Editing Docudrama (section)

== Characteristics ==
The docudrama genre is a reenactment of actual historical events.<ref name="museum">{{cite web |url= http://www.museum.tv/eotvsection.php?entrycode=docudrama |title= Docudrama |publisher= The Museums of Broadcast Communications |access-date= 28 June 2012 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20120812200057/http://www.museum.tv/eotvsection.php?entrycode=docudrama |archive-date= 2012-08-12 |url-status= dead }}</ref> However it makes no promise of being entirely accurate in its interpretation.<ref name="museum" /> It blends fact and fiction for its recreation and its quality depends on factors like budget and production time.{{sfn|Hoffer|Nelson|1978|p=21}} The filmmaker [[Leslie Woodhead]] presents the docudrama dilemma in the following manner:

{{Blockquote|[instead of hunting for definitions] I think it much more useful to think of the form as a spectrum that runs from journalistic reconstruction to relevant drama with infinite graduations along the way. In its various mutation it's employed by investigative journalists, documentary feature makers, and imaginative dramatists. So we shouldn't be surprised when programs as various as ''[[Culloden (film)|Culloden]]'' and ''[[Oppenheimer (TV series)|Oppenheimer]]'' or ''Suez'', or Cabinet reconstructions refuse tidy and comprehensive definition.{{sfn|Rosenthal|1999|p=xv}}}}

Docudramas producers use literary and narrative techniques to flesh out the bare facts of an event in history to tell a story. Some degree of license is often taken with minor historical facts for the sake of enhancing the drama. Docudramas are distinct from historical fiction, in which the historical setting is a mere backdrop for a plot involving fictional characters.<ref name="museum" />

The scholar Steven N. Lipkin considers docudrama as a form of performance through recollection which in turn shapes our collective memory of past events. It is a mode of representation.{{sfn|Lipkin|2011|pp=1-2}} Educator Benicia D'sa maintained that docudramas are heavily impacted by filmmakers' own perspectives and understanding of history.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=D'sa |first=Benicia |date=2005-01-01 |title=Social Studies in the Dark: Using Docudramas to Teach History |url=https://doi.org/10.3200/TSSS.96.1.9-13 |journal=The Social Studies |volume=96 |issue=1 |pages=9–13 |doi=10.3200/TSSS.96.1.9-13 |s2cid=144165650 |issn=0037-7996|url-access=subscription }}</ref>