Are Docs Going Down The Tubes?

On Thursday, a scholar named Randolph Lewis, of the University of Oklahoma, comes to the Harry Ransom Center to speak. Resolved: The recent explosion of documentary film has not helped the genre at all, instead causing it to conform to televisual norms, and pushing its filmmakers to use less "literary imagination" in their creative processes.

We guess that means that in order to get on board with this argument, you kind of have to believe that books are inherently better than TV. If you don't agree, if you love recent documentary work and want to defend it, or if you do agree and want to shake Mr. Lewis' hand, show up at the HRC at seven, and bring your debatin' shoes.

Documentary Film and the Literary Imagination
Thursday, September 20th
Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, UT [directions]
7pm, Free
[Info]

* Image from Dziga Vertov's "Man with a Movie Camera", 1929