As I mentioned on the previous thread, I was in Alan Zweig's Vinyl for about half a minute. And I once had an idea to make a documentary about Denny McLain. The next step of actually doing anything about it was just too much to bear.
I'm a little lost--which person has made a documentary?
― clemenza, Saturday, 13 August 2011 23:36 (twelve years ago) link
Haha, I do not think my film would be on this thread even if every ilxer ever had seen it and I don't really much want to talk about it on ILX. I also wouldn't presume that because I have worked on documentaries, I know anymore about what makes a good one than any of you guys. If y'all want to rep for Brother's Keeper, that's cool.
xp I saw Vinyl! Are you a record nerd and/or sad person?
― A41 (admrl), Saturday, 13 August 2011 23:38 (twelve years ago) link
Hmmmmn...Both? A friend posted my clip on YouTube a few years ago, so here's a non-embedded link: www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCAGSnsnkVA.
― clemenza, Saturday, 13 August 2011 23:40 (twelve years ago) link
Ha! I love that after my clip, the "Up Next" one is "8-1/2 minutes with Robert Crumb."
― clemenza, Saturday, 13 August 2011 23:41 (twelve years ago) link
Woaaaaah! I remember you!
― A41 (admrl), Saturday, 13 August 2011 23:42 (twelve years ago) link
I think I posted that clip on I Love Vinyl, actually
― A41 (admrl), Saturday, 13 August 2011 23:43 (twelve years ago) link
i keep meaning to hassle gbx into seeing his doc - it was about seeland, and theres a thread around here somewhere
― I dream of vodka sandwich (jjjusten), Saturday, 13 August 2011 23:43 (twelve years ago) link
And it showed on a bus!!
― A41 (admrl), Saturday, 13 August 2011 23:44 (twelve years ago) link
s1ocki's film(s) is also great, fwiw, but not an actual documentary. And his new film is hilarious
I was hoping for Vinyl: The Next Generation and Vinyl: The Final Conflict, but the franchise just never happened.
― clemenza, Saturday, 13 August 2011 23:45 (twelve years ago) link
It was a good film about record collecting, but it made my wife sad (she is not a record person, though).
― A41 (admrl), Saturday, 13 August 2011 23:45 (twelve years ago) link
If Vinyl is #1 in this poll, I will now be very suspicious...
― A41 (admrl), Saturday, 13 August 2011 23:46 (twelve years ago) link
oh whoops "sealand", seeland was the negativland label thing
― I dream of vodka sandwich (jjjusten), Saturday, 13 August 2011 23:46 (twelve years ago) link
I did a search on "Seeland"--a band?
(I gave it 164 points, just enough to take #1.)
― clemenza, Saturday, 13 August 2011 23:46 (twelve years ago) link
"Island nation"
― A41 (admrl), Saturday, 13 August 2011 23:47 (twelve years ago) link
As in, it's about the island nation of sealand, that's not what the film is called.
― A41 (admrl), Saturday, 13 August 2011 23:55 (twelve years ago) link
i have been mulling a doc for several years now but have no idea how i'd get started etc etc. hats off to anyone who's done is, is my take.
― king of torts (strongo hulkington's ghost dad), Sunday, 14 August 2011 00:15 (twelve years ago) link
I would like to see a strongo doc, do it!
― A41 (admrl), Sunday, 14 August 2011 00:16 (twelve years ago) link
ugh you actually made me say doc
i know nothing about filmmaking but: i think i would probably feel better about starting making a doc casually, & digitally, & spontaneously, than i would a feature. like have you seen the recent, digital, agnes varda films? they seem to've been made v piecemeal, and are very charming.
hats off, still, obviously.
― bruce actual springsteen (schlump), Sunday, 14 August 2011 00:24 (twelve years ago) link
like have you seen the recent, digital, agnes varda films? they seem to've been made v piecemeal, and are very charming.
no, but i will check them out! sometimes i feel like i need to make a movie at some point just to justify the $17k of film school debt i still have hanging around my neck.
