Rather than intersperse the film with lots of hugging and learning in the wake of Smith's departure – in the style of Metallica documentary Some Kind of Monster or Kings of Leon's Talihina Sky – Noren and Lee, together with masterful editor Logan Wonderley, keep the focus on the music itself.
In discussing his film "The Thin Blue Line," Errol Morris called the claims of cinéma vérité — the style of documentary that privileges direct and unobtrusive observation — "spurious".
Of Mr. Wiseman's filmmaking, she said, "This kind of fly-on-the-wall style of documentary can create a sense that you're watching the unmediated truth, a fantasy belied by every camera position and each edit".
Western viewers, accustomed to a less timid style of documentary, may come away from this one feeling that it only scratches the surface of a complex issue.
But I don't imagine that even the most opinionated of us really want there to be only one style of documentary.
Albert Maysles, the celebrated film-maker who pioneered the fly-on-the-wall style of documentary making, has died at the age of 88.
The result: a brash and gritty style of documentary that at times has ventured toward soft-core pornography by taking viewers inside topless bars, brothels and the bedrooms of everyday couples but has also won Academy, Peabody and Emmy Awards for films on such topics as war crimes and youth violence.
Through a book and traveling exhibition, he expanded on a style of documentary photography using original photographs, text, and a variety of other elements such as home-movie stills, family snapshots, drawings, diary entries, audio, film, and discarded belongings.
Neidell's been walking through the information as methodically as possible, and in doing so, he's created a "new style of documentary" that puts into clear focus the tremendous breadth and scope of the war.
Once you have worked out what style of documentary you are going to make, analyze similar documentaries to identify conventions.
For this style of documentary/street photography I don't think it really changes how people see the images, but maybe it changes how they see the photographer.
