The presence of the term document in the word documentary is a contentious matter, though the other nomenclature, non-fiction, is even more problematic. Indeed, the moral insinuation of both of these has been plaguing the genre since its very inception. The former implies proof of authenticity, while the latter asserts the privilege of being factual. These implications, in turn, lead us to a kind of linearity – a fixed text, a representation of 'the' truth, which comes from the tendency of treating 'fact' or 'authenticity' as truth.
In 1895, the Lumiere brothers showed the first cinematic shot in history, of a train entering a station. This was a 'reality shot': while there were plenty of theatre, ballet and street performances going on in Paris, the Lumiere brothers chose to film streets, factory gates and the like. George Melies, one of the greatest filmmakers of the silent era, attended a Lumiere brothers' show, and noticed that the audience became more engaged by the moving foliage, the crushing waves, the flying dust, than by the moving people being shown. The audience had already seen human beings and their actions in theatres, after all, but the animated scenery immediately caught their attention. Since then, proving the authenticity of 'actuality' has become a major preoccupation for non-fiction films.
In 1898, two cameramen from the Vitagraph Company of America went to Cuba to shoot the Spanish-American War. When they came back, they realised that they had not filmed the most important part of the war, the Battle of Santiago Bay. Americans were frothing to see the footage, and admitting to having missed this crucial battle would have meant a huge loss of revenue. So, the two hatched a plan. With street vendors selling stills of the Battle of Santiago Bay, the cameramen were able to buy pictures of the battleships. These they then floated in tubs of water, sprinkled a bit of gunpowder on them, attached some strings and tried to make smoke from a cigar. Unfortunately, the person smoking the cigar, the wife of one of the men, was not a smoker, and could not provide a continuous flow of smoke, which made the 'battlefield' look less dense than it should have. Undaunted, the men composed the battle scene, shot it, and ran the result in public screenings for months. While this was probably the first instance of special effects in cinema, it was also the first instance of documentary's uneasy relationship with 'reality'.
The word 'documentary' was used for the first time in 1914, in reference to In the Land of Head Hunters, a film about American Indians. But beyond the realistic was the magical. That same year, a 22-year-old film student from the US named Jessica Brothwick spent a year in the Balkans. "During the cholera rage in Adrianpole, everything connected with that terrible disease was painted black," she wrote later. She continued: