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documentary doesn’t mean one kind of film anymore. There are so many over­lapping subgenres. Among them: (via Edelstein: Why Documentaries Are Having a Moment — Vulture) 1. Vérité. “Fly on the Wall.” Think Frederick Wiseman and his landmark sixties and seventies films. The camera runs on and on, but the filmmaker still shapes our perceptions. The Maysles films (Salesman, Grey Gardens) were more shaped and even more influential. There’s not much rigorous vérité these days, because the audience won’t sit still. Albert Brooks made the definitive vérité parody, Real Life, in which a megalomaniac filmmaker burns down the house of the family he’s covering. 2. Investigative journalism. The most familiar subgenre: issue docs, exposés. Environmental catastrophes, cover-ups, injustices all the way up to genocide. HBO’s Memphis Three muckrakers that helped free three wrongly convicted kids. Lefty takedowns of right-wingers. Right-wing takedowns of lefties (less common). Sometimes these movies break through, but they’re bitter medicine. 3. Personality-driven investigative journalism (and essay). Michael Moore as a lumbering prosecutor. Morgan Spurlock eats at McDonald’s, gets fat, barfs. 4. Errol Morris, or Anti-Vérité. Stylized reenactments and talking heads shot from a fixed perspective, as in The Thin Blue Line and The Fog of War, with Philip Glass music to provide momentum. Some purists don’t like how Morris makes ­implicit fun of his subjects. Others love how he lets liars hang themselves in front of our eyes. 5. Profile (individual). The biggest are celebrity-driven, in the A&EBiography mode, only more raw—Joan Rivers, Don Rickles, tragically dead comedians like Richard Pryor (Omit the Logic at this year’s Tribeca) but also laudable public figures (Jonathan Demme’s Jimmy ­Carter Man From Plains) and resonant weirdos (The Queen of Versailles, The Impostor). 6. Profile (place). Choose a city; chart its fall (Detropia). Towns with people doing odd things. Subcultures. The great Barbara Kopple (who straddles verite-individual-place lines). Les Blank, R.I.P. 7. Competition. Big these days. ­Pumping Iron is an early example, butSpellbound opened the floodgates. Chess teams, kid car racers, crossword-puzzle addicts, name a contest. Almost exclusively American, as we’re so competition crazy. 8. Ken Burns. Mostly TV. Photos, archival footage, talking heads. Panoramic. Excellent when the camera roams around still photos to give the frame some dynamism. Your video apps give you a “Ken Burns” mode. 9. Archival (related to Ken Burns). A comer. Old footage creatively edited, with fewer talking heads or narration. More story-driven than many fictional films. 10. Diary/Memoir. Ross McElwee’s Sherman’s March inspired many of today’s doc filmmakers with its emphasis on real-time conflicts plus a big dose of (related) history. More cameras mean more docs with people chasing their crazy mothers around, as in Tarnation. 11. Odyssey/Mystery (related to Memoir). Tracking down a famous figure, as in Searching for Sugar Man, or the guy who swore in the outtakes of the Winnebago commercial. Catfish-style treks for strangers. 12. Performance. Concerts, musicals, and comedy, but sometimes with talking heads (or Talking Heads, as in Stop ­Making Sense). Can be related to Profile. 13. Arty/Collage. Chris Marker is the gold standard. Meditations on places, usually too impressionist to be commercial. Koyaanisqatsi gives it a head-trip soundtrack. Much love for the current Leviathan. 14. Nature. Penguins, migrating birds, underwater creatures with James Cameron in Imax. Cute but eerie (even primordial) sells. 15. Meta. What is truth? Can it really be documented? Brace yourself for Sarah Polley’s coming Stories We Tell, which blurs the lines between myth and reality. 16. Prank docs. The hilarious Exit Through the Gift Shop, which is almost too good to be true. Joaquin Phoenix ­pretending to be nuts. 17. Mockumentary. Not docs, but they have an impact. You can’t watch a rock-band profile without thinking of This Is Spinal Tap. And then there’s the phenomenon of fiction films’ looking more and more like docs and docs like narrative-based fiction films. For Hollywood fauxrealism, you get shaky handheld cameras and the mixing of actors and real people, as in Richard Link­later’s Bernie. The mumblecore genre tends to be improv-based, pointedly fumbly. The Tribeca folks sent me a batch of docs to screen on DVD, and I watched one for fifteen minutes before I realized they’d slipped in a fictional feature. Which of these subgenres is hot right now? It’s cyclical. Top sales agent Josh Braun, of Submarine Films, says that seven years ago, after the Moore and Spurlock moneymakers, companies were snatching up docs for the high six figures, and most tanked. But then came successes like Food, Inc. and profile docs ­Valentino: The Last Emperor and Jiro Dreams of Sushi (still going strong as a digital download) and distributors were back in again—although more realistic about their upside. What’s interesting, says Braun, is that docs have “more of a fallback plan” than, say, indie features with no star power. If you can’t get a ­theatrical release, there are multiple TV possibilities. There’s iTunes, Reddit. Over at online streaming service SundanceNow, Thom Powers curates a documentary club where you pay a monthly fee and have access to the sorts of films you can’t see in theaters.*

