Pseudo-documentaries

A pseudo-documentary is a film or video production that takes the form or style of a documentary film but does not portray real events. Rather, scripted and fictional elements are used to tell the story. The pseudo-documentary, unlike the related mockumentary, is not always intended as satire or humor. It may use documentary camera techniques but with fabricated sets, actors, or situations, and it may use digital effects to alter the filmed scene or even create a wholly synthetic scene.

Orson Welles gained notoriety with his radio show and hoax War of the Worlds which fooled listeners into thinking the Earth was being invaded by Martians. Film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum says this is Welles' first pseudo-documentary. Pseudo-documentary elements were subsequently used in his feature films. For instance, Welles created a pseudo-documentary newsreel which appeared within his 1941 film Citizen Kane, and he began his 1955 film, Mr. Arkadin, with a pseudo-documentary prologue.

The film Mad Max 2 first frames the story by showing a staged documentary-style sequence of images designed to inform the viewer that what follows is the aftermath of an apocalyptic global war.

The methods of pseudo-documentary have been sharply criticized in some cases, notably with the 1991 Oliver Stone film JFK, which mixes fact with fiction to advance Stone's point that John F. Kennedy was the victim of a conspiracy. The film cuts confusingly between actual footage of alleged assassin Lee Harvey Oswald and staged images of actor Gary Oldman who is playing Oswald. The modern sequences are badly lit and they are artificially made grainy and scratched-looking so that they appear to be 1963-era 16 mm film. Stone uses the pseudo-documentary format to influence the viewer by presenting the conspiracy theory in a scientific and authoritative manner.

...
Wikipedia