Documentaries List Discussion & Suggestions (Genre Project)

[zedz]

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.

Reward yourself for sitting through this claptrap by watching Victor Kossakovsky's Svyato, in which the director's son discovers his reflection for the very first time. There seems to be a shortened version (in a squished aspect ratio) of it on Vimeo.

Somebody really needs to get a box set of Kossakovsky's docs together. A few of his films (though not this one) are out in France, but unsubbed.

[matrixschmatrix]

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.

Yeah, I would agree that it qualifies as a doc- I would say that though it's not the only kind, anything that heavily uses primary text documents for non-fiction purposes is certainly a documentary, and that's how the decayed film is used here. In the same way that a filmed play is a documentary even if the play itself isn't.

[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.

Reward yourself for sitting through this claptrap by watching Victor Kossakovsky's Svyato, in which the director's son discovers his reflection for the very first time. There seems to be a shortened version (in a squished aspect ratio) of it on Vimeo.

Somebody really needs to get a box set of Kossakovsky's docs together. A few of his films (though not this one) are out in France, but unsubbed.

Thankfully it seems to be available complete elsewhere. I had to rewatch Restrepo to remind myself that feature documentary is not dead.

[domino harvey]

In honor of the arthouse sale at BN that's running concurrently with the Criterion sale, I'd like to re-put in a good word for Oscilloscope's FrontRunners:

I picked up FrontRunners on a whim during the BN sale and was very pleased indeed with my purchase. As someone who gravitates towards documentaries that showcase memorable characters (part of why loving Louis Theroux docs are in my blood), I couldn't have made a finer choice, as this peek inside Stuyvesant High School's student president election features one of more memorable film teens I've seen in some time, George Zisiadis. From his locker "lounge" to his blasting of classic rock from a boombox, this is that kid in high school who always seemed to put a little too much time into being at school, but it's hard not to admire his efforts. He's surrounded by a gaggle of other teens of varying interest, but overall the film hits a good note with its tone and is often very funny in an Office kind of way. Highly recommended (and someone else at least watch it, please, because it doesn't seem like very many people have)

This thread's definitely jogging my memory of great docs I've already seen, even if I haven't watched too many films specifically for it yet. I did finally pull Marwencol out of the unwatched cavern and enjoyed it a lot, though I thought the film kept a little too much distance from its subject as far as examining how his behavior effects others and being fully honest about some of his actions.

Spoiler

The third act reveal that the doll-maker is also a transvestite is interesting, but I was more taken with how he uses the phrase "come out" to describe his affinity for wearing women's shoes and clothes. The film doesn't present him as homosexual and a significant percentage of crossdressing men don't identify as gay, but he offhandedly uses the phrase after so much of the film is devoted to his elaborate fantasy life, the majority of which revolves around him being fawned over by a city of beautiful women. I'm not sure what function this information serves in the narrative if the documentarians aren't willing to be at least a little inquisitive about this aspect of his person...

[zedz]

I see your point about the final section of the film (and will now smear myself in spoiler tags), but

Spoiler

I take Mark's sexuality at face value. He's a guy who likes to think of himself as straight (or at least embodying 'sytraight' values) but also likes to wear women's shoes, and he knows that this is a massive social taboo. He's using the expression 'come out' as it's the best language he's got to express the massive risk he sees himself taking (though it's unlikely the NY art crowd would see it as anything other than awesome). I think it's a part of the film's great strength of being completely on Mark's side throughout: ultimately, it's irrelevant what the art crowd thinks, and if Mark himself is evasive, conflicted or uncertain about his sexuality, then that's the identity the film has to honour. There are some mentions of his (male) 'flatmate', but for all we know that may have been an actual flatmate, and it's really not any of our business if he's something more, if Mark doesn't want to expose that part of his life. This isn't really a 'prying' documentary, it's a facilitation mechanism for Mark to tell his story/ies, and if it had taken the investigative tack, I think we would have ended up with a very different and much lesser film.

Of course, that third act revelation also reveals the true nature of the incident that impacted Mark - a gay bashing (whether Mark is gay or not, I'm 100% certain his assailants didn't bother litigating the finer points of transvestism) - and that in turn provides more depth to the ritual of his intricate narratives, since Marwencol is the kind of community from which that kind of hatred is banished.

