Mockumentary
Mockumentary is a film genre and the name for a fictional documentary that parodies a true documentary or the whole genre. In doing so, apparently real processes are often staged or actual document parts are placed in a fictitious context. It is a common cinematic genre medium for parody and satire and is often used to create greater media-critical awareness.
The term is a suitcase word from English (to) mock = 'pretend' and documentary = ' documentary film '.
Pseudo-documentaries ( scripted reality ), in which documentaries are not parodied but imitated, are not to be regarded as mockumentary .
general characteristics
Mockumentarys present themselves e.g. B. often as historical documentaries from previously unpublished material with talking heads that discuss past events or appear as cinéma vérité to accompany people through various events. The relatively new genre of documentary soaps is also often parodied by mockumentary series.
The representations
- refer to true circumstances,
- refer to rumors that some viewers are already familiar with,
- must be consistent, there must be no discernible internal contradictions,
- may only mention rebuttable counter-evidence, other counter-evidence is not mentioned,
- must correspond to current clichés,
- must be easy to tell and easy to understand.
Less commonly used characteristics
- Interviews with real and well-known personalities are shown, but also interviews with actors who play fictional roles.
- The interviews are put together in very short, ingeniously selected snippets, so that the other context gives them a completely new meaning that was not intended by the interviewee.
- In the case of interviews in languages that are foreign to the viewer, the subtitles or the dubbing do not match the content of the interviewee's actual statements.
- The presentation mixes authentic sound and image recordings with untrue statements that are spoken by a narrative voice that is perceived as authoritative and that is accompanied by coordinated music.
In mockumentarys that pretend to be a report or contain report-like components, the following stylistic devices are also used:
- bad lighting that looks like improvised
- restless camera, coarse resolution to simulate cheap film material
- consciously amateur representation on the part of the actors, improvised dialogues
- bad tone
Examples
"Headlines"
- War of the Worlds , a radio play by Orson Welles from 1938
- Smog , afictional " Here and Today " specialbroadcast broadcastby WDR in1973, which"reported"on increasing air pollution in the Ruhr area
- Special Bulletin (1983), fictional special about the blackmailing of the United States by a terrorist-built atomic bomb in Charleston
- Bye Bye Belgium (2006), “coverage” of the alleged division of Belgium in the style of a special
- The Centrifuge Brain Project (D 2011), a short film created as a report about a scientific investigation using impossible fair equipment
Movies
- BBC report on the spaghetti harvest (GB 1957)
- Woody the Unlucky Raven (United States 1969), a film directed by Woody Allen aboutthe life of an incorrigible criminal
- The Delegation (FRG 1970), the alleged footage of areporter who died whileresearching UFOs
- Das Millionenspiel (FRG 1970), a television show in which a candidate has to flee from contract killers for a week
- Punishment Park (USA 1971), a documentary staged feature film by Peter Watkins in which political opponents are taken into custody as a preventive measure and given the choice of serving long prison sentences or taking part in a race against security forces in a "penal park".
- F for Fake (USA 1975), an Orson Welles film that parodies the art trade
- All You Need Is Cash (GB 1978), a television film by Eric Idle , which tells the story of the fictional British pop group The Rutles based on the career of the Beatles (continued 2002: Can't Buy Me Lunch )
- Vertical Features Remake (GB 1978), a film by Peter Greenaway Fictional reconstruction of supposedly lost but rediscovered film material based on the author's (Tulse Luper) notes, which leads to several very different versions of the film
- Zelig (USA 1983), a film by Woody Allen, whose hero seems to take on the chameleon-like appearance and behavior of his counterpart
- This Is Spinal Tap (US 1984), fictional story by the hard rock band Spinal Tap ; the author, actor and director Christopher Guest has specialized in this genre and has so farcreated three other mockumentarys ofthis type in addition to This Is Spinal Tap
- Das Fest des Huhnes (Austria 1992), expedition documentation about the Austrian natives from the perspective of an African ethnologist
- Man Bites Dog (Belgium 1992), film about a serial killer, allegedly shot by a team of reporters who accompanied him during the murders
- Forgotten Silver (New Zealand 1995), in this film by Peter Jackson , the beginning of film history is rewritten
- Hard Core Logo (Canada 1996), the film by Bruce McDonald accompanies the fictional Canadian punk band Hard Core Logo on their reunion tour
- Code name Dennis (FRG 1996/97), Thomas Frickel's film about a secret agent disguised as a TV reporter who looks into the funny, but also terrifying abysses of German society
- The Last Broadcast (USA 1998), is about the legend of the Devil of New Jersey ( Jersey Devil )
- Citizen Cam (Iceland 1999), About the surveillance company that deals with the fictional Icelandic television channel Humani TV
- Mercilessly Beautiful (USA 1999), satire on beauty pageants.
