i considered a few metal docs, but i settled on... i guess we'll see if it places. i'm betting not
― http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_i_qxQztHRI (Princess TamTam), Friday, 12 August 2011 17:33 (twelve years ago) link
another opinion 4 u: talking about what is/isn't a documentary is pretty much the most boring insufferable thing ever. n.b. i got a year of that bullshit in school. IT DOES NOT MATTER, AT ALL.
dr morbius seriously? go fuck yourself
― puerile fantasies (Matt P), Friday, 12 August 2011 17:33 (twelve years ago) link
easy now
― A41 (admrl), Friday, 12 August 2011 17:34 (twelve years ago) link
ehhhh it kind of matters
― we started this punning display name shit (history mayne), Friday, 12 August 2011 17:35 (twelve years ago) link
I don't know why you make these crazy assumptions, Morbius.
Here's the list so far:
#40: Salesman (Albert Maysles/David Maysles/Charlotte Zwerin, 1968) -- 20 points/3 votes#40: The Filth and the Fury (Julien Temple, 2000) -- 20 points/3 votes#40: The Gleaners & I (Agnes Varda, 2000) -- 20 points/3 votes#40: The Times of Harvey Milk (Rob Epstein, 1984) -- 20 points/3 votes#39: Être et Avoir (Nicolas Philibert, 2002) -- 21 points/2 votes#38: Inside Job (Charles Ferguson, 2010) -- 22 points/3 votes#36: Gimme Shelter (Albert Maysles/David Maysles/Charlotte Zwerin, 1970) -- 24 points/3 votes#36: Winged Migration (Jacques Perrin/Jacques Cluzaud, 2001) -- 24 points/3 votes#34: Spellbound (Jeffrey Blitz, 2002) -- 25 points/2 votes#34: The World at War (Hugh Raggett/John Pett/David Elstein/Ted Childs/Michael Darlow/Martin Smith, 1973/74) -- 25 points/2 votes#33: Los Angeles Plays Itself (Thom Andersen, 2003) -- 26 points/2 votes#32: Sherman's March (Ross McElwee, 1986) -- 25 points/4 votes#31: Anvil! The Story of Anvil (Sacha Gervasi, 2008) -- 26 points/2 votes#30: The Last Waltz (Martin Scorsese, 1978) -- 26 points/4 votes#29: WR: Mysteries of the Organism (Dusan Makavejev, 1971) -- 27 points/2 votes#28: The Fog of War (Errol Morris, 2003) -- 27 points/3 votes#27: My Best Fiend (Werner Herzog, 1999) -- 29 points/3 votes#26: Shoah (Claude Lanzmann, 1985) -- 30 points/2 votes
Sorry (again!) for delivering preemptive bad news about your favourites, jjjusten.
― clemenza, Friday, 12 August 2011 17:35 (twelve years ago) link
I don't think that it does matter, but not in the way this fellow means it.
xp
― A41 (admrl), Friday, 12 August 2011 17:36 (twelve years ago) link
jeez, I'm kinda semi-joking. If I'd included 'concert films' my list woulda changed. (Gimme Shelter is different)
xxxxp
― satan club sandwich (Dr Morbius), Friday, 12 August 2011 17:36 (twelve years ago) link
it kind of matters bc there's a question of comparing like with like. i like 'the world at war', but it's a compilation of clips from various sources. that's absolutely unlike 'shoah', which in turn is absolutely unlike 'primary', which in turn is absolutely unlike 'north sea'...
― we started this punning display name shit (history mayne), Friday, 12 August 2011 17:37 (twelve years ago) link
Love Makavejev's The Switchboard Operator
― xyzzzz__, Friday, 12 August 2011 17:37 (twelve years ago) link
a lot of movies are unlike other movies; i dont really understand the complaint
― http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_i_qxQztHRI (Princess TamTam), Friday, 12 August 2011 17:38 (twelve years ago) link
Morbs speaks the truth. Too loudly, but still ...
― third-generation stripper (Eric H.), Friday, 12 August 2011 17:39 (twelve years ago) link
Yes ok but that's why I don't really get polls like this, much as I respect the efforts of everyone involved in voting and compiling it, it's nice to have stuff to talk about.
xxxp
― A41 (admrl), Friday, 12 August 2011 17:39 (twelve years ago) link
Out of 40, already 9 are from the last 10 years, et al.
