A Clarification: Documentaries and Animation

In my previous post, I referred to the documentary film as a "distant cousin" of the animated film. I realize this may at first appear contradictory. After all, the two styles are really polar opposites. Documentaries are really the height of cinematic naturalism, at least ideally. And the animated film is by far the most fantastical and thoroughly fictional form. Why, then, did I make this comparison?

The answer lies not in so much what they are, but rather, what they are not. Neither the documentary or the animated film receives the same type of recognition in relation to the narrative live action feature film. Animated films have existed in a sort of "parallel universe" to cinema since the beginning. Documentaries at one time were really the only form of cinema (at that time referred to as "actualities"), but with the increased popularity of the fantasy and narrative films, the documentary became a slightly more specialized form of cinema.

By the time classical Hollywood filmmaking was firmly established, both of these forms began to exist in a little universe of their own, often on the fringes of Hollywood filmmaking (though much commercial animation was done by the major studios).

To clarify, the documentary and animated film are rather diametrically opposed in a formal sense, but in their perceived place in the Hollywood pantheon, they remain kindred spirits.