The autobiographical documentary : Cambridge filmmaking and the work of Ross McElwee

Author(s)

Gabriel Kitofi Tonelo

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Institution: Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Instituto de Artes
• Defense date: 2017-08-14

Examining board members

Gilberto Alexandre Sobrinho; Mariana Duccini Junqueira da Silva; Henri Pierre Arraes de Alencar Gervaiseau; Esther Imperio Hamburger

• Advisor: Fernão Vitor Pessoa de Almeida Ramos

Abstract

This research aims to study the notion of "autobiographical documentary", taking as its main object the work of American filmmaker Ross McElwee, seen within the perspective of the autobiographical documentary which was developed in Cambridge (MA) and its universities. Born in 1947 in Charlotte, North Carolina, McElwee began his film career in the 1970s as a student at the MIT Film Section. His career includes important titles for the history of the American autobiographical documentary, such as Sherman's March (1986), Time Indefinite (1993) and Bright Leaves (2004). McElwee can be considered one of the main representatives of the domain of autobiographical documentaries, as well as of the kind of filmmaking which was practiced in Cambridge. This study is presented in three parts. Part one seeks to raise and answer more general questions about the domain of autobiographical documentary, based on a broad and diverse filmographic corpus. In the second part, a historical and conceptual complexion of Cambridge autobiographical documentary takes place, in which its relationship to the tradition of American Cinema-Vérité is emphasized, as well as its projection into the work of Ross McElwee. The third part looks at the notion of autobiography that was developed by Ross McElwee in his career. Ross McElwee¿s oeuvre brings in itself a movement of continuous autobiographical construction, developed for more than three decades and in seven films. This diachronic movement will be analytically looked at, which complicates narratively McElwee's work with the release of each new film and particularizes his artistic proposal as a documentarist-autobiographer (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 13/08742-6 - Between autobiography and the Essay Film: the Documentaries of Ross McElwee
• Grantee: Gabriel Kitofi Tonelo
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate