An Impossible Job: ILX's 40 Favorite Documentaries

C'mon, Morbius, we went over this last time--fully half of your 20 made the ILX list. That's a pretty good percentage.

spurlock's list was designed to cover the last 25 years only.

haha lol. i agreed with a bunch of brody's picks but that's sorta pertinent.

A good question would be WHY cover the last 25 years only? I assume it's like when ESPN puts up graphics of baseball records "since 1990" -- bcz old stuff is just boring.

The problem with Spurlock’s list goes beyond the narrowness of his temporal and geographical range. Many of the films on his list are of interest for their subjects, and their subjects alone, which are captured in cinematically bland or unconsidered ways.

Morgan Spurlock, honorary ILXor

― incredibly middlebrow (Dr Morbius)

Morbs you voted the Shoah #1, which is about as uncinematic as you can get.

A good question would be WHY cover the last 25 years only?

The reason he gives is that they've been more commercially successful:
http://youtu.be/t1M2Elfa_cI?t=45s

not a brilliant reason. nor even that verifiable. bet 'nanook' did bigger numbers than most of the ones he names,

people don't like old shit, which is shit, but hey this is a list for plebs who have probably watched 3 documentaries in their lifetimes so let 'em get started with Hoop Dreams or something because it can't do no harm.

maybe there's an army of kids who'll be like, oh word? formerly relevant gimmick-doc hero morgan spurlock voted this the 22nd best documentary of the last quarter-century?

motherfucker just super-sized my interest in the moving dramas of the everyday

lol

abanana, sorry, make your own Holocaust doc w/ tons of fast cutting

let 'em get started with Hoop Dreams or something because it can't do no harm

To me this is the key (although I'm not sure that's the best film to illustrate your point--Hoop Dreams is pretty great by almost any barometer). I just take Spurlock's list to be a general-interest introduction for people who have probably seen a Moore or two and nothing else. And that's good. That's the way I use lists, always hoping to discover something I didn't know about. Just from all the ILX votes that came in, so far I've watched three things I didn't know about: Street Smart, A Grin Without a Cat, and Lake of Fire. I plan to work my way through some others. Maybe someone else would complain that I should have known about them already, and furthermore should have seen them already, but so what. People who start investigating Spurlock's list will sooner or later find their way to Shoah and Harlan County. (Having said that, I've never had any desire to see Super Size Me.)

No Hoop Dreams or Steve James thread that I could find...Saw him give the best Q&A I've ever seen after Hoop Dreams tonight--what a storyteller. Didn't know that both Bo (Arthur's father) and Curtis (William's brother) were murdered--Curtis on 9/11/2001, no less.

Dr. Morbius actually says I few things on this thread that I almost kinda sorta consider the vague possibility of agreeing with

it's not exactly "OTM" but it's progress

"Ok, bye thread"? That was my favourite.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlvRFfoSk1U

really gritty docu by paul schrader's brother, lenny

I saw Sherman's March for the first time this afternoon--part of "the Essentials" at our new theatre. I didn't love it, but it'll stay with me. I started to find McElwee's passivity tiresome very early on, and by the time he's pestering the last woman, he's flat-out annoying. (That he realizes he's annoying doesn't make him any less annoying.) The women were all interesting, though, most of all one he wasn't after, Charleen. How significant was this? I know there are lots of experimental/essay-type documentaries that predate it, but was there an earlier feature documentary (with some limited first-run release, as I remember it) so subjective/confessional? I don't know.

Favorite line: "My interest in linguistics continues to grow."

crazy that this was morbs's last poll

lmao

I've clicked on a couple of titles, and this appears to be exactly what it says: 400 documentaries, many well known, you can watch online (via nice clean Vimeo transfers).

http://www.filmsforaction.org/walloffilms/

wallofilmgina

A problem:

http://www.avclub.com/articles/if-documentaries-want-to-be-treated-like-movies-th,93354/

I'm guilty of falling prey to this, I know; I'll accept conventional filmmaking if the subject and people interest me enough (e.g., Knuckleball). But it's something I'm often aware of, most recently watching The House I Live In. It was good, and it was a passionate piece of advocacy. But I kept thinking that it could have been better.

interesting Apted interview about UP here with Roger Ebert

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGu470P7yfc

I'm guilty of falling prey to this, I know; I'll accept conventional filmmaking if the subject and people interest me enough (e.g., Knuckleball). But it's something I'm often aware of, most recently watching The House I Live In. It was good, and it was a passionate piece of advocacy. But I kept thinking that it could have been better.

This is an interesting argument, but I think the opposite can also be a problem. Searching for Sugar Man is a good recent example which suffers from the fact that the director wanted to make it too much like a conventional movie narrative. Large parts of the real story are excluded so that the movie could climax with the cathartic moment of Rodriguez, its subject, playing a comeback gig for a large South African audience in 1998, after (if the movie is to be believed) having been inactive and unsuccessful as a musician ever since 1971. In order to retain this "rise->fall->rise again" narrative formula the director conviently ignore the fact that Rodriguez had already had a similar (though somewhat smaller) revival success in Australia in the late 70s and early 80s. Also, the movie very much focuses on South African journalists' search for the mysterious musician, which makes for a nice detective story, but also means there's not that much material about Rodriguez himself and his life between 1971 and 1998.

So yeah, the movie is certainly more cinematic than your regular talking heads doc, but Rodriguez is such an interesting guy I would've preferred to watch a more traditional document with him and people close to him talking about his life. The liner notes to the reissues of the two Rodriguez albums actually give a more detailed and more interesting picture of his life than a feature-length documentary.

