Documentaries List Discussion & Suggestions (Genre Project)

[HistoryProf]

Just saw The Act of Killing (dir. Joshua Oppenheimer, 2012), which is receiving considerable word-of-mouth and internet hype (see this Vice item in which executive producers Werner Herzog and Errol Morris sing its praises), but doesn't seem to have been discussed in this thread so far.

I have a feeling it will indeed rocket into many people's Top 50s when they see it. I can't give an adequate synopsis, but imagine something of the thematic heaviness of Night and Fog or Shoah (in this case, it's the Indonesian massacre of suspected communists during the 1960s, subcontracted to local gangsters by the military regime), except that one of the surviving executioners, apparently still proud of his deeds, wants to participate in zany re-enactments, with musical interludes that might have been staged by Tsai Ming-liang. By turns disturbing and comically grotesque, it presents a worldview so alien to 'civilised' liberal morality (although of course the US govt backed these people - there are several moments where Western piety is challenged) as to leave most viewers dumbfounded.

I am seeing this in two weeks at a festival and it's by far the film i'm most anticipating. The trailer alone was mesmerizing. It's also sitting at 100% on RT with superlatives galore unlike anything i've ever seen really. Not only the words "masterpiece" and "towering achievement" showing up, but statements like these:

Prepare to be shocked, disgusted, enraged and emotionally devastated. It's the most terrifying film in years.

I have watched hundreds of hours of war crimes, genocides and miscarriages of justice carried out by unremarkable men with dimly lit souls. "The Act of Killing" bids to outdo them all.

Are difficult to take lightly. I'm glad it's the last film of that particular day for me.

[Lemmy Caution]

Brother's Keeper (1992) is incredibly powerful, pulling you into a world of rural poverty that seems right out of The Depression. The issues raised are troubling and complicated, so the media descends, the town rallies, and the brothers remain bewildered and themselves. Amazing doc.

Capturing the Friedmans (2003) has a good deal of the same elements, transferred to middle class suburbia. Fascinating.

[HistoryProf]

Unforgivable Blackness: the Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson (Ken Burns 2004) I know most of y'all are snobs and hate Ken Burns but this one's worth a look if just for what it reveals about lower class society at the turn of the century. No, not in the racist displays, but in how intelligence is expounded in the letters and articles brought into evidence by Burns-- more than anything, what I took away from this fascinating look at one of the best boxers who ever lived was how far education as a whole has fallen when even the most uneducated borderline illiterate everyman is able to express himself in a manner far outfoxing most scholars of today! (R1 DVD PBS)

I was actually considering this for my spotlight pick. It's an extraordinary portrait of an extraordinary man. By far Burns' best work (and i'm also not a fan). I can't recommend it highly enough.

As for my spotlight pick, I immediately wanted to say Morris's The Fog of War - but I presume most have already seen it - if not I'll just say see it asap. It will absolutely be in my top ten. The Trials of Henry Kissinger, Jesus Camp, One Day in September, Incident at Oglala, The True Meaning of Pictures, Harvest of Shame, Festival Express, American Me, Hell House, and The Devil's Playground (about Amish teens on Rumspringa) are all personal favorites that I hope everyone sees if they haven't already - but I assume most here are at least familiar with them.

So I'm going to recommend The Farmer's Wife: A Film by David Sutherland. This was aired over 3 nights as an episode of Frontline on PBS in 2000 or 2001. I still can't quite explain why I couldn't tear myself away, and there's a chance it had more to do with my personal state at the time - in the midst of my final semester of field exam preparation for my orals and under a lot of stress - but it affected me like few films of any genre ever have. It is an utterly enthralling portrait of a struggling family somewhere in Nebraska I think over a few years as they try to keep the family farm alive. It's about that simple, but it's beautifully done and completely candid. All I can say is 13 years later I still think about it regularly.

[knives]

Unforgivable Blackness: the Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson (Ken Burns 2004) I know most of y'all are snobs and hate Ken Burns but this one's worth a look if just for what it reveals about lower class society at the turn of the century. No, not in the racist displays, but in how intelligence is expounded in the letters and articles brought into evidence by Burns-- more than anything, what I took away from this fascinating look at one of the best boxers who ever lived was how far education as a whole has fallen when even the most uneducated borderline illiterate everyman is able to express himself in a manner far outfoxing most scholars of today! (R1 DVD PBS)

When did anyone say they hate Burns? Geez, he's probably the only American that will rank more than one film on my list.

[swo17]

On the Louis Theroux tip, I remember being really impressed with A Place for Paedophiles, which straddles the line between humanizing its subjects and acknowledging the severity of their crimes. Rather than lobbing fruit at an easy target, it legitimately asks where their place is in a civilized society that values both children's innocence and self-actualization for adults, and leaves us to ponder the answer.

Otherwise, I just went through the BFI's newish B.S. Johnson set, which is pretty great, and happens to have a few documentaries on it. B.S. Johnson on Dr. Samuel Johnson is a standout, presenting a primer on this famous British figure that is fittingly both educational and acerbically witty.