[domino harvey]

Fair enough, but I do think the film could have used a little distance from the subject

Spoiler

For instance, when we see the exhibition it's an unqualified success and all we get are a couple brief glimpses at the subject earnestly talking about the exploits in Marwencol to some tenuously interested hip subjects to suggest any disconnect, and then we later hear in a talking head that the guy's friend was getting upset over the hipster attitudes being thrown at his work-- it would have taken twenty seconds to show any of that and given a more complete view of the experience. As grateful as I was for the glimpse at his life, I was left with a lot of questions that would have taken very little time to address without damaging the larger narrative formed by the doc

[zedz]

Fair enough, but I do think the film could have used a little distance from the subject

Spoiler

For instance, when we see the exhibition it's an unqualified success and all we get are a couple brief glimpses at the subject earnestly talking about the exploits in Marwencol to some tenuously interested hip subjects to suggest any disconnect, and then we later hear in a talking head that the guy's friend was getting upset over the hipster attitudes being thrown at his work-- it would have taken twenty seconds to show any of that and given a more complete view of the experience. As grateful as I was for the glimpse at his life, I was left with a lot of questions that would have taken very little time to address without damaging the larger narrative formed by the doc

I see the point of the film's wrap up after the show as

Spoiler

being all about how irrelevant the success or failure of Mark in the NY art scene is to the film's real concerns. I was actually dreading the possibility that the film was going to resolve itself with a trite "but it's all okay now, because Mark has been accepted as an artist by all these cool people" and was extremely impressed when it sidestepped that possibility completely to reassert that the primary value of the work was as personal therapy, in which case the attitudes of hipsters couldn't have been more beside the point. I'd certainly be interested in a film which looked at this whole phenomenon from a different perspective, but because it didn't seem that Mark himself was bothered by any of the alleged hipster condescension (after all, he had much more important things to think about, like shoes) I think it was the right decision to let it lie. Personally, I think a lot of the art crowd in the film came off as shallow and opportunistic, if abundantly well-meaning.

Come to think of it, the sort of thing you're talking about sounds like it could have been an ideal featurette on the DVD / BluRay.

[swo17]

Some scattered recommendations...

Spotlights:
Henri-Georges Clouzot's Inferno (Bromberg & Medrea)
Granton Trawler (John Grierson) (short)
Les Maîtres fous (Jean Rouch) (short)

Actualities
Forefathers to the modern documentary, these films offer brief glimpses at life from a bygone era.

Plate-forme mobile et Train électrique (Lumière Brothers)
A record of the World's Fair in Paris in 1900, showcasing two marvels of the day, a moving sidewalk and an electric train. It's framed to create a nice optical illusion, with everything in motion except for the distant background.

Panoramic View of the Morecambe Sea Front (Mitchell & Kenyon)
At the turn of the century, M&K would film people going about their daily lives and then shortly after exhibit the footage in public. Today, it's like watching an outdoor museum of ghosts.

San Francisco: Aftermath of an Earthquake
Coney Island at Night
These are self-explanatory, and perhaps fittingly, up on YouTube. Only how often do you get chills from watching a YouTube video?

New York Subway (G.W. Bitzer)
I was about to lump this in with the two films above, but its production value goes well beyond any YouTube video, as lighting the tunnel to film the path of the subway train proved to be quite the task.

Fakes
Las Hurdes (Luis Buñuel)
I believe there are some that actually still believe this to be authentic. It walks a fine line to be sure. Basically, the film documents, and probably exaggerates, the intense suffering of the inhabitants of an impoverished village. Which, if you have a twisted enough sense of humor, is actually kind of funny? 8-[

Waiting for Guffman (Christopher Guest)
As I've explained before, though everything about the film is a complete fabrication, its form is instantly recognizable as that of a modern documentary, and heaven knows the genre is ripe for parody.

Vertical Features Remake (Peter Greenaway)
Another fabrication, though rather than explicitly making with the comedy, this one opts instead to mine laughs, or perhaps yawns, from being as intensely boring as possible. Also, Brian Eno!