documentary doesn’t mean one kind of film anymore. There are so many over­lapping subgenres. Among them: (via Edelstein: Why Documentaries Are Having a Moment — Vulture)

1. Vérité. “Fly on the Wall.” Think Frederick Wiseman and his landmark sixties and seventies films. The camera runs on and on, but the filmmaker still shapes our perceptions. The Maysles films (Salesman, Grey Gardens) were more shaped and even more influential. There’s not much rigorous vérité these days, because the audience won’t sit still. Albert Brooks made the definitive vérité parody, Real Life, in which a megalomaniac filmmaker burns down the house of the family he’s covering.

2. Investigative journalism. The most familiar subgenre: issue docs, exposés. Environmental catastrophes, cover-ups, injustices all the way up to genocide. HBO’s Memphis Three muckrakers that helped free three wrongly convicted kids. Lefty takedowns of right-wingers. Right-wing takedowns of lefties (less common). Sometimes these movies break through, but they’re bitter medicine.

3. Personality-driven investigative journalism (and essay). Michael Moore as a lumbering prosecutor. Morgan Spurlock eats at McDonald’s, gets fat, barfs.

4. Errol Morris, or Anti-Vérité. Stylized reenactments and talking heads shot from a fixed perspective, as in The Thin Blue Line and The Fog of War, with Philip Glass music to provide momentum. Some purists don’t like how Morris makes ­implicit fun of his subjects. Others love how he lets liars hang themselves in front of our eyes.

5. Profile (individual). The biggest are celebrity-driven, in the A&EBiography mode, only more raw—Joan Rivers, Don Rickles, tragically dead comedians like Richard Pryor (Omit the Logic at this year’s Tribeca) but also laudable public figures (Jonathan Demme’s Jimmy ­Carter Man From Plains) and resonant weirdos (The Queen of Versailles, The Impostor).

6. Profile (place). Choose a city; chart its fall (Detropia). Towns with people doing odd things. Subcultures. The great Barbara Kopple (who straddles verite-individual-place lines). Les Blank, R.I.P.

7. Competition. Big these days. ­Pumping Iron is an early example, butSpellbound opened the floodgates. Chess teams, kid car racers, crossword-puzzle addicts, name a contest. Almost exclusively American, as we’re so competition crazy.

8. Ken Burns. Mostly TV. Photos, archival footage, talking heads. Panoramic. Excellent when the camera roams around still photos to give the frame some dynamism. Your video apps give you a “Ken Burns” mode.

9. Archival (related to Ken Burns). A comer. Old footage creatively edited, with fewer talking heads or narration. More story-driven than many fictional films.

10. Diary/Memoir. Ross McElwee’s Sherman’s March inspired many of today’s doc filmmakers with its emphasis on real-time conflicts plus a big dose of (related) history. More cameras mean more docs with people chasing their crazy mothers around, as in Tarnation.

11. Odyssey/Mystery (related to Memoir). Tracking down a famous figure, as in Searching for Sugar Man, or the guy who swore in the outtakes of the Winnebago commercial. Catfish-style treks for strangers.

12. Performance. Concerts, musicals, and comedy, but sometimes with talking heads (or Talking Heads, as in Stop ­Making Sense). Can be related to Profile.

