Archival footage has the possibility and the tendency to be used without specific reference. It’s a stand in for the specific. It’s used to evoke a mood and give a general idea about how something happened or the way things might have looked at a certain point in time in distant past. This isn’t always problematic. Using it for metaphor may be the best use for it. Still, when the archival footage can actually put you in a place and time of the actual story you are witnessing it is possibly more engaging.
This is how I felt this week when I came across the trailer for “The Great Flood.” I felt engaged because I was seeing the artifacts of the actual event. I was able to witness to the effects of the devastating flood. I think about Ken Burn’s WWII series. To ponder people running around with cameras on the battlefields while people are being shot and killed right next to them is one thing. To see the footage from people that actually did that is something else entirely.