Culture: There’s nothing like the real thing

Why are feature-length documentaries typically more enjoyable than feature films? Man on Wire won a Bafta for Outstanding British Film, but it should have been nominated for Best Film. Tonight, we’ll discover whether it wins an Oscar for Best Documentary Feature – I think it will – but, again, it should be up for Best Picture.

The short answer to this question is that audiences are less and less willing to suspend disbelief. Documentary features pack more of a punch because the events they depict are real. It’s the same reason many people prefer “reality” television to TV drama, “documentary” plays to made-up ones and non-fiction books to novels. Of the five films that have been nominated for a Best Picture Oscar, two are docudramas (Milk and Frost/Nixon). Verisimilitude is king.

However, this answer is plainly wrong. The best documentary features – like the best reality-TV shows, documentary plays and non-fiction books – don’t let the facts get in the way of a good story. Their creators don’t invent things out of whole cloth; rather, they manipulate the viewer just as surely as conventional film-makers do.

Good documentaries have a clear, narrative spine – usually involving one or more protagonists facing up to a challenge – and their makers include those facts that propel this narrative forward and leave out those that don’t.

In other words, the reason that documentary features are often so much better than conventional features is that their makers employ classic storytelling techniques that their Hollywood counterparts have more or less abandoned. Paradoxically, the art of storytelling survives, but in films,TV shows and books that purport to be true rather than made up.

A case in point is Anvil: The Story of Anvil, a documentary released last Friday about a heavy-metal band. It charts the efforts of a group of Canadian musicians who have been struggling to make it since 1973. You start out laughing at them as the real-life embodiment of Spinal Tap, but by the end they’ve completely won you over and you’re willing them to succeed. The film’s real subject is the heavy price you pay for refusing to abandon your dreams and I doubt a more involving story will come along this year.