General Analysis of Morgan Spurlock Documentaries

To this date, Morgan Spurlock has created three documentaries: Supersize Me, Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden and The Greatest Movie Ever Sold. These documentaries fall under the Direct Cinema Documentary category, all of them including Spurlock actively taking part in the narrative and conducting interviews to get the story across that he wants to convey. This is done in a manner that comes across as more cinematic than most documentaries, including an array of graphics and cartoon snippets created for the purpose of the documentaries, these acting as a way to illustrate a point being made without the need to film someone speaking for a long period of time. For this reason, the documentaries usually end up being quite successful as they become more accessible; if there were extended scenes of people talking without interruption, it is likely that the audience may lose interest unless they watched with an already existing interest in the subject manner. These documentaries were, for me, an introduction into mainstream documentaries and how they are able to be extended from the shorter programmes one might see on the television to larger productions that can inform a wider audience. This does, however, appear to only reach wider audiences when different mediums are put in, not only including the usual interviews but additional scenes such as the aforementioned cartoons and graphics, as well as the scenes such as in The Greatest Movie Ever Sold where advertisements are used, this being one of the more interesting additions used in a documentary as not only does it humour its audience, but it also serves a purpose within the film. However, the use of these additions means that the documentaries become slightly less believable as their purpose is focused quite heavily on entertainment as well as actual knowledge, meaning that information can be sacrificed so as to make time for more entertaining factors. Despite this, I feel that these documentaries are more often than not successful in their goal, providing a clear enough message to intrigue and inform audiences.