"Documentary, after all, can tell lies; and it can tell lies because it lays claim to a form of veracity which fiction doesn't."
Dai Vaughn
Subject Guides: Space, Place, and Landscape
The concepts of space, place, and landscape are fundamental to the study of human and cultural geography. Place, in general, has some kind of human-defined meaning attached to it. A place can acquire meaning through naming, defining, and interacting. Space, on the other hand, is a more abstract concept that bears no such meaning. Landscape refers to what can be seen from a certain vantage point, such as the countryside or a city skyline. Unlike place, which involves human interaction within it, landscape situates humans outside of it.
Subject Overview
Here are some general texts that provide an overview of this subject. These texts do not address documentary specifically.
Cresswell, Tim. Place: A Short Introduction. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004.
Hubbard, Phil, Rob Kitchin, and Gill Valentine. Key Thinkers on Space and Place. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2004.
Jackson, Peter. Maps of Meaning: An Introduction to Cultural Geography. London and New York: Routledge, 1989.
Mitchell, Don. Cultural Geography: A Critical Introduction. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2000.
Documentary
These are some texts that address these concepts and their intersection with documentary.
Aitken, Stuart C. and Leo E. Zonn. Place, Power, Situation, and Spectacle. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1994. (This book is a collection of essays that has numerous mentions of documentary throughout.)
Gold, John R. "The Real Thing? Contesting the Myth of Documentary Realism through Classroom Analysis of Films on Planning and Reconstruction." In Engaging Film: Geographies of Mobility and Identity, ed. Tim Cresswell and Deborah Dixon. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2002. 209-225.
Gold, John R. and Stephen V. Ward. "Of Plans and Planners: Documenting Film and the Challenge of the Urban Future, 1935-1952." In The Cinematic City, ed. David B. Clarke. London and New York: Routledge, 1997. 59-82.
Lefebvre, Martin, ed. Landscape and Film. New York: Routledge, 2006. (This book is a collection of essays that does not appear to have sustained discussions of documentary, but there are references to the subject all throughout.)
Smith, Laurel. "Chips Off the Old Ice Block: Nanook of the North and the Relocation of Cultural Identity." In Engaging Film: Geographies of Mobility and Identity, ed. Tim Cresswell and Deborah Dixon. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2002. 94-122.
