Voice: The cinematic conveyance of documentarians' subjective intervention against modern Russian authoritarianism Restricted; Files Only

Abstract

John Grierson, a pioneering scholar of documentary studies, famously described documentary films as the “creative treatment of actuality.” The key word from Grierson’s definition is creative, which implies that documentary films are not objective actuality itself. While documentaries have been long considered comparable to the expectations of journalism, portraying only the truth with no fabrications, discourses of documentary studies reveal that documentary filmmakers exert creativity and subjectivity in crafting their films. In this thesis, I take this overarching concept of documentarians’ subjective intervention and expand it to the concept of the voice of documentary filmmakers. I borrow film scholar Bill Nichols’ theoretical identifications of the meanings, functions, and types of voice in documentary filmmaking. Specifically, I seek to understand how documentary filmmakers achieve a distinct voice by cinematically conveying their personal viewpoints against modern Russian authoritarianism and Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine. I analyze three documentary films that capture ordinary Russian and Ukrainian citizens’ lives inside the Russia-Ukraine conflict: Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom (Evgeny Afineevsky, 2015), What Have We Lost (Marysia Nikitiuk, 2023), and Putin’s War at Home (Gesbeen Mohammad, 2022). In each chapter, I outline the distinct conviction of each filmmaker, and through textual analyses of each film, I argue that voice in documentary filmmaking signifies how a documentary filmmaker delivers their socio-political conviction through the practice of filmmaking. Furthermore, I suggest that cinematic languages and methodologies are essential for understanding a documentary filmmaker’s voice, and I identify several elements of these methodologies from each film that allow the filmmaker to achieve the intentions behind their unique voice as a documentarian.

Table of Contents

Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 1

Chapter 1: Evidential persuasion of rhetorical voice in Winter on Fire ...................................... 10

1.1 Invention: Inclusion of Ukrainian civilian characters ......................................................... 13

1.2 Memory: Exclusion of authority figures ............................................................................. 20

1.3 Style: Editing for contradiction ........................................................................................... 24

1.4 Conclusion........................................................................................................................... 29 

Chapter 2: Stylistic installation of point of view of poetic voice in What Have We Lost..............30

2.1 Abrupt Editing: Interruption and lack of logical flow ......................................................... 33

2.2 Cinematography: Metaphor of children immersed in nature .............................................. 39

2.3 Sound: Music of the Ukrainian identity .............................................................................. 44

2.4 Conclusion........................................................................................................................... 49 

Chapter 3: Continuous and coherent storytelling of narrative voice in Putin’s War at Home ..... 51

3.1 Participatory mode in subjective journalistic documentary ................................................ 54

3.2 First layer of the narrative: Vasiliy Kolotilov’s journey inside Russia................................ 58

3.3 Second layer of the narrative: Six Russian activists’ stories ............................................... 65

3.4 Conclusion........................................................................................................................... 72

Conclusion..................................................................................................................................... 73

Works Cited ................................................................................................................................... 79

Filmography .................................................................................................................................. 83

About this Honors Thesis

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School	Emory College
Department	Film and Media Studies
Degree	B.A.
Submission	Honors Thesis
Language	English
Research Field	Cinema
Parola chiave	Documentary filmmaking Ukraine Russia Voice
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Dr. Jing Wang, Emory University
Committee Members	Dr. Ju Hyun Park, Emory University Dr. Michele Schreiber, Emory University

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