I found many concepts in ‘Imagining Reality’ to coincide with my personal beliefs of documentary.

1.Pawil Pawlikowski regards, “For me, the point of making films is not to convey objective information about the world, but to show it as i see it and to find a form for which it is relevant” (pg.389). This idea strongly resonates with my perception of documentary and offers an interesting similarity between itself and fiction films, of which some films offer personal perspectives on the world. Similarly, it negates narrowminded views of documentary as simply natural recordings of everyday life, as, all films are filmed and edited in a manner that cannot be objective as it is a personal judgement of the world.

2. Pawlikoski discusses the industralised nature of modern day television in the sort of documentaries chosen to air. He nostaligcally describes a period in which he decided to make documentaries as opposed to fiction because of the lack of “nervous producers and accountants breathing down your neck” (pg.391). This explanation of documentaries on television has develeoped a more elaborate understanding of the narrowed category of documentaries that are strongly influenced by the ‘verite’ style and how dangerous this is to the freedom and expressionistic possibilities of documentary making. It encourages an experimental style of documentary that breaks out of this somewhat constrictive film-making environment. However, from an industry perspective it causes problems from film-makers with creative ideas for documentary.