This Is Spinal Tap influenced The Office

Spinal Tap is where the mockumentary became a form people could copy. Rob Reiner's film fixed the whole grammar: a crew whose presence is acknowledged and never explained, talking-head interviews cut against what the camera catches, improvisation inside a written structure, and subjects who are funny because they are performing for a documentary they think will flatter them. Gervais and Merchant built The Office on exactly that gap between how David Brent believes he is coming across and what the footage shows, which is the Spinal Tap engine moved to an office. Filed MEDIUM: an inherited form, and the map already records what The Office then did to American television.