The term was first applied to the films of Robert Flaherty - Nanook of the North (1922), Moana (1926). Since then "documentary" describes films that document human, social or environmental conditions.
From the early 20th century works of Flaherty and the stylized and minimalist revolutionary Russia of Dziga Vertov - Man With A Movie Camera (1929) to the American Depression/Dust Bowl films of Pare Lorentz, considered by many to be the finest example of the art of documentary filmmaking thanks to the exceptional cinematography of Floyd Crosby and superb orchestral scoring of Virgil Thomas,
into the social magnifiers of a cultural revolution such as D. A. Pennebaker's travels with Bob Dylan Dont Look Back (1965), through Al Gore's recent environmental masterwork in An Inconvenient Truth (2006) documentary film remains the most significant vehicle for factual representation in today's morass if images and information.
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