Writing the Drama of Documentary Performance
Posted in NEWS of interest on Dec 7th, 2010
In today’s New York Times there is an article/interview with Claude Lanzmann, director of the groundbreaking film Shoah (1985) in anticipation of its re-release in the US (opens in select theaters starting this Friday). There are many aspects of note about Lanzmann’s approach to filmmaking, particularly Shoah, but I wanted to draw your attention to [...]
Posted in NEWS of interest on Nov 26th, 2010
Final details have been set for the performances of The Parchman Hour a piece conceived by Mike Wiley and students in his “Performing History” course hosted jointly by Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The details about extra credit can be found on your revised course calendar. The details below [...]
Posted in NEWS of interest on Nov 9th, 2010
Here’s the link to the New York Times “CityBlog” that addresses the so-called “re-enactment” in Davis Guggenheim’s new documentary Waiting for Superman. This is the blog that I mentioned in class that touched off a firestorm of debate amongst documentary scholars over how much journalists’ focus on whether details are “factually true” exacerbates the tensions [...]
Posted in NEWS of interest on Oct 20th, 2010
In an article, “Documentaries (in name only) of Every Stripe”, that appeared in last Wednesday’s (October 13) New York Times, film critic A.O. Scott expressed frustration with not being able to pin down the “truth” of recent documentary offerings as well as the extreme variety of genre’s structural elements in its post-millennial form(s). For me [...]
Posted in NEWS of interest on Sep 28th, 2010
In last week’s New York Times‘ ArtsBeat blog, actor/playwright Daniel Beaty provided a guest post about the solo performer/writer of documentary plays. Beaty is the author of Through the Night (YouTube clip of his performance here) in which he plays a multitude of characters (like some of the artists/writers on your documentary play list: Heather [...]
Posted in NEWS of interest on Sep 28th, 2010
The Teatro Latina/o Series presents Octavio Solis A Reading of Santos & Santos by Octavio Solis Directed by Joseph Megel Monday, October 18, 2010 at 7 PM Gerrard Hall, UNC-Chapel Hill “A Writer’s Life” A public lecture by playwright Octavio Solis Tuesday, October 19, 2010 at 6 PM University Room, Hyde Hall, UNC-Chapel Hill Octavio [...]
Posted in NEWS of interest on Sep 21st, 2010
The password to our Materials page is a distillation of a very famous phrase from John Grierson, a British documentarian, who described the non-fiction film work of American Robert Flaherty as “documentary,” meaning “the artistic [or "creative" depending on which source you read] representation of actuality.” On October 18, 2010 at 7pm in the Griffith [...]
Posted in NEWS of interest on Sep 21st, 2010
If you’ve read through to the end of our course calendar, you might have noticed that there are two extra-credit opportunities listed. One for attendance at the Deliberations: A First Year Writing Journal symposium that happens over Parents’ Weekend. And one for attendance at the final exam performance of the documentary plays created by our [...]
Posted in NEWS of interest on Sep 19th, 2010
There are upcoming film screenings of relevance to students working with The Exonerated, My Name is Rachel Corrie, and Aftermath. I know you have just started analyzing your plays, but I wanted to let you know of some chances to see corresponding films to these plays on the big screen. First, the Duke Human Rights [...]