In the 30'S, when the documentary impulse ran rampant across the nation, the Federal Government compiled the largest photographic record ever made of rural - and some urban - life in America.

The Twain Meet In the end, of course, photography's esthetic and documentary impulses are rarely very far apart, no matter who is pushing what in which direction.

With every click of the shutter, the documentary impulse was democratized.

You can see the documentary impulse lunge gorgeously off the tracks in Peter Fischli and David Weiss's drunken picture-postcard images of flowers and sunsets.

The documentary impulse that informs these films adds as well as subtracts, creating character and incident from a steady accumulation of eloquent, often mordantly witty details.

A peculiar documentary impulse seems to be at work in "The Catsitters," and in more than just the scene described above.

"What an artist could do with photography wasn't bounded by the documentary impulse - but that other part was underdeveloped," he told me.

Mock interviews reinforce a strong documentary impulse, while digital blurs and layering further distance the material from status quo moviemaking.

Nor did the documentary impulse make much impact on the films of Herbert Wilcox, whose 'patriotic' pictures always had a preachy tone.