth, romance, comedy, tragedy, and irony. Frye's typology is especially useful for the theorist of historical narrative, White says, because the narrative structures of histories tend to be relatively simple. If one looks closely at narrative histories, one finds that they exhibit one or more or these types of plot structure. What White says of narrative history also applies to the historical | nonfiction film. In narrative films, ordering is not merely chronological | sequencing, but investing events with dramatic movement and emotional force according to the perspective of the discourse. The techniques so used foreground, give emphasis, exaggerate, or invest narrative elements with some variety of significance. Although nonfiction stories have their roots in actual events, the stories are not merely "found," "uncovered," and "identified." Invention also plays a part in the operations of the historian and the documentarian. As I have said, one of the influences on narrative documentaries has been the classical fiction film. In early nonfiction films making extensive use of staged scenes, character and character goals become an important force in the narrative movement, just as they are in the classical fiction film. Fires Were Started, about London's auxiliary fire service during the Nazi bombings, follows one group of firemen as they battle a fire after a night bombing. Having been introduced in the exposition to several of the firemen, the narrative is driven forward by their goal of putting out a particular fire. The discourse concentrates on the men as a team rather than on a particular hero, and it is the goal of the team that motivates succeeding actions. The protagonist is a group of men; the antagonist is the fire. Another sort of classical structure dispenses with characters altogether, at least as they appear in the classical fiction film. In these films, the primary forces set off against each other are broader groups or impersonal agents, such as nations, labor unions, management, farmers, and nature, or natural disasters. Narrative movement in these films JEE9J5Ü5????„fording to the actions and goals of these groups or enti- 134 Rhetoric and Representation in Nonfiction Film ties. War documentaries provide clear examples of nations as stand-ins for the individual protagonists and antagonists of narrative fiction. The films of the Why We Fight series provide an especially apt example. Prelude to War (1942) divides the Earth into the "Free World" and the "Slave World," further personifying the "forces of evil" into three nations - Germany, Japan, and Italy - and more specific yet, three leaders - Hitler, Hirohito, and Mussolini. The Silent Village presents its narrative as a clear conflict between the Nazis and the townspeople. The Wilmar Eight pits a group of women against the management of a bank. The conflict in these films is between groups rather than individuals - groups cast into the roles of protagonist and antagonist. The narrative movement of many nonfiction films is motivated by the vagaries of nature or history rather than individuals, according to a hypothesized natuŕaTdŕ historical progression. In The Land, for example, improper farming procedures have caused erosion. Here the antagonist is not a group so much as lack of education and foresight, together with the forces of nature. In this film and also in Valley Town (1940), the "growth of mechanization" motivates much of the narrative action. Represented as a natural, irresistible force, however, this growth is never seen as something to be overcome, as a war documentary might see a foreign army. It is seen as a permanent result of natural progression to which human agencies will have to adapt. | In general, the causality attributed to the narrative movement in formally-structured films is based on assumptions about historical progression; history is usually given a teleology. A common feature of the formal voice is the representation of this progression - be it a personal history or broader in scope - as motivated, goal-oriented, and relatively conclusive or interpretable. And although individual characters and their goals may be submerged into those of the larger group, narrative in the formal nonfiction film gives evidence of typical dramatic conventions. The narratives all present conflicts between a force with goals (the protagonist) and an opposing force standing in the way of their achievement. Although the projected worlds of formal nonfiction films differ radically from film to film, then, in the above respects we see a commonality and a continuity. In addition to these broad structural oppositions, formally-structured films make use of other elements of traditional fictional narrative. IFor example, it is common for formal documentaries to use devices (that create suspense. In The Sky Above, the Earth Below (1962), the voice-over stresses the danger of the expedition, as white explorers ven- 1 Structure j35 ture into uncharted areas where humans still live in "the stone age." As the expedition nears a village, the group sees no signs of life; here the discourse encourages suspense by extending the waiting period. Where are the inhabitants? Will they be peaceful or warlike? Will they be cannibals? Are the natives lying in wait, ready to ambush the expedition as it approaches? I In Target for Tonight we see that the climactic resolution is another I device commonly used in the formal voice. The concern of the film is with the methods and character of the members of the British Royal Air Force during World War II. On the dramatic level, however, the most suspenseful question is whether a British bomber will return safely from its mission over Germany. Men at the airfield wait on the ground in anticipation, hoping for the safe return. The climactic moment occurs when the plane - badly damaged and in thick fog - does land safely. These examples illustrate one means by which events in the documentary are given significance - by traditional dramatic structures incorporated into the nonfiction film. The epistemological function of the formal voice ultimately deter-; mines structure in the narrative documentary. As with beginnings and endings, dramatic movement develops in tandem with a clear rhetorical purpose encompassing the film's narrative development. The exposition poses the salient question or questions. The narrative unfolds in a constant process of answering previous questions, posing new ones, and partially revealing answers that will be answered by the end. In many films this process is explicit. The journalistic television documen-i tary, for example, features an on-screen anchor who explicitly formulates and verbalizes the questions, for example, "Our environment -can it survive a Republican congress?" A more subtle film (or a film o( the open voice) might pose these questions only implicitly, relying on the spectator to infer the questions favored by the discourse. Open Structure Open structure is a limit case, never found in an absolute form in any nonfiction film. It is a goal or a tendency, limited by the fact that a film must have a perspective, and that its discourse implies a way of viewing the world it projects (it has a voice). Pure open structure would render the projected world formless, as though observation occurred without the direction of the filmmakers, as though someone had set up the cam-jejrarandojnJ^an4_Jha