And Life Goes On (Abbas Kiarostami)
Kiarostami often blends fact with fiction in intriguing ways (see also Close-up, especially). Here, a fake director stand-in for Kiarostami travels to the actual city of Guilan to try to find the actual child star of one of his previous films following an actual devastating earthquake that claimed more than 30,000 lives. A transcendental film, perhaps even enough to elevate it to the ranks of qualifying for this project?

City Symphonies
Man with a Movie Camera (Dziga Vertov)
Perhaps you've heard of this one?

Koyaanisqatsi (Godfrey Reggio)
More of a world symphony, but you get the idea.

Daybreak Express (D.A. Pennebaker) (a short on the Criterion release for The Horse's Mouth)
A document of the route of a long gone L-train in New York, of Duke Ellington's infectious rhythms, or of pure joy. Take your pick.

N.Y., N.Y. (Francis Thompson) (a short on the Image Blu-ray for the Sinatra film Suddenly)
A city symphony through a funhouse mirror. Absolutely stunning.

Zorns Lemma (Hollis Frampton)
Deconstructs the city into words on buildings even as it simulates the construction of language in the mind.

Ethnographic Films
These films often pose as loosely narrative features, but make no mistake--their primary concern is the documentation of a people in a secluded and often breathtaking place. For starters, visit scenic Quintana Roo (González-Rubio's Alamar), Ushguli (Kalatozov's Salt for Svanetia), the Bayou (Flaherty's Louisiana Story), Brittany (Epstein's Finis terrae), Fontainhas (Costa's Colossal Youth), Bora Bora (Murnau's Tabu), Antarctica (Hurley's South), or even, um, Mexico (Eisenstein's ¡Qué viva México!). Granted, a couple of those might veer a bit too far into docufiction, but that last one also doubles as a making-of for an unfinished film.

Other Films That Might Possibly Be Documentaries
The House Is Black (Forough Farrokhzād)
This haunting Iranian film about a leper colony will have to go here since we will never do a poems list project.

Walking from Munich to Berlin (Oskar Fischinger)
Documenting what it was like, I guess, to walk the German countryside between world wars. Only with a teleportation device, a short attention span, and the hiccups.

The Five Obstructions (Jørgen Leth & Lars von Trier)
One filmmaker challenges another filmmaker to remake a film in the face of five different obstructions. And the challenger being von Trier doesn't even count as one.

Walden: Diaries, Notes and Sketches (Jonas Mekas)
Shaming both those who don't keep journals, and those who do keep journals that aren't anywhere near this awesome. Also, probably Carl Dreyer and Norman Mailer's sole shared screen credit.

Sopralluoghi in Palestina (Pier Paolo Pasolini)
A rich, moving documentary that adds layers to the already rich, moving Il Vangelo secondo Matteo.

River Rites (Ben Russell)
Backwards fun.

The Mystery of Picasso (Henri-Georges Clouzot)
Watch Picasso paint!

[Lemmy Caution]

N.Y., N.Y. (Francis Thompson) (a short on the Image Blu-ray for the Sinatra film Suddenly)
A city symphony through a funhouse mirror. Absolutely stunning.

Thanks for that.
Quite interesting and inventive.
I like the surreal touches like buildings floating in the air or stretched to look like monsters or Dr. Seuss skyscrapers.

it is youtubeable
I think I'm going to rewatch it with the sound muted and replaced with George Russell's "New York, NY A Helluva Town" which should be fairly perfect. It's only a 5 minute song though, so I might cover the rest with Russell's You Are My Sunshine. Some Mingus would probably work well too.

Edit: Well, A Helluva Town was a bit too frenetic, but The first 6 minutes of You Are My Sunshine lined up real well, especially when the pace and horns pick up just in time for the breakfast/morning segment. Not sure the vocal part fit that well after that, but after the song ended, I replayed the Sheila Jordan vocals for the final 3 minutes, which fit well with the airy, reflective, buildings-in-the-clouds section.

[bamwc2]

Viewing Log:

Chariots of the Gods (Harald Reinl, 1970): Although I had already written on the ancient alien visitors theories for my book, I decided to go back and watch this highly misleading documentary. If you've read the book, then you already know what you'll see here since the film is more or less a greatest hits of the material that Erich Von Daniken willfully or accidentally misinterpreted (the Nazca lines, Easter Island's monoliths, Pacal's tomb, etc.) along with so-called out-of-place artifacts like the Baghdad battery. The entire film is done in the same aesthetic as an In Search of... episode, and hides under the cover of asking questions rather than making statements (completely ignoring the fact that there is an implied level of meaning). The film begins with the almost certainly correct assertion that the odds of other advanced civilizations throughout are galaxy is extremely high. Even if we ignore the rather fanciful Drake equation, then operating under the assumption that the events that resulted in life on this planet are replicable elsewhere in the universe, combined with the sheer volume of planets in the so-called "Goldilocks region" would give us the conclusion that there are likely (or have been, will be, etc.) other civilizations out there (though insurmountable distance and the fixed nature of the speed of light would likely ever preclude contact between then). However, the film goes completely off the rails when it begins postulating the lost history of mankind, where ancient civilizations were allegedly incapable of any of the achievements that we assigned to them and all ancient art must be a reference to mostly benevolent space invaders. I have to admit, that the comparisons to the cargo cults might make the material seem palatable to anyone unfamiliar with the historical orthodoxy, but even a small familiarity with world history and/or engineering should blow its cover. Fun fact: The film contains a special thanks to adventurer Thor Heyerdahl while he was actually writing a book debunking Chariots of the Gods!

How to Survive A Plague (David France, 2012): Regardless of sexual orientation, any human being should be moved to tears by this gut-wrenching account of the the heroes that battled an indifferent system to save the lives of countless young gay men living with HIV/AIDS in the 1980s and 90s. For those who are too young to remember a time before effective drug cocktails made HIV a livable chronic disease (I have to admit to be a kid during most of this, but one who did watch the news every day), this era would have to seem like a fanciful nightmare where a single decision not to use a condom could kill you within a few years time. However, rather than focus on the horror of the situation the film wisely decides to chronicle those who fought against the darkness, like the founders of ACT UP. These brave men and women not only were on the protest lines at a time where the USA's deep seated homophobia and fear of AIDS could spell doom for anyone who revealed their status, but they also developed their own treatment regimes (mostly based around sound science), drug exchanges, and an education program to prevent future infections. I cannot praise these individuals enough or recommend this film highly enough. A true masterpiece.

Microcosmos (Claude Nuridsany and Marie Pérennou, 1996): This mid-90s documentary proves that we needed look up to the stars for alien life when it can often be found directly below our feet. With only minimal narration from Kristin Scott Thomas, this film features up close footage of a day in the life of the smallest fauna in a marshland. Never before has insect life (and the large amphibians and reptiles that prey upon them) seemed so interesting. I can't explain why the film had me transfixed, but it certainly did. You've never seen anything like this before or will again. Definitely check this one out.

Only the Young (Elizabeth Mims and Jason Tippet, 2012): This short and mild-natured documentary features the lives of three suburban California teens. The two boys are skateboards, and have an on-again-off-again girlfriend in the form of the troubled Skye. The kids all come across as genuine and good natured even as they face their own difficulties in life following their impending graduation. I couldn't help but root for them as they faced problems like foreclosure and more mundane issues like teenage romance. I was more than a little disgusted by the undue influence of their youth pastor, a skeevy old man who hangs out with them at the local skate shop. Later on in the movie, my suspicions were confirmed when he forced one of the boys do dump his girlfriend because she didn't love Christ enough. In fact, this whole dynamic was another of the film's more interesting points. These kids who put NOFX stickers on their cars are also politically conservative evangelicals. Never underestimate the ability of the teenage mind to compartmentalize, I suppose. Still, a great and fun documentary.

The Society And the Spectacle (Guy Debord, 1973): Another of the great French essay films like Chronicle of a Summer and Venom and Eternity. However, unlike those two films which used original footage, the visuals here are composed exclusively of recycled clips from movies (Johnny Guitar, Strike!, etc.), historical footage (i.e. speeches, Oswald's assassination, etc.), and still magazine images (mainly nude women). The film is a direct attack on consumerism and objectification from a Marxist perspective. Although there are elements in here that are over my head, but what I understood was fairly well done. Another easy recommendation.