[domino harvey]

Unfortunately, I think that's the worst Louis Theroux special I've seen, and the only one I'd recommend against watching, for a simple reason. Theroux is legit is disgusted by his subjects and even his quietly effacing manner can't contain his contempt, which ruins what makes the best Theroux specials work: their humanism directed at individuals who have viewpoints generally considered abhorrent or aberrant by the general populace

[life_boy]

I’m looking forward to this documentary list because most of my decade lists have had a strong documentary contingent that always seems to get orphaned along the way. That may happen again here but a guy can dream, can’t he? There have been many great recommendations so far (Les Blank, Sherman's March which I will comment on later, Hear My Cry, The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On, The Atomic Cafe, Symbiopsychotaxiplasm, The Order of Myths, Herzog's prodigious output, those PWA sets) and I'm hopeful to be introduced to some wonderful new documentaries over the course of the next few months.

I normally wouldn't feel the need to defend such an obviously canonical choice but the 60's list made me think otherwise(it only received one other vote): I hope no one is taking Salesman (Albert Maysles, David Maysles & Charlotte Zwerin, 1968) for granted. It is one of my favorite films of all-time, an utter masterwork of observation, editing and atmosphere. It so much captures a time and place and a way-of-life that is so foreign to 2013, yet the filmmakers have been able to find dozens of subtle moments that present such fascinating characters that the end result is timeless. I love its delicate humanism and the daring editing structure that allows for ellipses and omissions. It seems like a movie theoretically appreciated by many but not beloved. I love it and I hope that folks revisit it in preparation for this list. It is influential, sure, but I find it to be anything but dry cinema verité.

Another highly recommended favorite of mine is Coal Money (Wang Bing, 2008). Perhaps better known for his gargantuan documentaries Tie Xi Qu: West of the Tracks (2003, 551min) and Crude Oil (2008, 840min), it only takes Wang Bing 52 minutes to weave a deep, existential tapestry out of the seemingly mundane labors of several individuals in the Chinese coal industry. Wang clearly takes an observational approach to his subjects ala the Maysles; he is unafraid to show the grinding nature of their duties or the futility of their efforts to get something out of a system meant to give them as little as possible. One of my favorite sequences is a “decent into hell” seen through the diritied windows of the dumptruck as it treads its familiar path into the dusty pit to await its payload. The scene plays as atmosphere but also works as a way of more deeply empathizing with the subjects, giving a sense of what the laborer experiences everyday. Unfortunately difficult to see, I hope someone else has seen this or that someone may seek it out. There appears to be a R2/PAL DVD available through Edition Montparnasse with English subs, a compilation with several other 52 min documentaries that I've never heard of. There are also a few stray clips on YouTube (this one is the isolated scene mentioned above) to whet your appetite.

[knives]

I've been watching the early (i.e. before Jazz) Ken Burns films lately and it strikes me how amazingly different they are from his more recent if not in form then in how it uses the form. I get the sense that primarily in these early films he is aiming to be a wry historian presenting his subjects as people even though they are usually not with amusing complexities. This is all fairly good, but not as engaging to me as his most recent work where he really turns to what these events, things, and people say about the cycle of America. His movies while (usually remaining in the past) no longer seem to care for it grounding the realities of then to now. He's become a social documentarian in the best sort of way when in, say, The Congress there seems to be a bit of nervousness whenever the events of the past are clearly the original forms to what was going on in the days he was making the film. If anything these misshapen lumps of clay have made the new pieces look all the better sculpted.

[Gropius]

While we're on the subject of Ken Burns, attention should also be drawn to one of the early progenitors of the so-called 'Ken Burns effect'*, the classic nostalgic Canadian gold rush short City of Gold (dir. Colin Low & Wolf Koenig, 1957). It's also worth exploring the excellent National Film Board website more generally: alongside animation, documentary was the NFB's speciality (having been founded by Grierson), and there are many classic shorts to be streamed.** Despite a strong historical reputation, I feel that Canadian docs get rather overlooked these days, although I too have only seen a handful of them so far. (Les raquetteurs is another 50s classic: the Québécois cinematographer Michel Brault went on to work with Jean Rouch on Chronique d'été.)

* i.e. zooming/panning over a still photograph to 'animate the past' - a technique that was of course common long before Burns got going

** Following my own advice, just tried one at random: Grain Elevator (1981). Low key, hypnotically mundane, consciously regional. I love this kind of thing, and there are scores of them, but unlikely to make anyone's Top 50, really. The problem is that one of the pleasures of documentary is the pursuit of the minor, and perhaps a certain democratic humility: I mean, there are probably 5,000 docs as good as this one from across the globe, but does it matter? One feels the same working one's way through the lesser-known titles of all those BFI sets. The last shall be first and the first last, etc.

