Sinemanın yükselişiyle birlikte bütün diğer sanat kolları bundan etkilenmiştir. Sanatçılar bulundukları sanat dalını ve kendi rollerini sinemanın getirdiği yeni anlatım olanakları çerçevesinde gözden geçirmiş; kimisi de sinema alanında çeşitli deneysel çalışmalarda bulunmak üzere harekete geçmiştir. Başta ressamlar olmak üzere, heykeltıraşlar, müzisyenler, yazarlar, mimarlar ve fotoğrafçılar 1920'li yıllarda ortaya çıkan sinema kulüplerinde bir araya gelerek filmler üzerine görüşlerini ifade etmişler kendi deneysel çalışmalarını sergilemişlerdir. Sanatçılar, yaptıkları çalışmalarında sinemanın kurgusal anlatım yapısının yerine ışığın, çeşitli formların kompozisyonu ve dokular üzerinde odaklanmaktadırlar. Deneyselliğin ön planda olduğu ilk çalışmalarda soyutlamalar göze çarpmaktadır. Bu çalışmalar belgesel yapımlardan uzak görülmekle birlikte gerçeklikle bir bağlantıları bulunmaktadır. Sanatçılar ilk aşamada gerçeklikten yola çıkmaktadırlar. Ortaya koydukları çalışmaları, gerçekliğin üzerlerinde yarattığı izlenimlerin dışavurumudur. Bu çalışma çerçevesinde özellikle deneysel çalışmalar odağında belgesel yapımlar gerçekleştiren yönetmenler ve yapımları üzerinde durulmaktadır. Bunlar: İsveçli avangart sanatçı ve film yapımcısı Viking Eggeling; Alman ressam, grafik sanatçısı, avangart sanatçı, film yönetmeni Hans Richter; Fransız ressam, heykeltıraş ve film yapımcısı Fernand Léger; Amerikalı ressam ve fotoğrafçı Charles Sheeler ile Amerikalı fotoğrafçı ve film yapımcısı Paul Strand'dır. Çalışmanın amacı belgesel yapımlarında görülen avangart yaklaşımları Eggeling, Richter, Léger, Sheeler ve Strand'ın ortaya koydukları yapımlar çerçevesinde değerlendirmektir. Bu amacı gerçekleştirebilmek için literatür taraması yapılmış ve ele alınan sanatçıların filmleri incelenmiştir. Gerçekleştirilen çalışma, belgesel yapımların sanatın diğer alanlarıyla yakın bir etkileşim halinde olmasını ve anlatım olanaklarını bu türde yakın temaslarla çeşitlendirmesini ortaya koyması açısından önem taşımaktadır.

Cinema as a new art form cannot reveal itself totally independent from previous artistic forms. Developments in technology is an important key factor in the existence of cinema. Different art forms have been guiding the process of exploring the narrative possibilities of cinema. Examples of these other arts include novel, vaudeville, musicals, popular theater and magic shows. While feature films benefit from these earlier examples, the situation in terms of non-fiction films seems to be a bit different. There are no related examples for documentary productions. However there are different resources that has led to documentary films. These include government reports, journals, newspapers. Since these resources are all written it is noted that their lack of impact on documentary production. Paintings and cartoons can be seen as closer resources for documentaries. Also Bruegel, Hogarth, Goya, Daumier and Toulouse-Lautrec's paintings can be assessed in the visual source (Rabiger, 1998: 15). The emergence of documentary film which has fed from written and visual sources is actually the birth of cinema. This emergence is closely linked with the style of representation of the nineteenth-century art’s reality in various ways. The reasons can be listed as follows: radical changes in the social structure, a new form of individuality, changes in the relationship between the artist and society, the disappearance of all ties with the past, and the emergence of a new freedom for individual artists and arts (Barsam, 1992: 13). The realistic approach in the arts provides a meaningful explanation for the emergence of cinema in the nineteenth-century. Artists not only in panintings and photos, but also in novels and dramas seek the ways to reflect the daily life as they see without idealizing. They choose their subjects from daily life. Realist impulse in visual arts with this transformation in various branches of art was an inspiration for the first films in the cinema history. During the early years, pioneers of cinema started experimenting with the new medium in order to create a unique visual language. Lots of narrative possibilities of expression created by the newly discovered medium which was cinema. A start has been made when the Lumiére’s objective of the camera starts recording scene of everyday life. This study discusses the new expression possibilities which are often experimental in non-fiction film history. These experimental narrative styles which are developed in close relationship with documentary genre and the other arts. In the framework of the study, productions of the artists who are the pioneers in the development of a new film language are given as examples of avant-garde films. Within the framework if this research to display the connections between documentary cinema with avant-garde art movement is intended. In order to reach this main goal, traditional literature