This Is Not A Film (Mojtaba Mirtahmasb and Jafar Panahi, 2011): I'm probably the last member of the forum to see this film, but I'll give a recap anyway. Iranian auteur Jafar Panahi was arrested in 2009 for criticizing his country's government, and subsequently sentenced to jail and banned from filmmaking for 20 years. In this documentary we see a day in his life as he's under house arrest and awaiting the outcome of an appeal of his verdict. While the action is confined to Panahi's apartment, the vision that it presents is universal and never boring. Needless to say, what's happening to the director is unjust, and we see a portrait of a frustrated artist as he struggles with his persecution. It's very well done.

Whore's Glory (Michael Glawogger, 2011): Last Fall I taught an ethics course in which we spent an entire month delving into the moral issues surrounding prostitution (we pick a different moral dilemma every semester) and I still plan to write a paper on the topic, so I was looking forward to this German documentary which details the lives of prostitutes in Thailand, India, and Mexico. In this documentary we begin at a Thai brothel where the clientele are slimy enough, but descend into the hell of impoverished street walking in the slums of the next two destinations. In India we don't meet any of the Johns, but the ones in Mexico City's are simply unbelievable. Much of the footage captured by Glawogger's camera was stunning, but I was frustrated by his refusal to let it speak for itself. His use of rapid MTV style editing and skull crushing music really threw me off. Still, it's well worth checking out.

[domino harvey]

I was like, "Wow, Only the Young sounds great, I'm going to pick up a copy" and then I realized it was an Oscilloscope release and I already had it thanks to the Circle of Trust. Is this what they call a moment of clarity for DVD addiction?

Microcosmos had me transfixed thanks to its clear presentation of a wholly foreign world. It's like the best Sci-Fi alien film ever made, and the aliens are beneath us, not above us

[colinr0380]

Room 237 (Rodney Ascher, 2012)

A surprisingly compelling film, but then look at the source material that it has to work with! This film is less valuable for all of the insights into 'hidden messages' in The Shining (though there are some great ones!) but as an example of how a great piece of art can inspire equally vibrant reactions in their audience. While The Shining is a fantastic film, what is more enthralling here is getting to follow the presumably long gestating trains of thought that the contributors get to put forward on the film which, like all good criticism, is invariably revealing less about the film than the thoughts, foibles, fascinations and connections of a particular audience member themselves.

A great piece of art leaves that space for people to project onto and into, read meanings into, and The Shining is no exception. I found all of the theories fascinating (even the faked Apollo 11 moon landing one!) and whether actually the case or not, the film works well to give the space to these ideas and draw the audience into the rather dizzying and breathless theories. Who cares if Kubrick intended this or that? (As in the theory that the red car shown crushed under the truck in the snowstorm that Halloran passes on his way to the Overlook being Kubrick's sign to King that he had taken the content of King's novel and trashed it!) The theories give the chance to look at a seemingly familiar film in a different way and through different eyes, alive to details that may have not have otherwise been noticed.

It is also a neat film illustrating the act of audience appropriation of an artwork. The Shining gets slowed down, magnified, played back to front and front to back and has its imagery scoured for meaning. Scenes start in the middle, then get played backwards, then cut to the end, then back to the very beginning (The Gold Room sequence in particular). The grammar of the original film is splintered into little pieces, and perhaps one good criticism of Room 237 is that it actively participates in that fracturing of The Shining into images, moments, sections and so on which works to illustrate the various contributor's points but leaves a worrying suggestion that the documentary is willing to twist and manipulate the imagery of the original film to fit, even when it may not when viewed as an entire work.

But that criticism of the film in a way works in its favour, as the filmmakers themselves seem so galvanised by the various contributors linking The Shining to the Native Americans, the Holocaust, myths and so on that they in their turn start exploding the imagery too, nowhere better illustrated than in those moments where the film explodes out into showing clips from other non-Shining films (as in using Demons and Demons 2 for their 'audience' imagery, the dream-massacre scene from American Werewolf In London and Schindler's List in the Holocaust section and a clip from Capricorn One during the Apollo 11 conspiracy section! The best one is the "A-ha!" moment of the minotaur discussion in The Shining with the end titles from Killer's Kiss being "A Minotaur Production!")