[domino harvey]

I need an excuse to finally work through that Brault boxed set-- I've only watched the Genevieve Bujold pix

[bamwc2]

Viewing Log:

Anvil! The Story of Anvil (Sacha Gervasi, 2008): My interest in heavy metal was limited to a few years in the early 1990s, and by that point the band Anvil was a distant memory. Sacha Gervasi's documentary, which nearly everyone else caught half a decade ago, begins by detailing the band's long fall from their brief time atop the heavy metal world. When we meet the band in the present day, we find out that it currently retains half the original members and has no record contract. To make matters worse, the band's lead singer Steve 'Lips' Kudlow, is working a a minimum wage job in an effort to scrape together enough money to mount a comeback, which of course does not go as planned. Comparison's to the film This is Spinal Tap abounded when the film was released, but where that band's fictional antics were easy to laugh at, the release life antics of Anvil made me wince and feel sorry for them instead. The film's two protagonists are easy enough to like and the film works well as a cautionary tale for all those who want to make a living as a rock star.

Eadweard Muybridge, Zoopraxographer: (Thom Andersen, et al., 1975): I had been looking for Thom Andersen's documentary for years now, and after watching this Youtube rip, I'm happy to say that my persistence was worth it. The film is nothing short of a masterpiece. In 1889 Victorian photographer Eadweard Muybridge combined his studies of animal and human locomotion with his invention, the zoopraxiscope, to create the world's first short movie projector. The film, whose visuals are almost entirely composed of Muybridge's motion studies, features dozens of the most interesting photography of the late 19th century. Dean Stockwell, whose voice had not yet been scarred to his Quantum Leap level rasp by decades of smoking, provides the informative off camera narration that walks us through both Muybridge's techniques and life (including a murder trial!). It's a real shame that this film about one of the world's great artistic pioneers has been largely ignored, but I suppose that the near wall-to-wall full frontal nudity makes this documentary a bit of a difficult sell to distributors. Count on seeing this one make my list.

Man on Wire (James Marsh, 2008): James Marsh's film about the life and obsessions of daredevil Philippe Petit, is another of the high profile documentaries from the last decade that I somehow missed on its initial release. Here Marsh mixes talking heads, location shots, and reenactments to recount Petit's most famous exploits scaling the world's tallest skyscrapers. While I'll probably get in trouble for saying this again, I'm afraid that I didn't get much of the love for the documentary. Petit comes off as an irresponsible jerk who deserves to be ignored instead of celebrated, and the recreations are often more of a distraction than anything else. There's enough here to give it a very mild recommendation, but I didn't see anything special.

Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present (Matthew Akers and Jeff Dupre, 2012): Although I knew of performance artist Marina Abramovic before seeing this documentary about her recent week at the MoMA recreating four of her most famous pieces, I had never seen any of her performances before this. To say that I didn't *get* any of her work would be an understatement, but Abramovic was enough of a compelling character that all of that is moot. I really enjoyed this study of her, and even most of her works, though I can't say exactly why. This was a fascinating portrait and may well make my final list.

Neil Young Journeys (Jonathan Demme, 2011): At the risk of exposing myself as the Philistine that I am, I had no idea that Demme had previously made two other Neil Young documentaries until looking this up on the IMDB. However, I enjoyed this one enough to want to check out the other two. Young comes off as the typical grizzled sixties counter culture icon decades past his height in here. Sporting about a week's worth of stubble, Young performs a mix of classics and newer songs near his hometown in Ontario. We also get some colorful stories from the rocker as he rives around his hometown with his brother. There's not too much material here, but what there is has a decent amount of entertainment value. Recommended.

Searching for Sugar Man (Malik Bendjelloul, 2012): Last year's Oscar winner for best documentary feels like a time when the academy got things right. The film chronicles the attempts made by two South African music writers to learn about an American artist who hit their country like a meteor in the early 1970s while failing to chart anywhere else in the world. Rodriguez, the titular folk-rock singer, eventually is found living a self-chosen hand-to-mouth existence in Detroit, but that proves to just be the beginning of another story. The film is riveting and Rodriguez comes off as a genuinely great guy who deserves every bit of love that he receives in the documentary. I couldn't help but cheer for him. It was a wonderful experience.

[matrixschmatrix]

Viewing Log:

Anvil! The Story of Anvil (Sacha Gervasi, 2008): My interest in heavy metal was limited to a few years in the early 1990s, and by that point the band Anvil was a distant memory. Sacha Gervasi's documentary, which nearly everyone else caught half a decade ago, begins by detailing the band's long fall from their brief time atop the heavy metal world. When we meet the band in the present day, we find out that it currently retains half the original members and has no record contract. To make matters worse, the band's lead singer Steve 'Lips' Kudlow, is working a a minimum wage job in an effort to scrape together enough money to mount a comeback, which of course does not go as planned. Comparison's to the film This is Spinal Tap abounded when the film was released, but where that band's fictional antics were easy to laugh at, the release life antics of Anvil made me wince and feel sorry for them instead. The film's two protagonists are easy enough to like and the film works well as a cautionary tale for all those who want to make a living as a rock star.

Wow, I really liked Anvil but got a totally different message from that movie- while those guys never broke big (though they wound up actually having a fair amount of success after the movie raised their visibility) they seemed like they were happy in their lives and still dedicated to doing their thing- far from being a cautionary tale, I thought it was a portrait of people who had managed to create a life for themselves in the absence of hitting the big time. I mean, who would you rather be, Anvil in this or Metallica in Some Kind of Monster?

