Film

Say What Happened: A story of documentaries by Nick Fraser

by Belinda Smaill •

March 2020, no. 419

Faber & Faber, $45 pb, 400 pp

Film

Say What Happened: A story of documentaries by Nick Fraser

by Belinda Smaill •

March 2020, no. 419

Feature-length documentary film has seldom been as commercially successful as fictional drama at the box office. Nevertheless, Nick Fraser tells us that it is now ‘common to hear documentary film described as the new rock ‘n’ roll’. It is exactly this energy, influence, and popular appeal of documentary that Fraser wants to tap into with this book. He seeks to further enliven the documentary aficionado’s appreciation of the genre and to expand their knowledge of titles and filmmakers.

Belinda Smaill

Belinda Smaill is an Associate Professor in Film and Screen Studies at Monash University. Over the past two decades she has published widely on documentary media, women and cinema, and Australian film and television. She is the author of The Documentary: Politics, Emotion, Culture (Palgrave, 2010), Regarding Life: Animals and the Documentary Moving Image (SUNY Press, 2016) and co-author of Transnational Australian Cinema: Ethics in the Asian Diasporas (Lexington Books, 2013). Recently, she has been researching issues concerning the environmental crisis, and how it relates to fact-based storytelling in screen media. She is currently the Leader of the Environment and Media Research Program in the School of Media, Film and Journalism at Monash University.