I started off rather cynical, feeling that those moments were being used in a lazy manner, as cheap and/or general ways of illustrating a point and bridging gaps between the theories with barely relevant imagery. The film also starts less ambitiously, in the sense of relating the imagery of The Shining mostly to imagery in other Kubrick's films. But then when the Demons-set stuff begins to occur, and especially when imagery seemingly from any relevant film pops up to start seemingly proving the theories, I was enthralled by it as it felt as if in response to the contributors being relatively single minded in their obsession with just one film in The Shining, that the filmmakers were being inspired to their own heady flights of theorising by filling in at first all of the Kubrick connections across his filmography and then using their film knowledge to pull in relevant examples or images from wider and wider afield.

Which is really at the core of the film - whether the theories are wonderful insights or bunkum is up to individual viewers to decide, but the passion and fascination with filmic imagery and the way that it once it is in the hands of audiences to manipulate it, it can be transformed into forms that can be most interesting or relevant to specific individual needs at specific times of their lives, is a very interesting one to consider. The original film is the original film but the changes that can be made to it, anything from King doing his own remake to one of the contributors playing the Kubrick film forwards and backwards simultaneously (like a record being played backwards containing a hidden message!) and finding fascinating imagery from it, are entirely legitimate and fascinating responses to the impact of that original work.

[domino harvey]

Only the Young (Jason Tippet and Elizabeth Mims 2012) Thanks for the push to pull this out of the unwatched addition-to-the-house. This is one of the best documents of teenagers I've seen, fictional or otherwise. The film is a gentle portrayal of the low-stakes interactions between our heroes, a trio of California teenagers, Kevin, Garrison, and Skye, who coast along with unsureness and trepidation like most teenagers. Of the subjects portrayed, only Skye seems self-aware enough to articulate her thoughts into something resembling wit, but there's an honesty in how unprepared the teenaged subjects are to practice basic self-preservation techniques like spin or puffery. Interesting to see that the comedian Derek Waters, who's just hit it big with his Drunk History webseries getting picked up by Comedy Central, was the producer on this. Highly recommended and will surely be on my list

[bamwc2]

Only the Young (Jason Tippet and Elizabeth Mims 2012) Thanks for the push to pull this out of the unwatched addition-to-the-house. This is one of the best documents of teenagers I've seen, fictional or otherwise. The film is a gentle portrayal of the low-stakes interactions between our heroes, a trio of California teenagers, Kevin, Garrison, and Skye, who coast along with unsureness and trepidation like most teenagers. Of the subjects portrayed, only Skye seems self-aware enough to articulate her thoughts into something resembling wit, but there's an honesty in how unprepared the teenaged subjects are to practice basic self-preservation techniques like spin or puffery. Interesting to see that the comedian Derek Waters, who's just hit it big with his Drunk History webseries getting picked up by Comedy Central, was the producer on this. Highly recommended and will surely be on my list

Domino, I'm so glad to hear that you liked it as much as I did. I wouldn't call it a lock for my list, but it stands a very good shot at making it on there. It's such a perfect slice of life from a certain point in life that eveyone can relate to. Just marvelous.

[domino harvey]

Tchoupitoulas (Bill Ross IV and Turner Ross 2012) Ugh, don't make the mistake I just did with watching this, which for some reason is paired as a double feature with Only the Young even though they share no crew in common. Probably because no one would ever touch this if it weren't thrown in for free with a superior film? If you thought Beasts of the Southern Wild could be qualified with any positive adjectives, then you'll love Tchoupitoulas, a staggeringly worthless YouTube-ready jumble of three young brothers touring the New Orleans nightlife, which gives the documentarians excuses to branch off into unrelated but ineptly-shot discursions into the city folk. Empty, useless, and eighty-one minutes of my life I'll never get back. I see the NYT called this shit "lyrical"-- I'd go with "cinematic poison"

[zedz]

Ethnographic Films
These films often pose as loosely narrative features, but make no mistake--their primary concern is the documentation of a people in a secluded and often breathtaking place. For starters, visit scenic Quintana Roo (González-Rubio's Alamar), Ushguli (Kalatozov's Salt for Svanetia), the Bayou (Flaherty's Louisiana Story), Brittany (Epstein's Finis terrae), Fontainhas (Costa's Colossal Youth), Bora Bora (Murnau's Tabu), Antarctica (Hurley's South), or even, um, Mexico (Eisenstein's ¡Qué viva México!). Granted, a couple of those might veer a bit too far into docufiction, but that last one also doubles as a making-of for an unfinished film.