[life_boy]

Some recent viewings worth commenting on:

Tale of Two Cities (uncredited, 1946)
As a pure collection of images the film is astonishing, showing a fuller view of the physical destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki than I had ever seen before. Great detail is sought, as if making an extensive catalogue of damages, everything from the angle of bent poles to the “shadows” left on buildings, streets or monuments due to the direction or obstruction of the heat flash. These were only the second and third atomic weapons ever detonated in the history of the world, so I guess the overly mechanical interest is justified, but it ends up feeling particularly calloused. The narration, while not completely self-congratulatory, is still enthusiastic enough to be chilling as it shows the ruins of a place utterly devoid of people. It is this very sense of objectivity that feels off-putting, as if there is no human element, no lingering affects and no moral implications. The damage is obviously cataclysmic; if anything, it should render the whole Duck and Cover routines of the coming Cold War worthless. If this is what a place looks like after a nuclear blast, duck and cover just isn’t going to cut it.
[YouTube link]

The House in the Middle (uncredited, 1954)
Atomic-era propaganda which goes to the absolute most absurd lengths imaginable to argue for the value of good housekeeping, tidy lawn care and a fresh paint job. Made by the totally fake sounding National Clean Up-Paint Up-Fix Up Bureau via the Federal Civil Defense Administration, it appropriates a bunch of atomic test footage and configures it as rock solid proof of the homeowner’s prerogative to keep up their property. It is the sort of film that is so outlandish that we might hail its brilliance if it were winking satire. Instead, it wears its earnestness on its sleeve, forever dooming itself to camp enjoyment. I have no idea what the true parameters of these tests were (I assume the houses in this test were merely to see how different types of exteriors reacted at further distances from the blast); I have no idea whether this is a fair representation of nuclear research. I doubt it. Seen alongside Tale of Two Cities, I can’t help but laugh at this optimistic view of atomic devastation that leaves the freshly painted house standing (with “only a slight charring of the painted outer surface”), even while the people inside are most likely dead.
[YouTube link]

1945-1998 (Isao Hashimoto, 2003)
You won’t find this film on imdb, but it is a very fitting encapsulation of Cold War anxiety and the history of nuclear weapons testing worldwide.

SpoilerShow

It lays out a map of the US and then Japan and moves in to show the first three atomic bombs: Trinity test in July 1945, Hiroshima in August 1945, and Nagasaki of the same. It then backs out to a full world map and, using a collection of beeps and blips reminiscent of an old video game (complete with a timer counting the dates) it plays out all of the nuclear weapons ever known to have been detonated anywhere on the map.

The metronome-like rhythm of the months clicking by is a constant reminder of just how long this whole scenario played out. The back-and-forth between the United States and USSR becomes particularly harrowing during the 1950’s. It may be a wasted vote but I can’t imagine not including this film in my final top 50, as I find myself continually captivated by its simplicity (and cleverness) of form and the information and anxieties expressed within its tiny mode. Highly recommend and only available via YouTube as far as I know. 15 minutes well-spent.

Propaganda (Slavko Martinov, 2012)
A propaganda film about propaganda techniques, Propaganda purports to be a North Korean takedown of Western culture and politics by forcefully exposing the ways Western governments, militaries and corporations use advertising and image making to hide their intentions. It seems to borrow a good deal from Chomsky (including a couple of quotes) and ultimately wears its self-awareness a little too much on its sleeve to be bought wholesale as North Korean propaganda (it is admittedly made by a New Zealand filmmaker as a social experiment, marketed with its own fictional backstory ala Blair Witch Project, and it continues to fool many viewers who find the film on YouTube). The film should have enough fuel to anger everyone in some way, either in content, form or function. Under its original conceits, it has to accept the inherent contradictions of a totalitarian state organizing a reflexive propagandistic analysis of the extensive use of propaganda techniques within a corporatist state. It succeeds in taking many common techniques of popular documentary film and showing the inherent murkiness of their seemingly objective nature: understated voiceover, clearly delineated sections via inter-titles, selective editing, one-sided reporting. Is there such a thing as true objectivity in media to begin with? But, it is the sort of film that both succeeds and fails within its own parameters. There are some wonderfully incendiary bits of cultural criticism, though the conceptual issue of being a manufactured bit of consent/dissent may be an issue many people get stuck on. I am still not completely sure what I think of the thing as a whole though I must admit I appreciate the effort.

[bamwc2]

Wow, I really liked Anvil but got a totally different message from that movie- while those guys never broke big (though they wound up actually having a fair amount of success after the movie raised their visibility) they seemed like they were happy in their lives and still dedicated to doing their thing- far from being a cautionary tale, I thought it was a portrait of people who had managed to create a life for themselves in the absence of hitting the big time. I mean, who would you rather be, Anvil in this or Metallica in Some Kind of Monster?

