The After-Life of Documentary: The Impact of You Are on Indian Land

Documentary realism aligns itself with an epistephilia, so to speak, a pleasure in knowing, that marks
out a distinctive form of social engagement. The engagement stems from the rhetorical force of an
argument about the very world we inhabit. We are moved to confront a topic, issue, situation or event
that bears the mark of the historically real. In igniting our interest, a documentary has a less
incendiary effect on our erotic fantasies and sense of sexual identity, but a stronger effect on our social imagination and sense of cultural identity. ¹

George Stoney's documentaries have moved generations of audiences, students, and communities
because of their consistent, clear-eyed engagement with representing what Bill Nichols calls "the
historically real." But the attraction to his work has always been based on more than the insights he
offers by moving from wor... more