Distinguish between participatory and reflexive documentary.

 Reflexive Mode and Participatory Mode in Documentary filmmaking have a lot of similarities, and even more differences. The main difference I have come to identify is the role of the viewer. In most documentary modes, the viewer tends to take a passive role, where he or she sits back, puts aside their own lives for a second, and puts their attention into the events on the screen.

As Nichols writes in our book, “… The Documentary, in general, depends on the viewer’s neglect of his or her actual situation, in front of a movie screen, interpreting a film, in favor of imaginary access to the events shown on the screen as if it is only those events that require interpretation, not the film.” In contrast, when we watch Reflexive films, we, as viewers, are expected to take an active role in participating with the film.

We are constantly reminded that we are watching a film of events, that were made with a camera, and that we are not directly watching reality. The medium constantly plays with the tropes, common perceptions and styles of documentaries to not only comment on the subjects of their films, but on the Documentary Medium as a form of media itself. In a participatory documentary, relationship between filmmaker and subject becomes much more complex and personal.

Nichols explains it very well in saying that a viewer can sense that the images they are seeing are “not just an indexical representation of some part of the historical world but also an indexical record of the actual encounter between filmmaker and subject” (157). In this mode, the filmmaker is entering into the social actor’s world and does so through conversation, interview, provocation, etc.

On the other hand, the reflexive mode, the most self-conscious and self-questioning mode, “calls attention to assumptions and conventions that govern documentary filmmaking” (Nichols 31).  This mode is known to increase our awareness of the way a film is constructed to represent reality in some way. Man with a Movie Camera and Stranger with a Camera are perfect examples of this mode.

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