I haven't seen Some Kind of Monster, so I can't comment there. Perhaps I brought too much of my own situation into the reading. I've spent the majority of the last decade as a poor graduate student, and with a social worker wife, we never had much money. Having a child only further exacerbated this problem. Seeing a father who is on the verge of losing his house doesn't strike me as the tale of a noble bohemian. I have to admit that I sided with Lips's family members who said that it was time to give up the dream and find a real job. I am glad to hear that they had some success after the documentary. Lips and his band mates seemed like nice guys who had a lot of love in their peer group, and certainly deserved a fate other than the one that the film portrayed.

Edit: Just to be clear, I don't think that there's anything wrong with pursuing your dream long after you have any realistic hope of achieving it, provided that you don't have anyone dependent on you. Once you have a kid, you need to do whatever it takes to provide for them. If that means quitting the music industry (or in my case academia) if things don't work out, then so be it,

[Lowry_Sam]

Anyone in the SF Bay area, the Roxie (which always seems to have at least one doc playing) is featuring a Post Punk documentary film festival this weekend: THIS MUST BE THE PLACE: POST-PUNK TRIBES 1983 – 1990, Trailer Here

Tonight:
HAIL THE NEW PURITAN is a hazy ‘docufantasy’ account of a day in the life of Scottish-born choreographer/hoofer Clark, who single-handedly knocked the staid world of ballet off its axis in the mid-1980s with his loud, punky, kinky, hyper-colorful and unusually-clothed dance works. This film frames some of Clark’s volcanic dance numbers against the backdrop of his life in a giddy, underground UK scene populated with freaks, malcontents, drag queens and the mighty Fall.” - Bret Berg, Destroy All Movies! Dir: Charles Atlas. 1987. Digital. 84 mins. 7:30pm

BERLIN NOW
An artsier companion to last summer’s PUNK IN LONDON, Wolfgang Buld’s 1985 documentary takes a tour through the urban squalor and sprawl of West Berlin, soundtracked by the sonic equivalents of such anti-architecture: Einsturzende Neubauten, Die Haut, and other sunken cheeked habitues of decay. Dir: Wolfgang Buld. 1985. Digital. 59 mins. 9:15pm

RETURN TO THEE TEMPLE OV PSYCHICK YOUTH
According to leader Genesis Breyer P’Orridge, “Psychic TV is a video group who makes music, unlike a music group which makes music videos.” Neatly serving as the intersection between what came before (psychedelia, outre post-beat philosophy, occultism, early Industrial music) and after (rave culture, 24/7 online existence, plus lots of stuff we don’t even know about yet), Psychic TV’s video work is a sprawling testament to the twilight of the twentieth-century underground intellectual. Total Running Time: 59 mins. 10:30pm

and Sunday's program looks interesting:

NEW YORK STATE OF MIND: CHECKING IN WITH THE CINEMA OF TRANSGRESSION
Out of the ashes of the cultural neutron bomb that detonated in lower Manhattan in the late ‘70s rose the Cinema of Transgression. It was a school of ultra-low budget filmmakers, sure, but it was a school where all the students were juvenile delinquents and the classrooms were dingy bars and drafty lofts. 8pm
SUBMIT TO ME NOW
Dispensing with the formal niceities of “plot” and “narrative” entirely, SUBMIT TO ME NOW is a hellishly hypnotic series of vignettes featuring Kern’s regular stable of performers (including Lung Leg, Nick Zedd, Lydia Lunch, Cassandra Stark, Cruella De Ville and many more) perform increasingly gory sado-masochistic acts. Music by Thurston Moore, JG Thirwell and more! Dir: Richard Kern. 1987. Digital. 17 mins.
THE WILD WORLD OF LYDIA LUNCH
Lydia Lunch frets about finances, logistics and life in this alternately touching and wickedly funny short, shot in England and Ireland in 1983 on stolen film by the infamous Nick Zedd. Eviscerating score by Ms. Lunch and Pat Place! Dir: Nick Zedd. 1987. Digital. 23 mins.

DEPECHE MODE 101
Over the past two years of this series, we’ve heard from scenesters, taste makers, gadflys and drama queens run their big mouths about what all this stuff “means, man”, but what of actual suburban teenagers? As our attentions turn to the 1990s, and our little post-punk tribes become codified and commodofied under the auspices of the “Alternative Nation” (puke), let’s take a look at DEPECHE MODE 101, a documentary by D.A. Pennebaker filmed during the American leg of Depeche Mode’s Music for the Masses tour. The film follows a group of fans travelling across the country to attend Depeche Mode shows. Plus, you know, lots of music. Dir: D.A. Pennebaker. 1989. Digital. 9pm

Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me, a doc on the band Big Star is also currently playing there til the end of the month.

Low: Movie - How to Quit Smoking, a new film documenting the history of the band low (with lots of performance clips) will open in August.

Also in August @ The Roxie:
PLIMPTON! Starring George Plimpton as himself, (trailer here)
Our Nixon (from review in the NYT here), the impressionistic documentary directed by Penny Lane that has its premiere Thursday on CNN. The film makes use of hundreds of reels of home movies shot by Haldeman, Ehrlichman and Mr. Chapin, some of which had been confiscated by the F.B.I. during the Watergate investigation. The footage remained largely unseen for 40 years.
Portrait Of Jason (restored in a new 35mm print).

