Introduction
For this week’s assignment we have to choose an animation and elaborate on how it would or wouldn’t be classified as a documentary.
Sinking of the Lusitania (1918)
According to Honnes Roe (2013, pp. 7-8), Sinking of the Luisitania is considered to be the first commercially animated documentary and it is a clear example of how animation can reconstruct a historical event when there is no record of it. In this sense, animation can be a useful tool to portray, illustrate and clarify a non-fictional event and help the audience to witness one moment in history.
Nonetheless, on the other hand, it can be argued that ‘any animated work dealing with reality-related topics will appear intrinsically fictional in form’ (Formenti, 2022, p.13). This implies that animated documentaries are created in an artificial way, and therefore, they can be influenced by the director’s lens of reality. For this reason, it can be questioned to what extent animated documentaries represent reality in an accurate manner.
To wrap up, Sinking of the Lusitania can be considered an animated documentary insomuch as it represents a historical event that happened. However, since there does not exist any live action material, the director had to reconstruct the events and therefore his animation is influenced by his interpretation of reality and values.
Reference List
Formenti, C. (2022) The Classical Animated Documentary and Its Contemporary Evolution. Bloomsbury Academic & Professional.
Honess Roe, A. (2013) Animated Documentary. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Nichols, B. (1994) Blurred Boundaries; Questions of Meaning in Contemporary Culture. Indiana University Press.