― king of torts (strongo hulkington's ghost dad), Sunday, 14 August 2011 00:28 (twelve years ago) link
ha, yeah. i went to (read about films do not touch the camera) film school + usually end up pondering whether working towards a thing is valid irrespective of whether you achieve it - like it is more about the time you spent, rather than whether that's retroactively invalidated by its conclusion. but yeah making a film would really sock film school in the jaw (doubly so if it isn't about someone being stalked, w/grainy long-shots & a haunting cello score).
watch 'the gleaners & i', if only to join my chorus of 'this deserved better, ilx documentary thread' - i think since she got a handheld camera, AV carries it in her bag and just shoots very freely & without necessarily having a surrounding apparatus of sound-men, &c - so there are these brief, very intimate passages of self-reflection, and glanced sights on her travels, etc, and she digresses to follow whatever's piqued her interest. which i think she's always done, but which you can imagine is easier with a compact production unit + which she mightn't still be doing if it still required like huge financing and pre-planning and pre-approval, &c.
― bruce actual springsteen (schlump), Sunday, 14 August 2011 00:36 (twelve years ago) link
"Vinyl" was also made by just one guy and his camera, unless clemenza knows otherwise.
― A41 (admrl), Sunday, 14 August 2011 00:38 (twelve years ago) link
yeah indeed. tarnation also.sorta at a tangent but not really; whenever, in docs, you see old super 8 footage blown up & featured, i always think it holds up stunningly well - there are those passages in the daniel johnston doc of films he'd make as a kid, i think with his brothers, and dub over with voices, and they're just beautiful to look at, very full and warm + alive. like i feel like you can make a doc as a pretty varied tapestry of different sources & still thread it together somehow.
long time since i've seen vinyl but i remember it as looking like it was shot on video
― bruce actual springsteen (schlump), Sunday, 14 August 2011 00:41 (twelve years ago) link
But yes, it really doesn't have to take all that much. I try to shoot either on my own or maybe with one other person for sound (though I sometimes do both at once), but I have not made or worked on anything much longer than 30 minutes. Sometimes I feel like if you aren't blessed with the breadth of ideas and quickness of thought that someone like Agnes Varda has, you do need a few more people just to give you some flexibility, but it is a tradeoff.
― A41 (admrl), Sunday, 14 August 2011 00:43 (twelve years ago) link
oh I wonder if The Devil And Daniel Johnston will be in here. I would have voted for that!
Yes, Alan was on his own for Vinyl, and also for the next two (I Curmudgeon and Loved)--I was interviewed but wasn't used. He made another one after that, and seems to be doing well now--he got a retrospective at last year's Hot Docs festival here--so maybe he's got others who go on shoots now. I wish I could remember the film I saw that sparked the Denny McLain idea. The director spoke beforehand, and said he'd never touched a camera till he started whatever film he showed that night. (Wondering if it was the Arthur Kane documentary.)
I was surprised that Tarnation didn't get a single vote. The Devil and Daniel Johnston got a couple.
― clemenza, Sunday, 14 August 2011 00:54 (twelve years ago) link
i think i'd be de-railing if i went too far into my thoughts on the DJ doc here, partly b/c i assume it's discussed elsewhere & partly because my complaints are fairly vague and not well remembered, but i think i was less enthusiastic about it than some. i kinda feel like it never reconciled the key weird paradox with him, which is how the sort of heaviness of everything meets the artist part. like there are such heavy moments in which he's gone off the rails, + been in terrible situations, and i didn't feel they connected with the portrait of him other than as sort of detail, as biography. i don't know.
― bruce actual springsteen (schlump), Sunday, 14 August 2011 00:57 (twelve years ago) link
when i saw tarnation i loved it; i think it's probably suffered since from seeming unique as a production rather than as a film, or for maybe seeming a little emotionally heavy-handed (which obv how could it not be, but). i think there are weird things about it.
― bruce actual springsteen (schlump), Sunday, 14 August 2011 00:59 (twelve years ago) link
Of the two, I liked the Daniel Johnston better at the time. But I remember very little in terms of specifics now, other than Tarnation was the more unconventional.
― clemenza, Sunday, 14 August 2011 01:02 (twelve years ago) link
i remember loving tarnation too; i think i considered putting it on my ballot but thinking id need 2 watch it again and make sure it was actually good
― johnny crunch, Sunday, 14 August 2011 01:40 (twelve years ago) link
I saw some new work by Jonathan Caouette recently...I kind of wish I hadn't
― A41 (admrl), Sunday, 14 August 2011 03:17 (twelve years ago) link
TARNATION is an atrocious film. Ignoring all the narcissism, I find it mindboggling that anyone found it aesthetically exciting ("lol 2003"?)
― ✇ (Tape Store), Sunday, 14 August 2011 07:03 (twelve years ago) link
The narcissism was intriguing enuff, but the iMovie raindrop overlay was a bit too much.