[domino harvey]

Looks like an interesting line up, and it jogged my memory of a great doc called Dirty Girls, which was actually shot by middle school student Michael Lucid in 1996, documenting the titular figures which populated his school. It isn't fawning or damning but rather offers a succinct study in miniature of how others reacted to these young women, and offers some sound observations and criticisms of this particular style of rebellion. Recommended and up on YouTube in whole

[Lowry_Sam]

Well I was too lazy to get in the car & drive up to SF to catch any of today's Post-Punk doc film festival, but while perusing the free documentaries available with Amazon Prime, I found one probably better than any of those listed:

TV Party: The Documentary intersperses clips of the NYC cable television show w/ talking head interviews and successfully captures the anarchic feel of late 70s & early 80s New York. The show was sort of a Johnny Carson Show (this is pre-Late Night With David Letterman) for the NYC punk/new wave/rap/graffiti/literary scene with appearances by Debbie Harry, Chris Stein, Basquait, Fab 5 Freddy, Fred Schneider, Arto Lindsay, David Byrne and many more. Since it relies heavily on the original footage, it's very low-tech & DIY, and therefore captures the spirit of the time & place much better than other films. It also highlights the role of public access television & cable tv in its infancy in the underground scene/youth culture before there was such a thing as the internet or Youtube or cell phones with cameras on them. The low-tech video tape & unscripted & unproduced format might limit its appeal to many, particularly younger viewers, however from someone who was around at the time, I'd say it more accurately captures the anarchic spirit of punk than The Decline of Western Civilization even if it has less commercial appeal (but that was the spirit of the punk/DIY aesthetic to begin with)......or perhaps its just that I'm from that area & always preferred the multi-culti avant garde NYC scene to the (largely angry young white male) punk scene of LA.

The one history-of-a-(punk) band doc that I would recommend (to non-afficianados) would be We Jam Econo: The Story Of the Minutemen, and not just because I have always been a fan. The rags-to-not-exactly-riches (and implosion upon the death of their lead singer) has all the hallmarks of your rock-n-roll story, but without the major label contract or stadium shows.

A musical doc of the post-punk era that might have a broader appeal (because of its subject) & I would enthusiastically recommend is The Nomi Song. Klaus Nomi (who also appears in TV Party, as well as Urgh! A Music War!) was an avant garde singer/artist who took on the persona of an alien (much in the same way as Bowie's 70s personae) and whose singing blended opera with new wave was a star in the late 70s/early 80s NY club scene before he succumbed to AIDS. Hiis performance of Purcell's The Cold Song gives you a glimpse of his amazing vocal range.

[bamwc2]

Viewing Log:

Decasia (Bill Morrison, 2002): After viewing this, I wasn't sure whether this counted as a documentary or not, but given the project's rather inclusive approach to the matter and its listing as a documentary on both the IMDB and Netflix (where my copy came from), I'll include it here. The film is composed of early nitrate films, most around a hundred years old, that have fallen into deep decay. Without any embellished distressing of the stock, Morrison presents a meditative study on the nature of decay without words. Instead, the soundtrack is composed entirely of music by Michael Gordon that perfectly accompanies the film. While my brain works best in understanding an author's point when I'm hit over the head with it, the analysis strikes me here as so close to the surface that the lack of dialogue doesn't get in the way (that and the Netflix sleeve described Morrison's stated intentions ). I'm curious what others who've seen it think. Is it a documentary? An avante garde film? Both? Neither?

The Imposter (Bart Layton, 2012): Told in flashbacks and talking heads, Layton's film concerns the disappearance of 13 year old San Antonian Nicholas Barclay, and the "teenager" who 16 years later claimed to be him on the other side of the world. The film's marketing tried to sell it as less a documentary than a thriller in which the whole point is to find out if the two are the same, but this "secret" is actually revealed within the first few minutes of the film (not to mention the title!). Surprise, it's not him, but instead a French con-man who fakes the identity to avoid Interpol warrants in Spain. Spinning a tail of an international military/pedophilia syndicate kidnapping children all over the globe, Barclay's family welcomes him with open arms while chalking up any dissimilarities between the two to changes made during the alleged torture over three years. As the story begins to unravel, Layton starts to present the family less as trusting rubes in need of emotional fulfillment, and more as a sinister clan with dark secrets to hide who were forced into taking a stranger into their home to prevent suspicion. Indeed, by the end, Layton seems to be fully committed to the thesis that Barclay's older brother murdered the teen and buried him in their old house, a theory that results in the film's most manipulative moment

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when in it's final shot a private eye goes digging in their old back yard, expecting to find Nicholas's corpse. It's edited to make us think that a major revelation is about to take place, and then...nothing is found.

In fact once the attention turns from Frédéric Bourdin, the faux Texas youth, to the Barclay's alleged guilt, the film turned too sensationalistic for me. There's a lot to like in its first two thirds, but it shoots itself in the foot by the end.