― third-generation stripper (Eric H.), Friday, 12 August 2011 17:40 (twelve years ago) link
a lot of movies are unlike other movies; i dont really understand the complaint― https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_i_qxQztHRI (Princess TamTam), Friday, August 12, 2011 6:38 PM (58 seconds ago) Bookmark
― https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_i_qxQztHRI (Princess TamTam), Friday, August 12, 2011 6:38 PM (58 seconds ago) Bookmark
this is like doing a poll of 'books that aren't novels' or something.
― we started this punning display name shit (history mayne), Friday, 12 August 2011 17:41 (twelve years ago) link
No argument that there's no consistency as to how people interpreted the concept of "documentary," but would it be possible to set definitive guidelines that would please everyone? That's why I'd rather let voters decide, and, as it worked out, for a film to place in the top 40 at least two different people would have had to agree that it belonged.
― clemenza, Friday, 12 August 2011 17:41 (twelve years ago) link
As Alfred Hitchcock famously said, "It's just a poll."
no that seems fair enough.
― A41 (admrl), Friday, 12 August 2011 17:41 (twelve years ago) link
ok sorry dr m. i think what something claims to be and what it might/might not be matters a lot, but trying to slot things along the lines of documentary/not-documentary is a fool's game and can be misleading.
― puerile fantasies (Matt P), Friday, 12 August 2011 17:42 (twelve years ago) link
― xyzzzz__, Friday, 12 August 2011 18:37 (2 minutes ago)
yeah, lotta fun, immediate like the french '60s stuff. makes me feel i ought to be watching WR.
'is this a documentary' is not so much 'not important' as it is 'a really interesting referendum on cinema', imo, just a pretty challenging thing to define + discuss + consider. understand how a year of school can kill this joy for you though.
― bruce actual springsteen (schlump), Friday, 12 August 2011 17:43 (twelve years ago) link
We never discussed this in my school, fwiw
― A41 (admrl), Friday, 12 August 2011 17:44 (twelve years ago) link
Eric H.: surely you knew that there'd be a pronounced tilt towards stuff from the last 10-15 years. I plead guilty myself--as I said before, I didn't start watching documentaries regularly till the mid-'90s, and I imagine many people would be in the same boat. Because of Moore and Morris and Hoop Dreams and some other things, they just started to get a much higher profile around then.
― clemenza, Friday, 12 August 2011 17:47 (twelve years ago) link
h8 sherman's march
― ☝ (am0n), Friday, 12 August 2011 17:48 (twelve years ago) link
That one seems to be a polarizing film, my wife hates it too
― A41 (admrl), Friday, 12 August 2011 17:50 (twelve years ago) link
The World At War (#34) was my #1. It's one of the earliest docs on WW2 (with Laurence Olivier narrating in full-on gravely sincere mode) and still the best. It's largely shot by soldiers on the front lines, and even at 34 hours feels like it just scratches the surface. Pretty essential stuff for anyone with even a vague interest in history.
― Cosmo Vitelli, Friday, 12 August 2011 17:55 (twelve years ago) link
It's one of the earliest docs on WW2
errrrrr no, what???
― we started this punning display name shit (history mayne), Friday, 12 August 2011 17:56 (twelve years ago) link
it came out in about 1973. they made docs about the war as it happened. and used clips from them to make... 'the world at war'.
― we started this punning display name shit (history mayne), Friday, 12 August 2011 17:57 (twelve years ago) link
i only voted for 4 docs from the 2000s, but i dont think there's anything wrong with privileging recency. i think it's inevitable for any poll that isn't era-specific, and if that's an undesirable outcome to you then you gotta put your money where your mouth is like morbs did and lay big points on your old tymey favs. clemenza's point about the 90s documentary boom is a good one too
'what is a documentary' is a pretty tedious line of discussion to me when we could be talking about the docs themselves, but whatever
― http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_i_qxQztHRI (Princess TamTam), Friday, 12 August 2011 17:58 (twelve years ago) link
it's a way of talking about the docs
― we started this punning display name shit (history mayne), Friday, 12 August 2011 17:59 (twelve years ago) link
Love Makavejev's The Switchboard Operator― xyzzzz__, Friday, 12 August 2011 18:37 (2 minutes ago)yeah, lotta fun, immediate like the french '60s stuff. makes me feel i ought to be watching WR.
