A cinematic and television subgenre that aims to present a fictionalized account of real people and/or actual events. Essentially, this form blends the heightened emotional conventions and traditional narrative structure of dramatic fiction with the convincing didactic tone of the documentary in an attempt to capture accurate portrayals of historical and social events. In a search for authenticity, filmmakers often hire real people involved in the portrayed incidents as on-set consultants. One of the subgenre's first and finest examples, In Cold Blood, not only used consultants but shot many scenes in the actual town and the homes of the real people involved. Despite this agenda, numerous docudramas employ poetic license and manipulate facts for visceral entertainment purposes -- a practice many documentaries also indulge in. Typically, the subject matter of a docudrama revolves around tragedy or mystery surrounding death (Reversal of Fortune, Silkwood). Because of this criteria, docudrama crossed over from the screen to the television, where the form has been adopted repeatedly to capitalize on high-profile news stories, twisting them into often-dubious TV-movies-of-the-week. Cinematically, much like documentary film, the form of the docudrama continued to loosen. JFK and The Thin Blue Line, films that openly acknowledged fictional manipulation, pushed for other subjective, artistic interpretations of once-concrete terms like "authenticity" and "truth" when it comes to the filmic presentation of reality.
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