Inaug.-Diss.--Würzburg. / Vita. Bibliography: 4-6.

Postmodernism, with its interrogation of reality and the im/possibility of representation, presented a legitimation crisis for the documentary which would potentially signal the end. Gauging by the renewed interest in the documentary tradition (in theory and practice) it is obvious that postmodernism had the reverse effect on documentary, freeing a filmmaking practice that had become hopelessly trapped within its own representational contradictions. In response to the challenge postmodernism presented, documentary theorists and filmmakers cleared a new space for documentary, and in the process reconsidered the limitations of Western epistemology and the ideal of 'representing reality'. This new space is reflected in the renewed interest in a new and more self-reflexive documentary theory and practice from the early 1980's onward. This essay will examine the transition which the documentary tradition has undergone in light of the shift from modernity to postmodernity: the shift from Grierson's heavily didactic social documentary to cinema verite and direct cinema and, finally, to the self-reflexive postmodern documentary. A textual analysis of Patricia Gruben's Leylines (1993), a recent postmodern documentary, will allow me to demonstrate how the contemporary documentary deals with the postmodern questions of history, representation, authority, knowledge, and subjectivity. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

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