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Since the 1960s, documentary films have moved closer to the mainstream, thanks to the popularity of rockumentaries, association with the independent film movement, support from public and cable television, and the rise of streaming video services. Documentary films have become reliable earners at the U.S. box office and ubiquitous on streaming platforms, while historically they existed on the margins of mainstream media. How do we explain the growing
commercialization of documentary films and the conditions that fueled their transformation?The growing commercialization of documentary film has not gone unnoticed, but it has not been
sufficiently explained. Streaming and the growing interest in reality TV are usually offered as initial explanations whenever a documentary enters the cultural conversation or breaks a box-office record, but neither of those causes grapple with the overlapping causal mechanisms that commercialized documentary film. How Documentaries Went Mainstream provides a more comprehensive and meaningful periodization of the commercialization of documentary film. Although the commercial ascension of
documentary films might seem meteoric, it is the culmination of decades-long efforts that have developed and fortified the audience for documentary features. Author Nora Stone refines rough explanations of
these efforts through a robust synoptic history of the market for documentary films, using knowledge of film economics and the norms of industry discourse to tell a richer story. This periodization will allow scholars to compare the commercialization of documentary film with other genres. Drawing on archival documents, industry trade journals and popular press, and interviews with filmmakers and film distributors, Stone illuminates how documentary features have become more plentiful, popular,
and profitable than ever before.
Since the 1960s, documentary films have moved closer to the mainstream, thanks to the popularity of rockumentaries, association with the independent film movement, support from public and cable television, and the rise of streaming video services. Documentary films have become reliable earners at the U.S. box office and ubiquitous on streaming platforms, while historically they existed on the margins of mainstream media. How do we explain the growing
commercialization of documentary films and the conditions that fueled their transformation?The growing commercialization of documentary film has not gone unnoticed, but it has not been
sufficiently explained. Streaming and the growing interest in reality TV are usually offered as initial explanations whenever a documentary enters the cultural conversation or breaks a box-office record, but neither of those causes grapple with the overlapping causal mechanisms that commercialized documentary film. How Documentaries Went Mainstream provides a more comprehensive and meaningful periodization of the commercialization of documentary film. Although the commercial ascension of
documentary films might seem meteoric, it is the culmination of decades-long efforts that have developed and fortified the audience for documentary features. Author Nora Stone refines rough explanations of
these efforts through a robust synoptic history of the market for documentary films, using knowledge of film economics and the norms of industry discourse to tell a richer story. This periodization will allow scholars to compare the commercialization of documentary film with other genres. Drawing on archival documents, industry trade journals and popular press, and interviews with filmmakers and film distributors, Stone illuminates how documentary features have become more plentiful, popular,
and profitable than ever before.
Introduction: How Documentaries Went Mainstream
Chapter 1: 1960 to 1977, Direct Cinema Blossoms, But Little Support
for Documentary Films in Theaters
Chapter 2: 1978 to 1989, A Rising Tide: How the Independent Film
Movement Boosted Documentaries
Chapter 3: 1978 to 1990, Fighting For A Place On Public Television:
Independent Filmmakers Lobby
Chapter 4: 1990 to 1999, Television or Cinema? Redefining
Documentary for Prestige and Profit
Chapter 5: 2000 to 2007, The Docbuster Era
Chapter 6: 2008 to 2022, Streaming Video Drives Documentary
Production Trends and Private Investment
Conclusion: Documentary Film Inches Closer to the Center, But Core
Tensions Remain
Bibliography
Index
Nora Stone is a film historian and filmmaker teaching at the
University of North Alabama. She earned a PhD from the University
of Wisconsin-Madison, and has published work in Media Industries
Journal, Historical Journal of Film, Radio, and Television, and Los
Angeles Review of Books. Her short films have screened at the
Maryland Film Festival, Wisconsin Film Festival, Architecture and
Design Film Festival, among others. She
produced and art-directed the independent feature film A Dim Valley
(distributed by Altered Innocence).
Stone's history of post-vérité U.S. documentary is, simply put, the
book I've been waiting for. For too long, documentary histories
have focused primarily on makers and movements, but Stone weaves an
account of the film markets, documentary institutions, and shifts
in film culture driving documentary's increased public visibility.
Whether discussing canonical works, box office flops, public
television broadcasts, or popular documentary hits, this book
provides a narrative that reframes and illuminates the major
changes in the documentary landscape over the last half
century.
*Chris Cagle, Associate Professor, Temple University, Film and
Media Arts*
How Documentaries Went Mainstream explores the tension between
public service and commodity exchange in the documentary film
market by tracing the shifting industrial trends in documentary
distribution and exhibition between the 1960s and today. Deftly
researched and incisively written, Stone's book offers an important
intervention in the history of documentary by focusing on the
mode's industrial concerns. Essential reading for anyone interested
in how and why documentary has come to occupy such a prolific and
lucrative corner of the media market in recent years.
*Kristen Fuhs, Professor of Media Studies, Woodbury University*
Stone's work is an essential reference for anyone interested in the
development of American documentary film.
*Will DiGravio, Cineaste*
In this refreshing addition to the history of nonfiction film,
Stone foregrounds distribution and circulation as the locus of
documentary's influence, tracing evolutions in infrastructure, film
culture, and market machinations to explain the genre's commercial
transformation.
*Devin Thomas, Film Quarterly*
The value of documentaries as commodities and as public services
coexists across the world. The core of Nora Stone's painstakingly
researched book How Documentaries Went Mainstream: A History,
1960-2022 reflects this conflict, as it traces the development of
documentaries from Hollywoods periphery to the mainstay of Internet
streaming services. Stone's insightful contribution to the history
of nonfiction cinema places distribution and circulation front and
center, demonstrating how changes in infrastructure, film culture,
and market dynamics have shaped the commercial development of the
genre. The book is organized chronologically, with each chapter
concentrating on a distinct period in the growth and spread of
documentaries and the networks that support them.
*Muhammad Asad Latif, Journal of Popular Culture*
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