― third-generation stripper (Eric H.), Sunday, 14 August 2011 07:08 (twelve years ago) link
i hate tarnation so fucking much. like in that thinking of it makes me angry sort of way.
otoh i was one of the votes for devil daniel johnston etc. so it is DOOMED
― I dream of vodka sandwich (jjjusten), Sunday, 14 August 2011 07:55 (twelve years ago) link
I love you guys who hate Tarnation. I wasn't going to say anything, so I'm glad you did.
― Jeff, Sunday, 14 August 2011 08:30 (twelve years ago) link
Receiving a vote from jjjusten was the latest blow for Daniel Johnston in a life filled with tragedy.
― clemenza, Sunday, 14 August 2011 12:16 (twelve years ago) link
I'll resume this with #25 tomorrow morning. My only regret so far is not naming the thread "Documentaries! The Story of Documentaries."
― clemenza, Monday, 15 August 2011 04:15 (twelve years ago) link
feel terrible using this thread for non-top-40-related material, but it seems so much smarter than reviving another docu thread, since everyone's here:
skimming this earlier, i wondered if anyone has seen any of tsuchimoto noriaki's films
― bruce actual springsteen (schlump), Monday, 15 August 2011 12:04 (twelve years ago) link
I said I was going to make note of first-place votes, and then forgot all about it. I'll start doing that with today's films. It's a little ambiguous on a few ballots, where there are point values but the films aren't numbered, and two or three films are tied at the top with the most points. I'll assume the one that's listed first is that person's #1.
There were three films not in the Top 40 that each drew one first-place vote: With Orson Welles: Stories from a Life in Film, Sans Soleil, and Eyes on the Prize. Of the films I counted down on Friday, each of these also received one first-place vote: Être et Avoir, The World at War, Spellbound, WR: Mysteries of the Organism, and Shoah.
― clemenza, Monday, 15 August 2011 14:26 (twelve years ago) link
Sans Soleil
ILX, you fucking bastard!
― third-generation stripper (Eric H.), Monday, 15 August 2011 14:28 (twelve years ago) link
#25: Paris Is Burning (Jennie Livingston, 1990)
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_mJhtf0fqf7s/TCItcK_623I/AAAAAAAAEIw/k7KynMzaAgU/s400/paris+burning+3-1.jpg
32 points/3 votes
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydA7-qCv570
― clemenza, Monday, 15 August 2011 14:31 (twelve years ago) link
Oh shit, there's a Ronald McDonald biopic?
― JimD, Monday, 15 August 2011 14:34 (twelve years ago) link
#24: Winter Soldier (Fred Aronow/Robert Fiore/David Gillis/David Grubin/Jeff Holstein/Michael Lesser, 1972)
http://www.fromthevaultradio.org/home/wp-content/images/FTV008_Memorial%20Day%20Special/john%20kerry%20winter%20soldier.jpg
32 points/4 votes
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucmDbv-Ck60
― clemenza, Monday, 15 August 2011 14:35 (twelve years ago) link
No director is listed for Winter Soldier, so I listed the cinematographers. To head off any complaints, I chose the Kerry still simply because its dimensions were most suitable--if I remember correctly, he's not in the film much.
― clemenza, Monday, 15 August 2011 14:37 (twelve years ago) link
Don't be afraid to watch WS, Kerry's not in it that much.
xp!
― satan club sandwich (Dr Morbius), Monday, 15 August 2011 14:37 (twelve years ago) link
Not only did I psychically divine complaints, I psychically divined where they'd come from!
http://www.liketelevision.com/liketelevision/images/lowrez/jckarnak211.jpg
― clemenza, Monday, 15 August 2011 14:45 (twelve years ago) link
#22: The Century of the Self (Adam Curtis, 2002)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/documentaries/images/bernays_lead.jpg
35 points/2 votes/1 first-place vote
www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUYFr-uDQgg
― clemenza, Monday, 15 August 2011 14:46 (twelve years ago) link
#22: Hype! (Doug Pray, 1996)
http://thefilmist.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/hype3.jpg?w=280&h=175
www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZh_qP6lv98
― clemenza, Monday, 15 August 2011 14:52 (twelve years ago) link
For a second, thought there was a documentary called "Would Smash"
― Mark G, Monday, 15 August 2011 14:52 (twelve years ago) link