That would be a better argument if it was called "Rodriguez: His story", in fairness - it's a story about fans searching for him.

I guess... But since the director was able to interview Rodriguez himself, and a whole lot of friends, relatives, and music business people who know him, he could've easily made the movie about his story, and not the about the search for him. To me, it seems he picked the "search" narrative because it made for more thrilling cinema, and it sorta does – Searching for Sugar Man certainly is more entertaining to watch than many other docs – but in the end the approach means the movie has less content than it could've had, makes the story look more one-sided than it could've been. The movie leaves you with with several unanswered questions, and they aren't all the sort of questions that are meant to be left hanging, they could've answered them if they wanted to. And that is my opinion on the subject: sure, make your doc more cinematic, but don't do it at the expense of content, because content is the main thing people want from (most) documentaries.

Would you have added more running time, or cut out the South African material? Because it does sound like you're wishing they made the movie you would like rather than the one they made, and I'd counter that I found the South African stuff far more interesting than "This dude was like Bob Dylan except not as good, then he dropped under the radar, here he is again"

Also wtf is "content"?

I didn't mean the South African stuff as a whole was uninteresting; the Afrikaaner equality movement and his influence on that was interesting stuff, you could've made a whole movie about that alone. But the search part, the detective story, it felt pretty superficial, because it didn't give you any new information on either of the main subjects of the doc (Rodriguez's influence on South African musicians and political activists, and his life in Detroit). That's what I mean by "content" in documentaries: new information on stuff that I didn't know about before.

So you'd be as happy with a wiki URL, the lights up, and an instruction that it's fine if you want to turn your phone on? :)

maybe film snobs already know this but i didn't -- DEMON LOVER DIARY is now online! look!! http://vimeo.com/62618360
i watched the first few minutes and it reminded me how great this movie is.

http://www.amazon.com/Cat-Dancers-Joy-Holiday/dp/B007BG5RUE

^this was really great fyi

Richard Brody's favourite documentaries, in advance of a Sight & Sound documentary poll:

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/movies/2014/04/the-greatest-documentaries-of-all-time.html

Cool thread.

http://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-sound-magazine/greatest-docs

Some show up shockingly low (e.g. Close-Up) until you consider many people probably don't categorize them as "documentaries."

No King of Kong, I don't get it.

I count 19 instances of overlap between their 50 and ILX's 40. Doesn't seem all that scandalous to me.

Yea but that other 21 tho.

The BFI site now has the complete results/ballots for the documentary poll + a sprawling graphic linking each film to each voter. http://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-sound-magazine/greatest-docs-full-poll

Did any ilxors get a vote?

Now I'm going to watch Grey Gardens.

Glad to see King of Kong got two votes, enough to finish ahead of one-vote-only Citizen Kane (also ahead of no-votes Vertigo). Personally I like Kane better, but it's close. (I'm in something that got one vote, Vinyl).

i saw this a couple weeks ago, highly recommended:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0263238/

I saw that four or five years ago, with Drew in attendance--yes, very good. I think it might be the beginning of cinéma vérité? The primary season as it existed then is unrecognizable next to today's circus.

Goofed--it's the earlier Primary I saw. Would love to see the Wallace film.

On Lanzmann and Shoah. Was watching it last night on TV, 2nd part next week.

The 30 min sequence in the Polish village is probably the best evidence of his skills, the way he could charm anyone into talking about themselves and ultimately their prejudices. There was certainly evidence of his -- not bullying -- but you could tell he was a prick. When he tells off the translator "I heard the word 'Capital' why haven't you translated?" when its a pretty tough interview of up to four women talking. Didn't think much of it at the time -- you could argue that these things happen on tough shoots -- but then you read his vile quote on female translators. There was certanly nothing they could do, even if they were half-cheering the 'extraction' of jews but its weird that Lanzmann doesn't think this could've happened in France when anti-semitism and racism are to be found in France (Sorrow and the Pity hello?)

Ultimately not too sure about the impact of re-enactments, and the camera focusing on any tear is pretty much pornography (nearly switched off after an hour) but there is so much powerful testimony, even if the methods by which he obtained some of it are questionable.

I just saw Nicolas Philibert's "Louvre City" and LOVED IT SO MUCH! It was so observational and cinema verite in its very direct presentation of its subject matter and lack of overall narrative and yet it had so much cinematographic flourish, like really well conceived tracking shots and close-ups and thoughtful editing and it was so pretty and art-filmy and contemplative and just fun to watch and lull about in. This guy is so fucking great. I remember really liking Etre et Avoir but not like this.

Just finished The Battle of Chile for the first time. Not in one sitting. I found the structure somewhat odd--it's in three parts, and the third part doubles back and covers some of the same ground as the first part, though from a different angle; 10 minutes in, I was worried I'd accidentally watched the discs out of order--but an often hypnotic cascade of words, almost always from one person speechifying as others look on and listen. Hope to see it again in a theatre one day; really impressive.

I found the lead girl in Seventeen exceedingly annoying, so that interfered with all that was good about it. Great freeze-frame ending.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwX1Y-BGR58

the NYC Quad is having a Claude Lanzmann retro... anyone ever seen his first feature, Israel, Why (1973)? The only iMdB-linked reviews are in German.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069115/fullcredits/

https://quadcinema.com/film/israel-why/