review has been used as a research method. To evaluate documentary and the history of avant-garde filmmaking together, and to consider mutual interaction are the recent developments in the film studies. The intersection of the avant-garde artistic practice and the cinema films provide an efficient environment that needed for the development of documentaries. The interaction between documentary production and avant-garde art has an important role in bringing the current status of the documentary. When the artists who are practitioners in different fields of art started practicing in cinema it revealed the different expression possibilities of film language. Since artists interpret reality through the filter of their experiences they have revealed several examples of avantgarde films. The artists who perform under the influence of various artistic movements and non-fiction films that interpret their way of reality in a non-fiction format are the subject matter of this research. The directors whose artistic point of view, filmmaking style and avantgarde productions are focused as it follows: Viking Eggeling, Hans Richter, Fernand Léger, Charles Sheeler and Paul Strand. Viking Eggeling, in his only film, Diagonal Symphony, delivers feeling of movement rhythmically to the music. While drawings unite with each other to form sharp angles, with using softer visual elements the contrasts are highlighted. Eggeling, conducted studies with Hans Richter to develop a universal language in his trials. They also worked on the film experiments to move to a more advanced point of this language. Eggeling, with his Diagonal Symphony, has been a turning point for the abstract film in the history of cinema. Hans Richter is a director of abstract films, feature films and films that have documentary features. He has contributed to the filmic expression with visual experiments and articles he wrote as well. Richter emphasis on rhythm, and makes an effort to reveal it in his films. In the short film which is named Inflation, vague references are used to describe situation of the economic structure. In Racing Symphony there are documentary features and its subject matter is a horce race. The film includes the crowds starting their journey with a train ride to come to the area where the race took place, and ending with the celebration. Richter uses various editing tricks that he has used in his other films. The director’s experimental movies attracted attention and he has been a source of inspiration for avant-garde artists. Fernand Léger is one of the directors that has been examined within the framework of this study. Léger and Dudley Murphy worked together in his only film which was named Mechanical Ballet. He has tried to adopt a different narrative feature from the films in his time. Leger considers objects or parts that will take on different characters with different techniques of handling. He creates a film that has an important place in the history of experimental film genre. His film has traces of cubism and reflects his ideas about filming objects and parts. Léger, emphasizes that the light and shadow has the utmost importance. He states that the light brings to life to the most inanimate objects and also it gives cinematographic value to that objects. Charles Sheeler and Paul Strand direct together in Manhatta, that is a film containing sections of everyday life in New York. This film is one of the first examples of a documentary genre which is called city symphony. Manhatta is also noted as one of the first examples of American avant-garde film. In the film intertitles are used which are strings from Walt Whitman's poetry. The city's buildings, skyscrapers, ports, rail, roof of the building, smoke rising from the chimney is presented to the audience in Manhatta. In the film, there are takes that reminiscent of the works of the directors’ in photography. The directors record the reality of certain streets and buildings of the city. People are filmed from a distance or from high-rise buildings and they are shown as large crowds. Manhatta of Strand and Sheen is an abstract place. Last of all, films as a new tool attracted the attention of artists practicing in different areas of the arts. Artists have applied the theories that they developed in arts to the cinema and it led to the emergence of a variety of abstract film projects. In these avant-garde films artists perform abstractions, repetitive shapes and images, simultaneous improvisation and experiments. The avant-garde productions experienced a heyday in the 1920s. Then the advent of sound has led to the development of a different language in making films. The avantgarde filmmaking represents a transitional stage in the development process of the documentary filmmaking. Aesthetic approaches that have been developed by avant-garde filmmaking has continued to affect the documentary film productions in subsequent years.