Other Films That Might Possibly Be Documentaries
The House Is Black (Forough Farrokhzād)
This haunting Iranian film about a leper colony will have to go here since we will never do a poems list project.

Walking from Munich to Berlin (Oskar Fischinger)
Documenting what it was like, I guess, to walk the German countryside between world wars. Only with a teleportation device, a short attention span, and the hiccups.

The Five Obstructions (Jørgen Leth & Lars von Trier)
One filmmaker challenges another filmmaker to remake a film in the face of five different obstructions. And the challenger being von Trier doesn't even count as one.

Walden: Diaries, Notes and Sketches (Jonas Mekas)
Shaming both those who don't keep journals, and those who do keep journals that aren't anywhere near this awesome. Also, probably Carl Dreyer and Norman Mailer's sole shared screen credit.

Sopralluoghi in Palestina (Pier Paolo Pasolini)
A rich, moving documentary that adds layers to the already rich, moving Il Vangelo secondo Matteo.

River Rites (Ben Russell)
Backwards fun.

The Mystery of Picasso (Henri-Georges Clouzot)
Watch Picasso paint!

See, I'd say that all of your "might possibly be documentaries" (except River Rites) are unambiguously documentaries, but about half of your "ethnographic films" are unambiguously not, and I probably wouldn't even classify them as ethnographic films. Flaherty's Moana, yes, for all its distortions, but Tabu is simply a fiction film set in an exotic locale. Likewise, Ottinger's Taiga is an ethnographic film, but Joan of Arc of Mongolia isn't, it's a narrative feature with lots of local colour.

[domino harvey]

If you don't have/want the DVD, Only the Young is also streaming in full on PBS here

[knives]

I lost all of my money so I appreciate it.

[swo17]

See, I'd say that all of your "might possibly be documentaries" (except River Rites) are unambiguously documentaries, but about half of your "ethnographic films" are unambiguously not, and I probably wouldn't even classify them as ethnographic films.

By "other films that might possibly be documentaries," I meant more "in addition to all of the other films I've mentioned that might possibly be documentaries, here are a few more for which I couldn't think of any convenient groupings." I had a lot of films that I was trying to group in different categories for my post, and "ethnographic" kind of became the catch-all for films showing indigenous people in picturesque locales. I'll concede that Tabu is probably too much of a stretch to be considered a documentary, but I'm curious which other ones you'd rule out.

Also, just to be completely absurd, it recently occurred to me that every fictional film is in a sense a documentary of the filming of itself. Think about it. :-"

[domino harvey]

Number one on my list will definitely be the Dark Knight-- so fucking deep and shit and like, it could happen

[zedz]

See, I'd say that all of your "might possibly be documentaries" (except River Rites) are unambiguously documentaries, but about half of your "ethnographic films" are unambiguously not, and I probably wouldn't even classify them as ethnographic films.

By "other films that might possibly be documentaries," I meant more "in addition to all of the other films I've mentioned that might possibly be documentaries, here are a few more for which I couldn't think of any convenient groupings." I had a lot of films that I was trying to group in different categories for my post, and "ethnographic" kind of became the catch-all for films showing indigenous people in picturesque locales. I'll concede that Tabu is probably too much of a stretch to be considered a documentary, but I'm curious which other ones you'd rule out.

Also, just to be completely absurd, it recently occurred to me that every fictional film is in a sense a documentary of the filming of itself. Think about it. :-"

Every single film is part documentary. Even an entirely CGI film like Toy Story is a document of the technology that created it. (Yoko Ono made basically this observation decades ago, that even the most 'worthless' film acquires documentary value as it ages.)

