Dramatic Undertones in the Documentary Film

Abstract

Documentary filmmaking is an art and therefore an issue of composition. This theoretical understanding has no doubt influenced the present documentary film on the Nigerian screen. Today, even disparate elements can be combined, if only it is effective or striking to do so as it clarifies a particular point of view. This paper focuses on the nature of the documentary film as a presentation of actual events and people; and as a dramatic statement of fact that relies on the ability to use the camera to build interesting and dramatic picture of life led and the work done in the world of everyday reality. It goes further to examine Chike Onwuegbu's The Oil Palm Tree (1978) and J.P. Clark's Tides of the Delta: The Saga of Ozidi (1969) as representative documentary films with dramatic undertones. The conclusion reached is that the documentary film is an art form which can be artistically and creatively explored by the ambitious and talented filmmaker. The suggesting obviously shifts the form away from the old simplistic, well orchestrated, continuous pattern to a more discontinuous network of patterns governed by the increasingly nurtured idea that film is a free form.