An Impossible Job: ILX's 40 Favorite Documentaries

I mean documentaries about political matters. xxp

There are at least a couple political docs upthread iirc.

#16: Man with a Movie Camera (Dziga Vertov, 1929)

http://benjaminjacobballard.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/vertov_man.jpg

41 points/6 votes

www.youtube.com/watch?v=22_KBgOxQL8&feature=related

#15: Night and Fog (Alain Resnais, 1955)

http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk/protectedimage.php?image=KevinGilvear/nightandfog2.jpg

48 points/3 votes

www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeEfkPlnie0&feature=related

#14: The Up Series (Michael Apted/Paul Almond, 1964-2005)

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_SPYL8UC1UCY/TAVbSUDJTxI/AAAAAAAACyE/iD61SBzjY3I/s1600/Seven+Up!+%281964%29.JPG

48 points/5 votes/2 first-place votes

www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJj-fc6h0fo

Didn't count Stop Making Sense as a documentary, though it is an awesome concert. Haven't watched it in a little while, so I may be wrong, but I'd only class a concert film as a documentary if it had some commentary and/or behind-the-scenes action, which SMS doesn't have. Having said that, I briefly considered voting for 1991: the Year Punk Broke, which has lots of non-music scenes, but still discounted it, I guess for lacking a narrative thrust? Now I'm thinking I probably should have voted for it actually, damn.

Three films have come up in this lot that I really would have liked to see before voting. Firstly, I feel strangely guilty about having never watched Don't Look Back - I guess it's something of a touchstone for a certain type of music obsessive and it seems somehow wilfully ignorant for me to have never seen it. Not really sure how much I'd like it but I know lots of people who adore it. Secondly, a couple of my friends have raved about Grey Gardens recently and I've been desperate to watch it for a little while now, so not getting myself together to do so before the poll seems idiotic. And lastly, another one I really should have seen: Man With a Movie Camera. I am rubbish.

xpost and I hadn't seen enough of the Up series to feel comfortable voting for any of it.

that up picture breaks my heart

the up series has always been a blind spot for me. i need to watch them

I said I'd make note of the total points for Up-related votes. The whole series received 48 points, and there were also separate votes for 28 Up (20), 7 Up (20), and 21 Up (10). Added together, the 98/10 votes points would have placed it second.

i did so in a week or two, a few months ago, having got a box set from the library, & found it incredibly rewarding. i think it'd be quite a good thing to do socially (like up club) just because it's so compelling and alternately funny and moving while still being tv-watchable. what's probably even more interesting is having seen it unfold over a forty years in tandem with your life, but either works, the fast-forward nature of watching it in compression weirdly satisfying.

#13: Man on Wire (James Marsh, 2008)

http://www.abc.net.au/atthemovies/img/2008/ep36/manonwire_large.jpg

49 points/4 votes

www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEU7lrtehDs&feature=related

I didn't vote for Man on Wire (it just missed my list of 20), but if you haven't seen it, take a look at the clip--beautiful.

Terrifying.

#12: The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (Seth Gordon, 2007)

http://www.knowmad.org/filmdvd/King-Of-Kong.jpg

49 points/5 votes

www.youtube.com/watch?v=3K7wpatALDQ

ok, bye thread

#11: When We Were Kings (Leon Gast, 1996)

http://s3.amazonaws.com/auteurs_production/stills/1945/original.jpg?1289431429

52 points/4 votes/1 first-place vote

www.youtube.com/watch?v=N44vdCqI7LI

I'll stop there and do the top 10 tomorrow. I now wish I'd voted for The King of Kong, which I loved--5 more points would have pushed it into the top 10, possibly triggering some kind of highly entertaining meltdown for Morbius.

How difficult isShoah to watch? On one hand I have a fairly strong interest in Holocaust history, but on the other I don't know if I can commit to watching it all. For instance, It took out Night and Fog from the library like 4 times before watching it because - as someone who generally has difficulty committing to watching anything - I seemingly couldn't find 30 minutes of free time to do it (which is essentially an excuse to avoid a difficult watch).

Yeah, the King of Kong was great, don't be such a grouch Morbs.

I mentioned my own experience with Shoah on the thread that preceded this one. If you mean in a theatre, make sure you've had major rest beforehand--I hadn't and couldn't last. That wouldn't be a problem at home.

great pics on the last two.

i havent seen when we were kings since i was a child, and it was certainly mesmerizing, but i wonder if i'd find it overly reverent towards ali today.

Anybody ever tried Billy Mitchell's BBQ sauce?

I liked When We Were Kings a lot, but I like this VHS I once picked up of the entire Ali-Foreman fight even better--including a post-fight interview with David Frost that's amazing. Probably Leon Gast used some of the footage from this broadcast.

