The Four Forms of Non-fiction Cinema: Modality and Expressivity in Documentary Classification

This article argues that documentary classifications can serve a distinctive expressive function that has thus far been overlooked in non-fiction scholarship. Following the lead of Robert Brandom, I contend that classifications should aim to render explicit modal relations that are implicit in the terms used in practical discourse. To substantiate this claim, the article builds on two distinctions from Gilles Deleuze's Cinema 2: The Time-Image to advance a novel, modally explicit taxonomy of four non-fiction forms: chronicle, portrait, diary, and anatomy. I argue that this taxonomy's greater expressivity, in comparison to that of prior classifications, highlights the significance of modality in classificatory approaches more generally.