Nichols - Speaking Truths with Film

Without the determined, persistent effort of my editor, Mary Francis, to pull these essays together, they would have remained tucked into a variety of journals or lingered on my computers hard drive. I am extremely grateful for the consistent encouragement, occasional prodding, and astute feedback that I have received from Mary over the time it has taken to make this book a reality.

Mary sustains the great tradition of film-book publishing that the late Chick Callenbach began when he edited both film books and Film Quarterly for the University of California Press. He published my first major article on film and was the presss editor for my first book, Movies and Methods. Chick wrote several provocative books of his own and was a constant source of infectious enthusiasm and fundamental encouragement. I owe him an enormous debt of gratitude.

Many of the essays grew out of graduate seminars I have taught, and although the students who participated in those seminars may not realize it, they taught me as much as I them. Their presentations, questions, and papers were a constant source of stimulation and a challenge to rethink old assumptions and pursue new ones. Some of them have begun to publish their own books, and as a result I have continued to learn from them well after our seminars concluded. Other essays began as presentations at conferences or other events. Such occasions allow for valuable dialogue and feedback that has only helped to strengthen the talks and facilitate their conversion to print. I thank the organizers of these events at Cal Humanities, San Francisco; Film and Media Studies, Indiana University; the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles; The Humanities Institute, Scripps College, Claremont; Its All True Film Festival, Rio de Janeiro; School of Image Arts, Ryerson University, Toronto; the Visible Evidence Conference, Stockholm; and Yamagata Film Festival, Japan.

The anonymous readers of the manuscript I first sent to the press offered extremely valuable suggestions about structure and content. They helped me reframe the essays into complementary pairs, eliminate some stray dogs that had wandered into the mix, and urged me to provide the introductory, contextual essays that begin the book as a whole and open each of the major parts.

Over the years since Representing Reality appeared, to be followed by so many other terrific books, articles, and conferences on documentary film, I have found myself in the company of a truly wonderful group of scholars, filmmakers, conference organizers, and friends. I cannot name them all, but I can try to mention a few of the people who have been most influential: Tamas Almasi, Pat Aufderheide, Ib Bondebjerg, Christina Burnett, Lucien Castaing-Taylor, John Corner, Tim Corrigan, Martijn de Pas, Ally Dierks, Pat Ferrero, Arild Fetveit, Pter Forgcs, Jane Gaines, Jill Godmilow, Chris Holmlund, Chuck Kleinhans, Amir Labaki, Julia Lesage, John Lightfoot, Irina Leimbacher, David and Judith MacDougall, Toney Merritt, Raya Morag, Maria Dora Moro, Clarice Peixoto, Natalie Rachlin, Ferno Ramos, Michael Renov, Ruby Rich, Daniel Robin, Bob Rosen, Oksana Sarkisova, Steve Seid, Amos Vogel, Malin Wahlberg, Patricia Rebello, Rafael Sampaio, Gilberto Sobrinho, Janet Walker, Tom Waugh, Linda Williams, Brian Winston, and Patty Zimmerman. The Visible Evidence conferences, which have become a global event, bringing together scholars, filmmakers, and others who share a passion for this extraordinary form, have given the entire field a great opportunity to meet and exchange ideas on an annual basis. The founding figures of Visible EvidenceMichel Renov, Jane Gaines, and Faye Ginsburgdeserve special thanks for creating this forum and for complementing it with the Visible Evidence series of books that have provided some of the most seminal texts in our field.