Transcendental Realism in Documentary

Abstract

At the heart of book chapter lies an exploration of a number of questions. How can one employ a practical approach to cinematic documentary narrative which goes beyond the dominant paradigm exemplified by elements such as cause and effect, conflict and resolution, and psychologically explicable situations, character motivations and narrative motivations, to reveal qualities of spirituality and transcendence without reducing these elements to fit a rationale that ultimately contradicts the very nature of these transcendental and spiritual qualities? Within this context, how can one practically create a cinematic documentary narrative that is essentially driven by the experiential rather than by meaning, representation or the illustrative? While certain genres within fiction may bring together some of these elements in an agreed fictional paradigm, how can one bring such elements together within forms of fact?