Visual Historiography: Discourse of Documentary «Compilation Film» Production

Before the invention of film and television, there was not any way for people, except listening to oral narratives of history or studying the written texts to understand history. But film and television brought new achievements for people: watching moving pictures as (live representation of history).
Finally, after second World War, a group of historians recognized the documentary film footages for their investigations, explanations, and interpretations of historical facts. The post-modernist historians recognized compilation documentary films as a new method for «visualhistoriography» while the tradition of compilation documentary film production had begun in the last years of silent films era and the international council of archives (ICA) had recognized the documentary film footage as an authentic document for historical researchers in Moscow congress in 1972. But what is the definition of compilation film? Film assembled in the editing room, from pre-existing/archival film footages. Most compilation films are classified as documentaries since they drive their material from nonfiction sources. The main source for the compilation film has newsreel which by 1910 was being issued regularly in several European countries and in the United. The States of America. This article through introducing and categorizing all types of compilation (documentary) films by using a library and documental researchers methods, also explains the history, methods of production and structural characteristics of this type of documentary. Besides, the article introduces and analyzes a group of Iranian and Western TV productions in all sub-genres of compilation documentary film, and finally, comes to these There are two basic methods in documentary filmmaking for «visual historiography»:1. Recreation/reconstruction of history by re-enactment method (historical docudrama)
2. Direct representation of visual documents by using documentary photographs and archival film footages. In a condition of establishing a rich, well-organized and modern film archive, as supporter and source of material for compilation film production, this type of documentary filmmaking is one of the low-cost productions for making historical films, for representing periods, events and historical figures through the last and current century.