The Pop Documentary Since 1980

In The Pop Documentary Since 1980, Richard Wallace examines the representation of pop music, musicians and music-making in documentary film and television. He draws together conceptual frameworks from within and outside of film and television studies -- including performance studies, musicology, celebrity studies and fan studies -- to provide a critical interrogation of the central tension between artistic and commercial concerns that is often key to the form's vitality. Wallace explores how these documentaries work within broader processes of image curation under the control of the artist and their management, while arguing that the genre's 'official' status does not preclude music documentaries from being artful and conceptually complex, or from engaging with theoretical questions that underpin documentary media more broadly. Structured around the public image of the pop star, the book discusses how music documentaries assert a sense of access to their subjects, the experiential and affective aspects of live performance and the ethical concerns created by the shifting power dynamics between star, fan and documentary-maker"-- Page 4 of cover.