|
A mockumentary (a portmanteau of the words ''mock'' and ''documentary'') is a type of film or television show in which fictional events are presented in documentary style to create a parody. These productions are often used to analyze or comment on current events and issues by using a fictional setting, or to parody the documentary form itself. They may be either comedic or dramatic in form, although comedic mockumentaries are more common. A dramatic mockumentary (sometimes referred to as docufiction) should not be confused with docudrama, a fictional genre in which dramatic techniques are combined with documentary elements to depict real events. Mockumentaries are often presented as historical yet witty documentaries, with B roll and talking heads discussing past events, or as cinéma vérité pieces following people as they go through various events. Though the precise origins of the genre are not known, examples emerged during the 1950s, when archival film footage became relatively easy to locate.〔 A very early example was a short piece on the "Swiss Spaghetti Harvest" that appeared as an April fools' joke on the British television program ''Panorama'' in 1957. The term "mockumentary", which originated in the 1960s, was popularized in the mid-1980s when ''This Is Spinal Tap'' director Rob Reiner used it in interviews to describe that film. Mockumentaries are often partly or wholly improvised, as an unscripted style of acting helps to maintain the pretense of reality. Comedic mockumentaries rarely have laugh tracks, also to sustain the atmosphere, although there are exceptions – for example, ''Operation Good Guys'' had a laugh track from its second series onwards. ==Early examples== Early work, including Luis Buñuel's 1933 ''Land Without Bread'', Orson Welles's 1938 radio broadcast of ''The War of the Worlds'', various April Fool's Day news reports, and vérité style film and television during the 1960s and 1970s, served as precursor to the genre.〔 Early examples of mock-documentaries include ''David Holzman's Diary'' (1967), ''Pat Paulsen for President'' (1968), ''Take the Money and Run'' (1969), and ''All You Need Is Cash'' (1978). ''A Hard Day's Night'' (1964), written by Alun Owen, and purporting to describe several days in the lives of The Beatles, was possibly the first feature film that could be characterized as a "mockumentary". Albert Brooks was also an early popularizer of the mockumentary style with his film ''Real Life'' (1979), which was a spoof of a PBS documentary. Woody Allen's ''Take the Money and Run'' is presented in documentary-style with Allen playing a fictional criminal, Virgil Starkwell, whose crime exploits are "explored" throughout the film.〔 Jackson Beck, who used to narrate documentaries in the 1940s, provides the voice-over narration. Fictional interviews are interspliced throughout, especially those of Starkwell's parents who wear Groucho Marx noses and mustaches. This style of this film was widely appropriated by others and by Allen himself in ''Zelig'' (1983) and ''Sweet and Lowdown'' (1999).〔 Early use of the mockumentary format in television comedy may be seen in several sketches from ''Monty Python's Flying Circus'' (1969–1974), such as "Hell's Grannies", "Piranha Brothers", and "The Funniest Joke in the World". ''The Hart and Lorne Terrific Hour'' (1970–1971) also featured mockumentary pieces which interspersed both scripted and real life man-in-the-street interviews; the most famous likely being "The Puck Crisis" in which hockey pucks were claimed to have become infected with a form of Dutch elm disease. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Mockumentary」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|