Abstract
This chapter discusses and analyses how the schematic structures of the “intimate” first-person documentary tap into our “implicit and explicit relational knowledge” (Lyons-Ruth et al., “Implicit relational knowing: Its role in development and psychoanalytic treatment,” Infant Mental Health Journal, 19, 282–289, 1998) and “attachment emotions” (Bowlby, Attachment and Loss, Vol. 2: Separation, 1969) by drawing upon the embodied reality that is enacted in this type of film. The chapter analyzes two films: the main case study is Pappa Och Jag (Father and I) (Linda Västrik 1999), but it also looks at the documentary, Family (Phie Ambo and Sami Saif 2001), in order to explore how relational schemas play a role in the directors’ regulation of attachment emotion and to analyze the impact the directors’ relational knowledge has on the films’ emotional communication.
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Notes
- 1.
See Ib Bondebjerg’s (2016) article, “Den subjective dokumentar,” exploring media in this sense.
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Ib Bondebjerg and Torben Grodal for their comments during the development of this chapter.
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Kramer, M. (2018). The Communication of Relational Knowledge in the First-Person Documentary. In: Brylla, C., Kramer, M. (eds) Cognitive Theory and Documentary Film. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90332-3_14
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90332-3_14
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