Documentary film as historical narrative

Abstract

The submitted study describes the documentary film as a historical narrative that carries within it problems documented by historians such as Paul Veyne and Hayden White. It argues on behalf of the thesis that a documentary film in itself does not classify historical clues according to historical truth but according to a selected purpose (e.g. despite aesthetic conventions or in the case of a narrative film - according to the story). The study refutes the argument of Noël Carroll, who deals with the popularizing documentary film - specifically, connecting scientific "truth" with the tropological character of a documentary film narrative can create at best an approximate picture of a historical event.