13. Arty/Collage. Chris Marker is the gold standard. Meditations on places, usually too impressionist to be commercial. Koyaanisqatsi gives it a head-trip soundtrack. Much love for the current Leviathan.

14. Nature. Penguins, migrating birds, underwater creatures with James Cameron in Imax. Cute but eerie (even primordial) sells.

15. Meta. What is truth? Can it really be documented? Brace yourself for Sarah Polley’s coming Stories We Tell, which blurs the lines between myth and reality.

16. Prank docs. The hilarious Exit Through the Gift Shop, which is almost too good to be true. Joaquin Phoenix ­pretending to be nuts.

17. Mockumentary. Not docs, but they have an impact. You can’t watch a rock-band profile without thinking of This Is Spinal Tap.

And then there’s the phenomenon of fiction films’ looking more and more like docs and docs like narrative-based fiction films. For Hollywood fauxrealism, you get shaky handheld cameras and the mixing of actors and real people, as in Richard Link­later’s Bernie. The mumblecore genre tends to be improv-based, pointedly fumbly. The Tribeca folks sent me a batch of docs to screen on DVD, and I watched one for fifteen minutes before I realized they’d slipped in a fictional feature.

Which of these subgenres is hot right now? It’s cyclical. Top sales agent Josh Braun, of Submarine Films, says that seven years ago, after the Moore and Spurlock moneymakers, companies were snatching up docs for the high six figures, and most tanked. But then came successes like Food, Inc. and profile docs ­Valentino: The Last Emperor and Jiro Dreams of Sushi (still going strong as a digital download) and distributors were back in again—although more realistic about their upside. What’s interesting, says Braun, is that docs have “more of a fallback plan” than, say, indie features with no star power. If you can’t get a ­theatrical release, there are multiple TV possibilities. There’s iTunes, Reddit. Over at online streaming service SundanceNow, Thom Powers curates a documentary club where you pay a monthly fee and have access to the sorts of films you can’t see in theaters.*

Posted in art film documentary tribeca subgenres | 3 notes
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Argo’s Oscar-winning rewrite of history simply doesn’t bother Americans, and to be honest, I can’t say I blame them. If the real heroes of Argo had been British, say, or Belgian, I might not fret either. I just happen to be Canadian and I’m old enough to remember the true story of Argo — which everybody, Americans included, used to call “the Canadian Caper.” (via Oscar voters’ double standard gave Argo a free pass: Howell | Toronto Star) Former ambassador Taylor can’t seem to make up his mind about Argo. He expressed qualms about the film’s factual inaccuracies prior to the Oscars (as did former U.S. president Jimmy Carter, to CNN), then told the Star’s Martin Knelman afterwards he was pleased with the Best Picture win and Affleck’s onstage expression of thanks to Canada. Then Taylor told the Wall Street Journal he’s still “aggravated” about the film and plans to tell his version on Friday at a New York event for the Americas Society/Council of the Americas, hosted by Canadian Sen. Pamela Wallin, who certainly knows something about controversies. Taylor’s talk will be webcast live. And while the debate over who did what continues, the NYT’s Dargis and Scott remind us that “invention remains one of the prerogatives of art … It is unfair to blame filmmakers if we sometimes confuse the real world with its representations.” In other words, don’t go to your local popcorn palace expecting a history lesson that could pass a lie-detector test, even if Argo movie posters do promise “the declassified true story.” All the President’s Men doesn’t begin with “based on a true story,” the cop-out used byArgo and many of today’s truth-challenged dramas. That’s because Pakula’s film isn’t “just a movie”; it’s an honest effort to depict events that actually happened. Maybe this is why All the President’s Men didn’t win the 1976 Best Picture prize, which instead went to Rocky, the inspirational and mostly fictional boxing drama written by and starring Sylvester Stallone. Feel-good won out over facts, as happened this year with Argo’s win over main challenger Lincoln, a film that treated history with far more respect. This is usually the case at the Oscars, although there was a weird double standard at play this time around. While Argo essentially got a free pass for its many pro-American embellishments, the film’s serious rivals Lincoln and Zero Dark Thirty were subjected to unusually harsh scrutiny because they were judged somewhat lacking in the “correct” depiction of Americans. Lincoln was assailed for wrongly showing Connecticut legislators voting to retain slavery, a late-breaking revelation that probably cost screenwriter Tony Kushner the Best Adapted Screenplay award, which instead went to Argo’s Chris Terrio. Stranger still, and more unfair, was the heat directed at ZD30 for accurately portraying the American use of torture as one of many intel-seeking strategies during the 10-year hunt for terrorist leader Osama bin Laden. Because ZD30 failed to condemn torture outright, it was damned by many politicians and pundits, who likely contributed to its poor Oscar showing. Lincoln and ZD30 were far more truthful than Argo, but they both made one major mistake: they neglected to tell stories that Americans (or at least Oscar voters) were completely comfortable with. Nuance doesn’t make you want to pump your fist in the air. truth is, like, so yesterday :)