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/1 first
#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/1 first
#34: The World at War (Hugh Raggett/John Pett/David Elstein/Ted Childs/Michael Darlow/Martin Smith, 1973/74) -- 25 points/2 votes/1 first
#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/1 first
#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/1 first
#25: Paris Is Burning (Jennie Livingston, 1990) -- 32 points/3 votes
#24: Winter Soldier (Fred Aronow/Robert Fiore/David Gillis/David Grubin/Jeff Holstein/Michael Lesser, 1972) -- 32 points/4 votes/1 first
#22: The Century of the Self (Adam Curtis, 2002) -- 35 points/2 votes
#22: Hype! (Doug Pray, 1996) -- 35 points/2 votes/1 first
#21: Don’t Look Back (D.A. Pennebaker, 1967) -- 35 points/3 votes/1 first
#20: Grey Gardens (Albert Maysles/David Maysles/Ellen Hovde/Muffie Meyer, 1975) -- 35 points/5 votes
#19: Koyaanisqatsi (Godfrey Reggio, 1982) -- 35 points/6 votes
#18: Stop Making Sense (Jonathan Demme, 1984) -- 38 points/5 votes
#17: Brother’s Keeper (Joe Berlinger/Bruce Sinofsky, 1992) -- 40 points/2 votes
#16: Man with a Movie Camera (Dziga Vertov, 1929) -- 41 points/6 votes
#15: Night and Fog (Alain Resnais, 1955) -- 48 points/3 votes
#14: The Up Series (Michael Apted/Paul Almond, 1964-2005) -- 48 points/5 votes/2 firsts
#13: Man on Wire (James Marsh, 2008) -- 49 points/4 votes
#12: The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (Seth Gordon, 2007) -- 49 points/5 votes
#11: When We Were Kings (Leon Gast, 1996) -- 52 points/4 votes/1 first

Rattle and Hum is gonna be #1, right

King of Kong is so good. Ranking of Hype! suddenly reminded me of Dig!.

One of the many remarkable things about Night and Fog was that the French gov had two problems with it: showing all the bodies and showing the complicity of French officers. Resnais reportedly had to obscure the latter to include the former, and so it remained until ... only recently?

Morbs OTM

Can't tell you how much I disagree with what seems to be the underlying issue with some of Morbius's complaints about King of Kong and the Anvil film: that documentaries must be about serious matters to be valid. Unless he just wanted a more artistic film on the intricacies of Donkey Kong.

Eric--you voted for Jackass Two. Haven't seen it, but I'm interested to know what kind of an aesthetic values Jackass Two but deems The King of Kong frivolous.

I can think of few docs as honestly, surprisingly moving as King of Kong and Anvil. Flashing back to King of Kong and the wife's support for this guy who's been dealt such a bad hand ... the Anvil guy's family stepping up to help this super good-natured, optimistic, hard-working dude fulfill his belated dream ... not every doc has to be a freakshow or war tragedy. And Anvil even has a holocaust angle!

xp: sex sells

It's better.

And King of Kong is kinda pretty serious about its subject. Jackass doesn't pretend it's about anything so important as Donkey Kong.

the Anvil film video just isn't very well made, and the music is dreadful.

I'm not even a non-fan of Kong or Man on Wire. But c'mon; 12th and 13th best of all time?

but hey, Frederick Wiseman, lighten up!

Come on, it's not fair to demerit the Anvil doc for the music.

If those are the issues you guys have, no problem. I'm reading more your exasperation.

But c'mon; 12th and 13th best of all time?

Were you expecting the very large sample of 30 voters not to come up with some quirky rankings? People were voting for their favourites, not trying to assemble a correct list.

You were expecting us not to bitch?

Free to be you and me--fair point.

I'd sure bitch if something as turgid as Wiseman's "Belfast, Maine" made it to the list.

I do think Man on Wire should've been a lot lower. it's a solid movie, but I feel like a better one could've been made about the subject.

The issue isn't that these are quirky rankings so much as they betray the sample size's very ILM mentality.

haha i just looked up belfast, maine. 245 minutes! with this glowing review on imdb:

This is not a film for anyone under 35. Wiseman manages to portray Belfast as some sort of hellish retirement community. The entire film is done without a hint of humor, and Wiseman seems to be taking these people's gray little lives as over-seriously as they do. Rarely do any of the people of Belfast crack a smile - it's as if living in Belfast has literally sucked all of the joy out of their lives.

This film fails on every level. As entertainment, it fails miserably. As serious documentary, it fails because it grossly distorts your image of Belfast - the youth of the town are completely ignored, and the elderly, the infirm and the retarded are represented again and again. As character study it fails because of episodic nature of the film - we never stay with any person long enough to really learn anything about them.

"Belfast, Maine" is one of the worst mistakes in the history of the documentary. A poor, poor film.

People were voting for their favourites, not trying to assemble a correct list.

Never get this distinction, but carry on.

(Among music docs, some of you could at least have gone for Theremin)

I'd rather listen to Anvil than two hours of Theremin (/barely hyperbole).

is man on wire good? tbh i find that kind of dangerous feat of skill really stupid and careless and annoying rather than awesome. total dick move imo.

Titicut Follies is pretty spry and entertaining, fwiw.

Yeah, Man on Wire's filmmakers seem to adequately work the dick angle.