Bill Nichols

Biographic Data

ID96697
NAMEBill Nichols
GIVEN NAMESBill
FAMILY NAMENichols
SIGNATURENICHOLS B
AFFILIATIONSQueen's University
ORCID0000-0002-4503-2423
VERIFIEDYes
TOTAL WORKS32
TOTAL CITATIONS93
AUTHOR COUNT31
EDITOR COUNT1
FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR1964
LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR2026
H-INDEX5

  • It’s About Time

    Bill NicholsARTICLEFilm Quarterly2026

    Begun as a talk at a film festival, this article explores the experience of time in documentary films as a neglected phenomenon. Here, now, we witness what happened there, then as if it were recurring. We know very well it differs as play differs from fighting, but all the same we allow that difference to collapse to entertain a fantasy of synchronicity. The experience of past time and present time creates a vector that implies future possibiliti…

  • In the beginning

    Bill NicholsARTICLEStudies in Documentary Film2022

    This article examines how documentary films begin. Narrative theory has identified the opening sequences of a narrative as where a lack calls for a response which then propels the hero to undertake various tasks to resolve problems posed by the lack. This often involves a quest and the construction of a complex course laden with obstacles and graced with assistance that allow the narrative to conclude by resolving the original lack. Attention, th…

  • The lived experience of UK health communication professionals during the Covid-19 pandemic

    Open AccessAndrea Gregory, Bill Nichols et al.ARTICLEJournal of Communication Management2021

    Purpose This research explores approaches to, impacts of and reflections on the Covid-19 pandemic for professional communicators in the English National Health Service. It was undertaken in order to understand and analyse their lived experience and make recommendations for improving future system-wide performance. Design/methodology/approach Given the work pressure and additional commitments that communication practitioners have when working in c…

  • Introduction to Documentary, Third Edition

    Bill NicholsBOOKIntroduction to Documentary,…2017

  • Speaking Truths with Film: Evidence, Ethics, Politics in Documentary

    Bill NicholsBOOKSpeaking Truths with Film2016

    How do issues of form and content shape the documentary film? What role does visual evidence play in relation to a documentary’s arguments about the world we live in? In what ways do documentaries abide by or subvert ethical expectations? Are mockumentaries a form of subversion? Can the documentary be an aesthetic experience and at the same time have political or social impact? And how can such impacts be empirically measured? Pioneering film sch…

  • Maya Deren and the American Avant-Garde

    Bill NicholsBOOKMaya Deren and the American…2010

    Regarded as one of the founders of the postwar American independent cinema, the legendary Maya Deren was a poet, photographer, ethnographer, filmmaker and impresario. Her efforts to promote an independent cinema have inspired filmmakers for over fifty years. Meshes of the Afternoon (1943) ranks among the most widely viewed of all avant-garde films. The eleven essays gathered here examine Maya Deren's writings, films, and legacy from a variety of …

  • Documentary Reenactment and the Fantasmatic Subject

    Bill NicholsARTICLECritical Inquiry2008Cited by: 31References: 2

  • Documentary Film and the Modernist Avant-Garde

    Bill NicholsARTICLECritical Inquiry2001Cited by: 19

  • The Voice of Documentary

    Bill NicholsCHAPTERFilm Quarterly1999

  • Dislocating Ethnographic Film: In and Out of Africa and Issues of Cultural Representation

    Open AccessBill NicholsARTICLEAmerican Anthropologist1997Cited by: 4References: 15

    In and Out of Africa. 1992. 59 minutes, color. Produced and directed by Ilisa Barbash and Lucien Taylor. Original research by Christopher Steiner. Featuring Gabai Baaré. University of California Extension, Center for Media and Independent Learning, 2000 Center St., 4th Floor, Berkeley, CA 94704. (510) 642-0460

  • Children, Art, Sex, Pornography: Jennifer Montgomery's Art for Teachers of Children