- As Hitchcock in Auerstedt on Eiermann Else met (D 1999), short film by Birgit Lehmann about the fictional meeting between Alfred Hitchcock with the Auerstedterin Else Eiermann that it important inspiration for his film Psycho delivered
- Best in Show (USA 2000), a feature film by Christopher Guest that illuminates the background of a dog show
- Can't Buy Me Lunch (GB 2002), 25 years after All You Need Is Cash (1978) came the second part, which asks the question: What happened to the Rutles?
- Kubrick, Nixon and the Man in the Moon (France 2002), TV film that claims the moon landing never took place and that the fake scenes werefilmedby Stanley Kubrick in London
- www.betreuteLoecher.de (D 2002), film about a hole researcher by Helmut Schulzeck and Maria-Debora Wolf
- Incident at Loch Ness (USA 2004), alleged making of a documentary by the filmmaker Werner Herzog with the title The Enigma of Loch Ness , whose shooting fails catastrophically
- The Naked Brothers Band: Der Film (USA 2005), a film about a six-member children's rock band around the brothers Nat and Alex Wolff , written by Polly Draper
- Borat - Cultural Learning from America to Benefit the Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (USA 2006), film about a Kazakh television reporter who travels to the USA to study the customs and habits of the people there
- Electric Apricot: Quest for Festeroo (USA 2006), is a film by Primus -Frontmann Les Claypool about the jam band "Electric Apricot" and today's musical culture
- The Great Japanese - Dainipponjin (Japan 2007), film by Hitoshi Matsumoto about a Japanese who is transformed into giant size by electric shocks and who hunts monsters
- AFR - I sandhed en utrolig løgn (AFR - In Truth An Incredible Lie) (Denmark 2007), is a film about the fictional assassination of the Prime Minister of Denmark, Anders Fogh Rasmussen
- The miracle of Vienna: We are European champions (Austria 2008) is a fictional documentary about the victory of the Austrian national soccer team at the European soccer championship in 2008
- The Eylandt Recherche (Germany / Spain 2008) is a semi-fictional cinema documentary about a legend in Duisburg
- The fourth kind (USA 2009), science fiction thriller with elements of a mockumentary
- The Black Canal Returns (Germany 2009) is a fictional historical film thatrewritesthe story of the fall of the Berlin Wall
- Thomas, Thomas (Germany 2010), film about the city archivist Wolfgang Weber, who claims and tries to prove that the operator of an Ayurveda center is a reborn Irish mining pioneer
- I'm Still Here - The Lost Year of Joaquin Phoenix (USA 2010), film about the supposedly planned hip-hop career of Joaquin Phoenix .
- Vampires - hiding was yesterday! (Vampires) (Belgium 2010), fictional documentation of the bourgeois life of a vampire family and social study of the vampire (parallel) society in Belgium by a film team, with Alexandra Kamp
- Trollhunter (Norway 2010), documents the work of Norway's only troll hunter and how the government tries to cover up the existence of trolls
- Apollo 18 (USA 2011), tells of an allegedly last, secret moon landing of the Apollo program
- Il Mundial Dimenticato (The Lost World Cup) (ITA 2011), fictional documentation of the allegedly forgotten soccer World Cup of 1942 with the Mapuche national soccer teamas hero
- Fraktus (D 2012), music documentary about the fictional band "Fraktus", to which all electronic music is said to go back (actually a project by the comedy group Studio Braun )
- This Ain't California , Mockumentary about the alleged roller board scene in the GDR by Marten Persiel (D 2012)
- Image Problem (CH 2012), the two filmmakers Simon Baumann and Andreas Pfiffner are making a commercial to improve Switzerland's (supposedly) battered image.
