Documentary Comedy

Abstract

While documentaries like Roger and Me and mock documentaries such as This is Spinal Tap differ in terms of the ontological status of their referents, they share many formal characteristics, particularly in their editing strategies. This essay examines the editing techniques in these two influential films of the 1980s in order to theorise exactly how film-makers combine conventions of documentary with those of comedy in an attempt to produce laughter in audiences. Having demonstrated the formal qualities of an editing technique prevalent in these films which I term ‘cutting on the absurd’, the essay then explores the broader implications of this comic style in more recent documentary film-making. With a particular focus on Chris Smith and Sarah Price's American Movie (1999), it examines how the editing strategies in documentary films characterised as ‘offbeat character studies' alternately position viewers to laugh at and laugh with the subjects, to occupy a position that can be at once derisory and empathetic.