Fun Fact: Makavejev came across the true crime that inspired the fictional part of WR while researching the crime that Switchboard fictionalizes.
I thought about throwing a vote towards his Innocence Unprotected, which is a really poignant doc about the first Serbian talkie. It's in the Eclipse box.
― Mucho! Macho! Honcho!: Turn Off The Dark (C. Grisso/McCain), Friday, 12 August 2011 18:02 (twelve years ago) link
I wish you'd sent in a ballot, history mayne. Maybe when we finish you can post a list.
― clemenza, Friday, 12 August 2011 18:04 (twelve years ago) link
feel too conflicted over it
― we started this punning display name shit (history mayne), Friday, 12 August 2011 18:05 (twelve years ago) link
Over "what is a documentary?", or polls/lists themselves?
― clemenza, Friday, 12 August 2011 18:06 (twelve years ago) link
ffs history mayne, poor show
― Ismael Klata, Friday, 12 August 2011 18:07 (twelve years ago) link
Haven't seen many of the others *sigh* so can't comment on the apples and oranges controversy.
Anvil is horrible tho'. Guess Spinal Tap is going to win *deeper sigh*
Hoping Night and Fog makes it.
― xyzzzz__, Friday, 12 August 2011 18:07 (twelve years ago) link
i love innocence unprotected!
― puerile fantasies (Matt P), Friday, 12 August 2011 18:08 (twelve years ago) link
hah, i didnt even consider that someone would vote for spinal tap. it'd be funny if it placed
― http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_i_qxQztHRI (Princess TamTam), Friday, 12 August 2011 18:08 (twelve years ago) link
unless that was a joke!
spinal tap definitely isn't a documentary. LOL
#15 best in show
― ☝ (am0n), Friday, 12 August 2011 18:09 (twelve years ago) link
All-Guest "Top 3".
(x-post)
― Mucho! Macho! Honcho!: Turn Off The Dark (C. Grisso/McCain), Friday, 12 August 2011 18:10 (twelve years ago) link
#1 'the office'
― ☝ (am0n), Friday, 12 August 2011 18:11 (twelve years ago) link
why do u h8 shermy's march amon
― http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_i_qxQztHRI (Princess TamTam), Friday, 12 August 2011 18:12 (twelve years ago) link
― we started this punning display name shit (history mayne),
oh, my mistake, thought it came out in the '60's. either way that was 40 years ago. And obviously it's largely constructed with clips from other sources. It's a documentary.
― Cosmo Vitelli, Friday, 12 August 2011 18:13 (twelve years ago) link
you cant write it off as a 'clip compilation' though because they shot a shitload of interviews with important dudes for it
― http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_i_qxQztHRI (Princess TamTam), Friday, 12 August 2011 18:15 (twelve years ago) link
true, forgot that. i wasn't writing it off anyway -- some of my favourite... audio-visual things are compilations. like adam curtis's stuff, whatever that is. (again, it seems to me legitimate to include tv documentaries. they've never had good theatrical distribution.)
― we started this punning display name shit (history mayne), Friday, 12 August 2011 18:17 (twelve years ago) link
i guess it's coz my phd is (partly) on documentary in the grierson-flaherty sense.
― we started this punning display name shit (history mayne), Friday, 12 August 2011 18:19 (twelve years ago) link
<3 john grierson
― puerile fantasies (Matt P), Friday, 12 August 2011 18:21 (twelve years ago) link
i probably could've done a list entirely of tv docs
― http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_i_qxQztHRI (Princess TamTam), Friday, 12 August 2011 18:21 (twelve years ago) link
If there's one way I could expand what I've seen, it would be to see a lot of TV stuff over the years that aired and then more or less disappeared--An American Family being the obvious example, but there are others.
― clemenza, Friday, 12 August 2011 18:22 (twelve years ago) link
― https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_i_qxQztHRI (Princess TamTam), Friday, 12 August 2011 Bookmark
Seems like its all up for grabs w/this poll. No idea if its been nominated or what.
Curtis is what Makavejev sounds like -- video essay. Like Curtis v much apart from the last one. Even less of an argument with not enough golden nuggets in the archives. xxp
― xyzzzz__, Friday, 12 August 2011 18:22 (twelve years ago) link