    Bill Nichols, Gerald PearyARTICLECamera Obscura Feminism Culture…1996

    Research Article| September 01 1996 Children, Art, Sex, Pornography: Jennifer Montgomery's Art for Teachers of Children Bill Nichols; Bill Nichols Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Gerald Peary Gerald Peary Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Camera Obscura (1996) 13 (3 (39)): 34–51. https://doi.org/10.1215/02705346-13-3_39-34 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation …

  • Image and reality: The real story

    Bill NicholsARTICLEHistorical Journal Of Film Radio…1996

    " Image and reality: the real story ." Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 16(2), pp. 267–268

  • Discovering Form, Inferring Meaning: New Cinemas and the Film Festival Circuit

    Bill NicholsARTICLEFilm Quarterly1994Cited by: 17References: 2

    Research Article| April 01 1994 Discovering Form, Inferring Meaning: New Cinemas and the Film Festival Circuit Bill Nichols Bill Nichols Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Film Quarterly (1994) 47 (3): 16–30. https://doi.org/10.2307/1212956 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon…

  • Representing Reality: Issues and Concepts in Documentary

    Bill NicholsBOOKRepresenting Reality1992

  • "Reply to "Statement to Administrators

    Bill NicholsARTICLECinema Journal1992

    The to Administrators in Cinema Journal 30, no. 4, calls for support from administrators for use of film in classroom. No one can object to this call; we all need to show films, but reasoning, particularly comparison with alternative media, seems somewhat faulty. The Statement seems to be flying. in face of both economic reality and pedagogic priorities. Few, if any, institutions are prepared to provide rental budgets commensurate to need. Not on…

  • The Ethnographer's Tale

    Open AccessBill NicholsARTICLEVisual Anthropology Review1991Cited by: 8References: 8

  • Form Wars: The Political Unconscious of Formalist Theory

    Bill NicholsARTICLESouth Atlantic Quarterly1989

    Research Article| April 01 1989 Form Wars: The Political Unconscious of Formalist Theory Bill Nichols Bill Nichols Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google South Atlantic Quarterly (1989) 88 (2): 487–515. https://doi.org/10.1215/00382876-88-2-487 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Bill Nichols; Form Wars: The Political Unconscious of Formalist Theory. South Atlantic …

  • Current Research in Film: Audiences, Economics and Law

    Bill NicholsARTICLECanadian Journal of Communication1988

    No clear principle unifies this work apart from a negative injunction: treatment of specific texts and all the tools of textual analysis shall be left at the door. Since the majority of film scholars have a primary interest in textual analysis, the Current Research series of annuals would seem to be intended to help fill something of a gap in film scholarship and to address a somewhat wider audience of those who study industries, mass media, or s…

  • Movies and Methods, Volume II

    Marc Vernet, Bill NicholsARTICLESubStance1988

  • Believing what we read, saying what we believe

    Bill NicholsARTICLEQuarterly Review of Film Studies1985

    Peter Biskind. Seeing Is Believing: How Hollywood Taught Us to Stop Worrying and Love the Fifties. New York: Pantheon Books, 1983. 371 pp. $10.95 paper

  • Report on the American Film Institute Education Services

    Bill NicholsARTICLECinema Journal1985

  • The Documentary Film in America

    Bill NicholsARTICLECanadian Review of American Studies1985

    William Alexander. Films on the Left: American Documentary Film from 1931 to 1942. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981.355 pp, Sol Worth. Studying Visual Communication. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1981.216 pp. Set opposite each other, in the way in which Lumière and Méliès are, Dziga-Vertov and Robert Flaherty established the terrain of the documentary film as the social, political and cultural quality of lived experie…

  • Bill Nichols Replies

    Bill NicholsARTICLECinema Journal1984

  • Henderson on film theory: Another look

    Bill NicholsARTICLEQuarterly Review of Film Studies1983

  • Ideology and the Image

    James H Kavanagh, James Kavanagh et al.ARTICLESubStance1983Cited by: 14