A Presentation by Andreas Wagenknecht
One scene in the early documentary silent film NANOOK (USA 1922, R. Flaherty) metaphorically illustrates the relationship between documentary forms of film and music in one scene. In this scene, the main protagonist Nanook is played a shellac record on a gramophone, which he then happily takes in his hands, puts into his mouth and bites. In addition to interpreting the scene as a symbolic demonstration of the relationship between documentary forms and music – which need to be examined and do occasionally bite each other – the scene also opens up the horizon for a multifaceted discussion of the connotative and interpretive function of music in documentary films.
Film scholar Andreas Wagenknecht discusses the constructive dimensions of music in the context of documentary staging and the influence of music on what is shown in the picture. He addresses the question of what function music has during the opening credits of documentary films?