Argo’s Oscar-winning rewrite of history simply doesn’t bother Americans, and to be honest, I can’t say I blame them. If the real heroes of Argo had been British, say, or Belgian, I might not fret either. I just happen to be Canadian and I’m old enough to remember the true story of Argo — which everybody, Americans included, used to call “the Canadian Caper.” (via Oscar voters’ double standard gave Argo a free pass: Howell | Toronto Star)

  • Former ambassador Taylor can’t seem to make up his mind about Argo. He expressed qualms about the film’s factual inaccuracies prior to the Oscars (as did former U.S. president Jimmy Carter, to CNN), then told the Star’s Martin Knelman afterwards he was pleased with the Best Picture win and Affleck’s onstage expression of thanks to Canada.
  • Then Taylor told the Wall Street Journal he’s still “aggravated” about the film and plans to tell his version on Friday at a New York event for the Americas Society/Council of the Americas, hosted by Canadian Sen. Pamela Wallin, who certainly knows something about controversies. Taylor’s talk will be webcast live.
  • And while the debate over who did what continues, the NYT’s Dargis and Scott remind us that “invention remains one of the prerogatives of art … It is unfair to blame filmmakers if we sometimes confuse the real world with its representations.” In other words, don’t go to your local popcorn palace expecting a history lesson that could pass a lie-detector test, even if Argo movie posters do promise “the declassified true story.”
  • All the President’s Men doesn’t begin with “based on a true story,” the cop-out used byArgo and many of today’s truth-challenged dramas. That’s because Pakula’s film isn’t “just a movie”; it’s an honest effort to depict events that actually happened.
  • Maybe this is why All the President’s Men didn’t win the 1976 Best Picture prize, which instead went to Rocky, the inspirational and mostly fictional boxing drama written by and starring Sylvester Stallone.
  • Feel-good won out over facts, as happened this year with Argo’s win over main challenger Lincoln, a film that treated history with far more respect.
  • This is usually the case at the Oscars, although there was a weird double standard at play this time around. While Argo essentially got a free pass for its many pro-American embellishments, the film’s serious rivals Lincoln and Zero Dark Thirty were subjected to unusually harsh scrutiny because they were judged somewhat lacking in the “correct” depiction of Americans.
  • Lincoln was assailed for wrongly showing Connecticut legislators voting to retain slavery, a late-breaking revelation that probably cost screenwriter Tony Kushner the Best Adapted Screenplay award, which instead went to Argo’s Chris Terrio.
  • Stranger still, and more unfair, was the heat directed at ZD30 for accurately portraying the American use of torture as one of many intel-seeking strategies during the 10-year hunt for terrorist leader Osama bin Laden. Because ZD30 failed to condemn torture outright, it was damned by many politicians and pundits, who likely contributed to its poor Oscar showing.
  • Lincoln and ZD30 were far more truthful than Argo, but they both made one major mistake: they neglected to tell stories that Americans (or at least Oscar voters) were completely comfortable with. Nuance doesn’t make you want to pump your fist in the air.

truth is, like, so yesterday :)

Posted in argo oscars canada usa patriotism taylor iran truth journalism film movie movie making | 3 notes
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dansmonarbre:

But what about us?

We’ll always have Paris 

Casablanca (1942)

(Source: jacknicholson, via dougcmatthews)

Posted in casablanca film gif boggart bergman paris | 2,957 notes