The other films I'd rule out are any of the ones with characters and a scripted narrative, like Louisiana Story, Finis Terrae (substitute Mor'Vran for that and you're talking) and Colossal Youth. I don't know enough about Alamar to say - if that's an actual father and son living in that actual situation, then I reckon it's a documentary, however finessed. I believe Que Viva Mexico! was intended to consist of scripted narrative(s), but what's survived in various forms probably tips into the doc camp. South is unambiguously a documentary, but it's not an ethnographic film - there's no indigenous culture under examination there.

[swo17]

The other films I'd rule out are any of the ones with characters and a scripted narrative, like Louisiana Story, Finis Terrae (substitute Mor'Vran for that and you're talking) and Colossal Youth. I don't know enough about Alamar to say - if that's an actual father and son living in that actual situation, then I reckon it's a documentary, however finessed. I believe Que Viva Mexico! was intended to consist of scripted narrative(s), but what's survived in various forms probably tips into the doc camp. South is unambiguously a documentary, but it's not an ethnographic film - there's no indigenous culture under examination there.

I had that same thought about South but still lumped it in there because of the wildlife recorded toward the end of the film. Though I suppose maybe animals don't count. Either way, it's essential viewing for this list.

Aren't the leads in Colossal Youth playing themselves? Is that worth anything?

Some of these films exist in a fascinating gray area where any clues as to the authenticity of the characters or lack thereof would have to come from another source. Finis terrae is one that I recall taking the form of a documentary, and its subjects certainly seemed authentic to me, but I wouldn't know if they were really actors playing the part. (If so, they were really good actors.)

Also consider this:

This is practically a completely true-to-life documentary, since all the actors are playing themselves in a real situation and are all related just as shown in the movie, although 'Nestor Marin' is actually a life-long father figure to Machado, not his biological father.... Tired of the repeated question about whether his movie is fictional or documentary, director 'Pedro Gonzalez-Rubio' finally explained to one festival audience: "It's a film".

[zedz]

Finis terrae is one that I recall taking the form of a documentary, and its subjects certainly seemed authentic to me, but I wouldn't know if they were really actors playing the part. (If so, they were really good actors.)

They must have been good actors, then, since I'm pretty sure that Epstein wouldn't have allowed a guy to nearly die from blood-poisoning just because it was photogenic. At least I hope not!

There are documentary elements in the film, for sure (much of the seaweed harvest material, for instance), but the life-and-death dramatic arc that drives the narrative must have been invented.

[swo17]

Hmmm...that does sound like something that would stick out were I to rewatch the film with my "Is this a documentary?" glasses on.

[domino harvey]

Are Your Teeth Sitting Ducks? (Ron Taylor 1986) The ideal companion to my earlier recommendation for Teeth, this Australian dental educational film is somehow even less helpful! A frequently confusing mess of '80s hip posturing and dental wisdom that seems to come second to the weird threatre department antics on-screen. I don't even know how to describe this and do it justice, as it is one of the weirdest fucking things I've ever seen and for someone who's seen hundreds of educational films, one of the strangest-- and that is a competitive category!

Beauty Knows No Pain (Elliott Erwitt 1972) Verite document of the 1971 tryouts for Texas' Kilgore College Rangerettes, this film expertly uses montage and the innate beauty of its subjects to make its point without ever editorializing or making cheap the display of dozens of young women subjecting themselves to strenuous group dance routines and "smiling through the pain." One great moment finds the beehive-do'd matron at the center of the Rangerettes admitting that they force half of the prospective girls to pose for the group pictures with one bare leg fully in thorny briar bushes to test their ability to remain smiling, leading to the explanation of the titular mantra. The camera then stays on a static close-up of one blithely grinning blonde for several minutes as she struggles to maintain her vapid facial expression. The film doesn't overly criticize this or anything else, but rather offers wonderfully composed glimpses into a process that has a stated goal of removing individuality in favor of the common good of looking good. Fabulous and list-worthy

Kilka opowiesci o czlowieku (Bogdan Dziworski 1983) --Nabob of Nowhere Spotlight-- I was resistant to this at first, but the main subject gradually warmed me over. I thought the minutiae of the second half far outpaced the more "zany" antics of the start, and while the kooky feel of it all is the point, I suppose, I couldn't help but think I'd much rather have watched him draw his picture in real-time and without all the silly sound effects and camera tricks