Abstract
Although the complexity of documentary genres is acknowledged in documentary theory, the fundamental role of narrative, emotion and imagination is often underestimated. This chapter deals with the role these elements play in our experience of reality and across the genres of fiction and nonfiction. Based on cognitive theories of emotion and the self, it argues for a stronger focus on the embodied mind in documentary studies. The Danish documentary filmmaker, Anders Østergaard, has called his work “a documentary of the mind.” His films illustrate the theory of the embodied mind through their creative and narrative strategies, which are also found in documentaries in general, and they point to the importance of narrative and emotion for an understanding of the making and reception of documentaries.
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Notes
- 1.
Nichols (2001, p. 131) also occasionally uses the terms “affect” and “embodied subjectivity,” which he attributes to the performative documentary mode. However, he does not provide a definition of these terms.
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Bondebjerg, I. (2018). A Documentary of the Mind: Self, Cognition and Imagination in Anders Østergaard’s Films. In: Brylla, C., Kramer, M. (eds) Cognitive Theory and Documentary Film. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90332-3_2
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