Abstract

SCHLENKER, Juana. LA DIFÍCIL TAREA DE DOCUMENTAR: SANS SOLEIL Y NEWS FROM HOME, DOS PROPUESTAS POCO ORTODOXAS DE REPRESENTACIÓN. Antipod. Rev. Antropol. Arqueol. [online]. 2009, n.9, pp.199-215. ISSN 1900-5407.

One of the main concerns at the heart of documentary film is the relationship between reality and its representation; or in other words, about what we consider to be an appropriate and faithful documentation of reality. The history of documentary traditionally has been depicted as the constant oscillation between the aspiration of achieving a factual representation of reality, and the impossibility of doing so (Bruzzi, 2000: 4). Thus, this perspective has led to a tension between objective documentation and the subjective presence of the filmmaker, which has positioned these two components at extremes that seem irreconcilable. Nevertheless, some filmmakers have challenged this vision of documentaries through films that force the viewer to reconsider this perspective by merging the boundaries between creating and documenting. I will argue that this is the case of Chris Marker's Sans Soleil (1983) and Chantal Akerman's News from Home (1977), two films that while positioning the identity of the filmmaker at the center of their concern offer interesting perspectives about the negotiation between objectivity and subjectivity in documentary films.

Keywords : Documentary; representation; identity; News from Home; Sans Soleil.

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