- The Great Martian War 1913–1917 (Canada / GB 2013), a film in the style of a History Channel documentary, whichdraftsan attack by Martians based on the War of the Worlds as an alternative scenario to the First World War
- Ski Jumping Pairs (Japan 2009), pair ski jumping , a technically underrated sport, is to become an Olympic sport in Turin; a film by Riichiro Mashima
- Computer Chess (2013), documentation about a fictional Olympiad of chess programs that looks like it dates back to 1980
- Oil - The Truth About the Fall of the GDR (2015), provided documentation about alleged oil deposits in the Baltic Sea
- Schorsch Aigner - The Man Who Was Franz Beckenbauer (D 2015), alleged disclosure report by Olli Dittrich (book, leading actor, director) about the fictional Hans-Georg "Schorsch" Aigner, who appears as a doppelganger for Franz Beckenbauer
- Operation Naked (D 2016), is a fictional film about the introduction of smart glasses and their impact on society by director and author Mario Sixtus .
- Company Reichspark (D 2017) is a mockumentary about the introduction of an amusement park with a focus on World War II by satirist and moderator Jan Böhmermann and director Philipp Käßbohrer.
Series
- The Office (GB 2001), this British television series allegedly documents life in an open-plan office at the Wernham Hogg paper wholesalerin Slough
- Trailer Park Boys , (Canada 2001–2007), mockumentary about residents of a trailer park
- Stromberg (inspiredby The Office )
- Reno 911! , a parody of the police documentary COPS
- Everything in order - with the madness on patrol , a parody of the police documentation Trouble in the Revier
- The 4 da - Carinthia III , Mockumentary about the reunification of Austria with Carinthia
- The Naked Brothers Band - Young rock stars in private , (USA 2007), mockumentary about a children's rock band , the camera follows the young stars everywhere and targets the star life with satire and irony
- Modern Family , American mockumentary comedy starring Ed O'Neill as the family man Jay Pritchett
- Parks and Recreation , American mockumentary comedy that accompanies everyday work in the Parks and Recreation department of the fictional town of Pawnee
- Pure Pwnage , a former Internet now TV series that parodies the life of a pro gamer.
- Come Fly with Me (GB 2010), British comedy starring Matt Lucas and David Walliams about people in a fictional airport
- Schlawiner (Austria 2011)
- Finally German! , (WDR 2014)
- Producer , South Korean series by KBS
- People Just Do Nothing (GB 2012 ff), BBC series on the London pirate channel Kurupt FM
- Ellerbeck , (Germany 2015), sitcom about the everyday life of the mayoress (Cordula Stratmann) of a fictional small town in Emsland
- American Vandal (USA 2017–18), series parodies true crime documentary series such as Making a Murderer and Serial .
- High School Musical: The Musical: The Series , (USA 2019), Drama Musical Series about the staging of High School Musical , exclusively on Disney + .
Web links
- Benjamin Moldenhauer: Mockumentarys. When spaghetti grows on trees. In: one day . SPIEGELnet GmbH, September 7, 2015, accessed on May 26, 2016.
literature
- Charles L. Cassady: Videohounds Reality Check: Documentaries, Mockumentaries and Related Films. Visible Ink Press, Canton 2007, ISBN 978-1-57859-177-0 .
- Craig Hight: Television mockumentary. Reflexivity, satire and a call to play. Manchester Univ. Press, Manchester 2010, ISBN 978-0-7190-7317-5 .
- Christian Hißnauer: Possibility PLAYROOM . Fiction as a documentary method. Notes on the semio-pragmatics of fictional documentation. In: MEDIENwissenschaft, Issue 1/2010.
- Alexandra Juhasz, Jesse Lerner (Ed.): F is for Phony. Fake Documentary and Truth's Undoing. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis 2006, ISBN 0-8166-9541-5 .
- Carolin Lano: The staging of suspicion. Considerations for the Functions of TV Mockumentaries. Ibidem-Verl. (Film and Media Studies, 15), Stuttgart 2011, ISBN 978-3-8382-0214-3 .
- Fabian Probst: Films that lie: Mockumentaries. Forgotten Silver as an example of a hybrid form between fiction and non-fiction. In: Kornelia Imesch (ed.): With Klio's eyes. The picture as a historical source. Athena-Verlag, Oberhausen 2013, pp. 219–236.
- Maren Sextro: Mockumentaries and the Deconstruction of the Classic Documentary. In: Berlin writings on media studies. No. 10/2009, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-7983-2199-1 Full text available online (PDF; 648 kB).
- Jane Roscoe, Craig Hight: Faking it. Mock-documentary and the subversion of factuality. Manchester / New York 2001, ISBN 0-7190-5641-1 .
- Gary D. Rhodes (Ed.): Docufictions. Essays on the intersection of documentary and fictional filmmaking. McFarland, Jefferson, NC 2006, ISBN 0-7864-2184-3 .