An Impossible Job: ILX's 40 Favorite Documentaries

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'.

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

it's a way of talking about the docs

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.

I wish you'd sent in a ballot, history mayne. Maybe when we finish you can post a list.

feel too conflicted over it

Over "what is a documentary?", or polls/lists themselves?

ffs history mayne, poor show

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.

i love innocence unprotected!

hah, i didnt even consider that someone would vote for spinal tap. it'd be funny if it placed

unless that was a joke!

spinal tap definitely isn't a documentary. LOL

#15 best in show

All-Guest "Top 3".

(x-post)

#1 'the office'

why do u h8 shermy's march amon

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),

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.

you cant write it off as a 'clip compilation' though because they shot a shitload of interviews with important dudes for it

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.)

i guess it's coz my phd is (partly) on documentary in the grierson-flaherty sense.

<3 john grierson

i probably could've done a list entirely of tv docs

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.

hah, i didnt even consider that someone would vote for spinal tap. it'd be funny if it placed

― 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

i have a fluctuating relationship w/ curtis's stuff. didn't like 'the trap', did like the most recent, even though it was completely mental.

i'd include 'century of the self' in my list of er, non-fiction films

Me too. It Felt Like A Kiss is the one I like best and it is probably the least "documentary"

The World at War is the That's Entertainment! of bombing.

priceless

Urgh, I hated the last Curtis. Bad premises. Loved and voted for The Power of Nightmares, though.

lol

Urgh, I hated the last Curtis. Bad premises. Loved and voted for The Power of Nightmares, though.

― emil.y, Friday, August 12, 2011 7:27 PM (49 seconds ago) Bookmark

yeah, sort of feel this is 'generation very much in character'. i think the premises of both series are pretty bad, the resulting films good. but people object more to the premise of ALOBMOLG. the last ep is transcendent imo.

woah never seen you get so effusive, maybe take a lie down

I agree with you too! craziness

I must confess I didn't watch the last one, as I'd been so annoyed by the first two.

ALOBMOLG was great

The last one really stood out

*AWOBMOLG

If you're going to praise something, at least get its name right. 'All Licked Over By Machines of Loving Grace'? (lol xp)

Not gonna retread why I hated it in detail, though - pretty sure I posted a few annoyances on the dedicated thread.

I didn't know a thing about Adam Curtis until this conversation started. This is good. (Not sure how I'll see this stuff if it's BBC, though.)

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

www.rapidshare.com

most of them are on youtube or google video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOlwbaPe2os

Not one for downloading films, and really hate watching anything longer than a short clip off the computer.

^^ 'generation very much in character'

i doubt the good old beeb would sue. like 'la plays itself' i don't think it could be put on dvd even if there were a market, because it uses loads of copyright material. (like broadcast is governed by different rules than dvd or something.)

I voted for one Adam Curtis: The Mayfair Set.

(at least, I think I did)