The document is a basis, and the document transfigured is the ultimate
work of art in the cinema.
Harry Alan Potamkin, "Movie: New York Notes," Close-Up 7, no. 4
(October 1930), p. 250
In today's troubled times, the documentary film has come into its own; it
meets an urgent need for a medium of mass education and finds a highly
receptive audience eager for the information, instruction, or propaganda
it presents. Time, spirit and technique are well matched: the
documentary film is on the march.
Lewis Jacobs, "Documentary Film Advances," Direction 3, no. 2
(February 1940), p. 14
In the ten years between the above remarks, the term documentary for the first time gained wide currency among filmmakers, critics, and cultural commentators in America as films on diverse topics, produced under various circumstances, came to be thought of as kindred works constituting a vital development in the history of the medium. In 1930, Potamkin projected a future cinema born of experimentation with the filmic image as document; by the end of the decade, Jacobs was able to speak confidently of a full-fledged genre, the maturation and social relevance of which seemed amply evident. In the interim, a new generation of American filmmakers acquired professional identities as practicing "documentarists," "documentalists," or "documentarians." In 1938 the New School for Social Research in New York pioneered a course in documentary film, featuring screenings and lectures by leaders in the field.
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