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Doing Documentary, Becoming SubjectsPerformance and Performativity in Contemporary Nonfiction

By Adam Vaughan

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£19.99

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Published 29 January 2027

About this book

Examines how contemporary documentary films depict the individual performing the self

  • Textual analysis of contemporary nonfiction cinema
  • Application of Deleuze and Guattari to documentary filmmaking
  • Performance and performativity

Doing Documentary, Becoming Subjects explores a range of contemporary nonfiction films, including autobiography, essay film and animated documentary, to understand how these films depict identities being constructed, altered and performed. By applying concepts such as performativity and Deleuze and Guattari’s metaphysics, this book aims to show how the self in documentary is in constant states of becoming at the same time as the films are themselves brought into existence.

Reviews

A timely and reflective addition to the literature on personal cinemas, Adam Vaughan’s lucidly written book locates and illuminates crucial strategies and processes of documentary performance, embodiment, reflexivity, and becoming. This is a fruitful treatment of a range of important and diverse case studies from international nonfiction film of today.
Table of contents

List of Figures

Acknowledgements

Introduction: Performance and the Performative in Documentary

1. Becoming-I: First-Person Documentary

2. Becoming a Body: Performing Bodies in the Films of Asif Kapadia

3. Becoming-Out: Seeing Queer Identities

4. Becoming-Other: Performative Disability in Documentary

5. Becoming-Unseen: Elusive Subjects

Afterword

Works Cited

Index

About the author

Adam Vaughan

Adam Vaughan is a Lecturer in the Department of Film and Media at Southampton Solent University. In addition to performance and documentary cinema, his research interests include queer cinema, diversity in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and critical explorations of identity in film. He has contributed chapters to edited collections about the film Call Me By Your Name, migration in 21st-century European documentary, contemporary LGBTQIA+ film portrayals and the historical biopics of Derek Jarman.