It’s Time to Stop Calling Observational Documentaries “Fly on the Wall”

The term “fly on the wall” is typically credited to Ricky Leacock, though I’m unaware of the source of that claim, and true or not his coinage is only as it pertains to documentary filmmaking. As one of the pioneers of the observational style of the 1960s, he joined Robert Drew and others in the Direct Cinema school, and variations of the phrase might h…