The Queen of Versailles (Lauren Greenfield, 2012): This was another high profile documentary from last year that I'm just now getting around to. This time the film begins as a document of the extravagances of timeshare CEO David Siegel and his over-the-top, made for reality TV wife, Jaqueline, as they attempt to build the world's largest private house (modeled after the palace at Versailles, of course). However, things quickly go off track as Siegel's company finds itself $400,000,000 in the red and it's creditors begin chipping away at his empire. The schadenfreude is thick here and the entire household (with the exception of their self-sacrificing nanny) do their best to try and destroy any empathy that we might have toward them. Jacqueline, who is highly educated, goes out of her way to behave as clownishly as possible while spending the family into oblivion. I felt sorry for David at several points, but then I remembered that his entire business practice is predicated upon taking advantage of unsuspecting yokels (not to mention this and this). Even the kids come off as jaded brats that let their pets starve to death rather than get off of their butts and feed it. The film's purpose was never quite clear to me. I do believe that Greenfield wanted to go for something deeper than the empty calories of Bravo style (or so I hear, since I haven't had cable since before this phenomenon started) TV, but Jacqueline's antics obscured any deeper point that she may have been trying to make. Every time Jacqueline appeared on screen, she became the 800 pound gorilla in high heels and a Gucci handbag.

What the Bleep!?: Down the Rabbit Hole (William Arntz, et al., 2006): I'm currently writing a chapter on what Murray Gell-Mann calls "Quantum flapdoodle", so after watching the hideously bad original What the Bleep Do We Know? back in 2004, I decided to check out this 2006 remix of the film that features the same talking heads talking out of their asses (with the exception of physicist/philosopher David Albert who's views were edited to make it sound as if they agreed with the nonsense spouted here). What we have is again the rantings of Ramtha, the 35,000 year old Lemurian who inhabits the body of cult leader JZ Knight, and is, surprise, an expert in quantum mechanics. The film then assembles anyone with a PH.D. after their name who has gone off of the deep end to make it sound as if physics and spirituality are one and the same. While I'm no expert on the field of quantum physics (I'd say that my understanding--in the theory, not the math--is probably about analogous to an advanced undergraduate major in physics), it was very easy to spot the majority of the falsehoods. For everything that the filmmakers got right (for instance, the animation about the double slit experiment was right on), it got about three things wrong. The greatest hits of the first film are back like the claim that the natives in the Caribbean couldn't see Columbus's ships because they had no conceptual scheme for clipper ships (!), along with new protracted mistakes on quantum entanglement and further conflation of "observation" and "consciousness". It was very clearly a film made by people who heard a few interesting things about quantum mechanics, learned the most rudimentary understanding of it possible, and then decided that everything is magic. It's not, and this film is utterly detestable garbage.

[Emak-Bakia]

I’ve always thought of Decasia as avant-garde, but, to be honest, I hadn’t really taken much time to consider the film’s genre. I think calling it a documentary is fair, though my problem with the film is that I really wish it had more of an objective documentary tone. It came as no surprise to me to learn that Michael Gordon’s music came first and that Bill Morrison shaped the visuals to the music, because I find the score to be overbearing. Taken individually, I think Morrison’s footage and Gordon’s music are beautiful, but I think the combination of the two leads the viewer to think about the decaying film stock in a very particular, tragic way that I consider unnecessary. I’ve only seen the film once, but I ended up muting it after about 20 minutes and found it much more enjoyable completely silent.

[knives]

Babies
I don't want to sound terribly Nothing-ish but the film struck me as a colonialist piece of crap cutely using infants to say some lame hippy bullshit that even the Qatsi films would be embarrassed by. What's worse is that the filmmakers don't even seem interested in the American and Japanese babies outside of how they comment on the other two making every second with them a tiring waste. "Wow! The Japanese baby is crying in luxury while the Mongolian one gets stepped on and giggles? How motherfucking profound." This is just a terrible premise that gets worse and worse as it goes on (I will say to its benefit though that the film knows when to end). Frankly the movie would have been better to cut out the three that don't even display personality and just focused in on the Mongolian baby who at least is able to act in front of the camera.

Living Goddess
Aesthetically the film is pretty dull and I don't think the filmmakers have any idea of what is interesting about their subject or the setting, but at least by god they produce something with a pulse that presents really interesting situations. The movie on the whole is at its best when it contrasts the mundane nature of the present world with the superstition surrounding its title character. Moments like when she plays with the toy cellphone or goes to school presents such a great dissonance that it temporarily becomes great despite itself. In fact I wish they had ignored the political element which they don't seem to have any grasp over anyway and focused in on how this religion functions in a modern globalized society.

To Be and to Have
Had this been a day in the life of a teacher short ending about an hour earlier (probably where that forty minute mark comes up now actually) it wouldn't be a great movie, but it would be an enjoyably simple one. As is though it is an overlong mess filled with such completely unaware examples of the whole failure of verite as an idea and just morally that it becomes a wrench. There's a few instances where I honestly felt like the people making this movie should have been locked up for filming a situation rather than doing something to make sure these kids didn't hurt themselves. The whole thing is obnoxiously self congratulatory when it really should be thrown in the river.

Dont Look Back
I like Dylan's music a lot, but after this film I really don't like the man who just comes across as so into his own asshole and plain stupid that he deserved somebody to slap him. Instead everyone in the film and the film itself fellates him as some genius beyond the limited scope of comprehension of his critics. I'm just feeling angry and tired at this film which provides me with nothing. I know Pennebaker has a lot of talent, but man oh man has he made a lot of crap with this being the chief example.

Thank god I got the final Jennings' set in the mail today or else I'd be tempted to give up this list so many of the films I've seen thus far have been terrible.

[matrixschmatrix]

Dylan does come off a bit of a dick in Don't Look Back- particularly to poor Joan Baez, who got treated like shit throughout, without Dylan raising a finger to protest- but honestly, it's literally correct that he was a genius beyond the limited scope of the critical establishment trying to confront him, who were largely convinced that rock music was self evidently dumb pabulum for teenagers. It's pretty understandable that Dylan resorts to meaningless, dickish trolling, as many celebrities do when confronted with an endless stream of repetitive, stupid questions.

I also thought the movie gorgeous to look at, which seems to be a consistent talent of Pennebaker's- there's an impressionistic quality about the concert footage in particular that lends a real power to a pretty straightforward dude with a guitar presentation.

[knives]

I only feel that quality in the actual concert scenes which are pretty damned gorgeous. For most of the movie though it doesn't seem any more distinctive than other verites of the time. I actually think his completely underrated partner in crime Richard Leacock tended to utilize the painterly aspects of natural lighting more effectively (and the two of them together made Robert Drew unstoppable). It would be so sweet for a Leacock set to come out especially since he unfortunately died a few years ago.

[Gregory]

To understand Dylan in Don't Look Back I think one has to see from a musician's perspective the horrible, relentless tendency of the mainstream of lazy critics and journalists to pigeonhole music they don't understand in the least and spew meaningless fluff about it after an interviews consisting of nothing but inane questions. Creative careers have been stunted by this. Dylan's responses are not only understandable but heroic for one who didn't want to be put into a "folk troubadour" box, not to mention extremely entertaining to watch. On my first viewing of it I was a little confused by what he was trying to do, for example, with the big light bulb, but on later viewings I was cheering him on. Of course the schmuck "journalists" were just doing their job in the only way they knew how, and that's precisely why Dylan's responses were so needed. It's the only honest way to respond to it. I can't see any reason to call Dylan "stupid" or to think that Pennebaker did a poor job or that the film "provides nothing," and this response to the film provides nothing to merit a real reply.
At the end of the film, his fatigue and wry resignation at being labeled an "anarchist" by some elements of the press is among the most perfect things I've seen in any documentary. It would be easy to make a mediocre documentary of Dylan during this period that would still be a crowd pleaser, but Pennebaker's film shows us so much more than what we might expect.

[zedz]

I’ve always thought of Decasia as avant-garde, but, to be honest, I hadn’t really taken much time to consider the film’s genre. I think calling it a documentary is fair, though my problem with the film is that I really wish it had more of an objective documentary tone. It came as no surprise to me to learn that Michael Gordon’s music came first and that Bill Morrison shaped the visuals to the music, because I find the score to be overbearing. Taken individually, I think Morrison’s footage and Gordon’s music are beautiful, but I think the combination of the two leads the viewer to think about the decaying film stock in a very particular, tragic way that I consider unnecessary. I’ve only seen the film once, but I ended up muting it after about 20 minutes and found it much more enjoyable completely silent.

I think it's fair enough to classify it as a documentary - and that's not an exclusive category - since the film is fundamentally a document about the material of film. The film isn't 'about' the images included in it so much as it's about what's happened to those images over the course of a century. I think I'll probably be drawing the line between documentary and the avant garde on the other side of this film (and something like Deutsch's Film ist, which if you're interested in the outer reaches of the form is highly recommended), but there's no reason why anybody else should.

[zedz]

The Imposter (Bart Layton, 2012): Indeed, by the end, Layton seems to be fully committed to the thesis that Barclay's older brother murdered the teen and buried him in their old house, a theory that results in the film's most manipulative moment

SpoilerShow

when in it's final shot a private eye goes digging in their old back yard, expecting to find Nicholas's corpse. It's edited to make us think that a major revelation is about to take place, and then...nothing is found.

In fact once the attention turns from Frédéric Bourdin, the faux Texas youth, to the Barclay's alleged guilt, the film turned too sensationalistic for me. There's a lot to like in its first two thirds, but it shoots itself in the foot by the end.

I agree. In terms of documentary ethics, this is about as despicable as it gets.

SpoilerShow

If you have hard evidence of a powerful injustice or capital crime, you present it (see The Thin Blue Line) and go to the cops; if you don't, it's completely irresponsible to 'convict' somebody through innuendo (see the Paradise Lost films). I agree that there's something fishy about the family's complicity in this case, but you can present that idea without blowing things up into a murder conspiracy without any facts.