MC Wednesday Inventory #13: Your Three Favorite Documentaries (and Why)

[dreamdead]

Self-explanatory enough. It's an oft neglected form of cinema, and one that can perhaps get rejuvenated on this site with some intelligent discussion and thought.

Let's hear it.

[D_Davis]

Genghis Blues
American Movie
Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill

[Kurosawa Fan]

Titicut Follies - It made me a more aware, skeptical viewer in regards to documentaries and the bias of the filmmaker
Touching the Void - Expertly crafted recreation coupled with Morris-style interviews about a fascinating, terrible event. Gave my wife a panic attack.
No Direction Home - Self-explanatory.

[Irish]

When We Were Kings Never knew much about him, never followed boxing, but this movie made me fall in love with Ali.

Highschool I saw this so long ago I don't remember much of it, except that it was an incredible experience.

The Thin Blue Line Yeah.

Docs that I've always wanted to see, but I just don't have the stomach for it:

Hotel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie
Shoah
Little Dieter Needs to Fly
Taxi to the Darkside
Invisible War
Restrepo
Fog of War

[Dead & Messed Up]

Touching the Void. Absolutely terrifying. More frightening than most horror movies I've ever seen.

The Atomic Cafe. I loved how effortlessly it used the old footage to lampoon itself.

Baraka. It's been a couple years, and I still feel like I'm processing that one.

[Skitch]

Baraka - Can still make me cry. Beautiful and moving.

Riding Giants - Brilliantly constructed history of surfing. Makes me wish I was alive back then.

Dark Days - The black and white gives this such a fascinating look and feel.

[Raiders]

Sherman's March - Because McElwee is quite magnetic for a laid-back Southerner, and it is a fascinating piece of autobiography that traces the same route of General Sherman, only McElwee lays destruction to the expectations of traditional documentaries and to his subjects' comfort in front of the camera. It is a lot of searching, talking and irreverent romance that profoundly uses the camera as perhaps the central character of the story.

The Last Bolshevik - I'm going to go here for Marker, though obviously there are two or three others I could have chosen. Marker was a filmmaker obsessed with context and images (even his fiction film La jetee was composed of stills, only presenting snapshots of visual data), and this film as he traces a Soviet filmmaker and peer, Marker's obsession with the visual-ness of documentaries (perhaps even a response to the prominence of Morris) is in full force and the context of these people and images and the political journey through the past is a riveting and emotional journey with no clear end or answer. (This is available on Amazon VOD (http://www.amazon.com/The-Last-Bolshevik/dp/B002A016SS))

Shoah - Because it is the most wrenching, disturbing, beautiful, overwhelming film experience ever.

[amberlita]

Touching The Void - for the reasons previously stated. a visceral film experience.

Winged Migration - can't really explain why. i just think it's terrifically beautiful and it's able to temporarily fill some deep chasm inside me.

F for Fake - perhaps a loose definition of documentary, but brilliant all the same.

[Ezee E]

Here's where a favorite/best can really differ I think.

Dear Zachary is tremendous, but I'd never watch it again. I have a feeling the same will happen with Blackfish from what I've heard about it.

I'll have to think a little more about my favorite ones.

[baby doll]

The Man With the Movie Camera (Dziga Vertov, 1929)
À propos de Nice (Boris Kaufman / Jean Vigo, 1930)
Nuit et brouillard (Alain Resnais, 1955)
The War Game (Peter Watkins, 1965)
Cuadecuc, vampir (Pere Portabella, 1971)
F for Fake (Orson Welles, 1973)
Ici et ailleurs (Jean-Luc Godard / Jean-Pierre Gorrin / Anne-Marie Miéville, 1976)
Sans soleil (Chris Marker, 1983)
Shoah (Claude Lanzmann, 1985)
Crumb (Terry Zwigoff, 1994)

With the exception of the films by Watkins and Lanzmann, I've seen all of these numerous times and would love to see them again.

[D_Davis]

And why? Jeez, what is this - school?


Genghis Blues - I love underdog stories, and I love outsider music. This combines both.

American Movie - Earnestness can only take you so far. No other thing exemplifies this more than American movie.

Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill - Just a simple story of a neat man.

[D_Davis]

The next three on the list would all be from Stacy Peralta.

Dogtown & Z-Boys
Riding Giants
Bones Brigade: An Autobiography

The BB were my first pop-culture heroes growing up, and Stacy Peralta's documentaries capture that nostalgia perfectly.

[Irish]

Dammit. I knew I forgot something. "Crumb" and "Dogtown" are fantastic picks.

Another I forgot: "Cocaine Cowboys."

I need more than 3 slots! :|

[Ezee E]

Hoop Dreams.

Bus 174.

Baseball.

[Skitch]

The next three on the list would all be from Stacy Peralta.



He is so good.

[Gizmo]

The Civil War
Baseball
Dear Zachary

[Bandy Greensacks]

Sherman's March - Established Ross McElwee as the most inward looking documentary filmmaker -- one who uses his other subjects specifically to inform, relive and expound upon his own experiences. This one plays out almost like a real-life Deconstructing Harry, with a documentary about Sherman's March replacing Harry's novelistic framework.

Streetwise - A perfectly paced documentary about an important subject with an incredible emotional core and some of the best cinematography you'll ever see in the genre.

Route One USA - A semi-fictional doc about a doctor (actor) exploring his past and both he and Kramer (the director) trying to find a single consistent thread that makes America America. Brilliantly executed.

[B-side]

F for Fake (Orson Welles, 1973) -- Because it's a brilliant cinematic essay on the nature of art, its value as commodity and the cyclical manner in which art is recycled, reused and modified.

Baraka (Ron Fricke, 1992) -- Because it's a visually arresting spectacle of organic beauty and the rhythms, harmony and destruction of nature.

The House Is Black (Forugh Farrokhzad, 1963) -- Because it's a fantastic, empathetic tour de force in filmmaking exploring the world of the Other.

[Russ]

Vernon, Florida - Because it's a look into the real-life world of Mayberry as shot through a Twin Peaks lens.

Ashes and Snow - Because it's an imagined document of my wish-fulfillment symbiotic view of the animal kingdom.

American Movie - Because "That's all right, that's ok, umm... "

[Thirdmango]

I usually hate documentaries so I don't have too many on my love list.

My favorite documentary is: The Law In These Parts (2012). I've never seen a documentary admit to the fact that they were biased and only showing the point they were trying to make and that people should do their own research as well before just believing anything the documentary had to say. There was one interview where he said, "This interview lasted for 6 hours and you're seeing 5 minutes of it."

Ai Weiwei Never Sorry (2012): This is probably my second favorite. This one is very biased but still very fun and about a really remarkable man.

Possibly the best third place I could go with would be either Wordplay or Gasland Part 2. I didn't like Gasland Part 1, but part 2 felt like a better made, more compelling version of the first.

[Derek]

1. Hour of the Furnaces (Getino/Solanas, 1968)/Grin Without a Cat (Marker, 1977) - Polemical, political cinema of the highest order. Aggressive and challeging; the first call to arms against oppressive imperialism, the latter a more solemn, comprehensive look at the rise and fall of the Leftist movements of the 60s & 70s, but both equally fascinating works of outsider art and proof of cinema's power as an ideological tool.

2. The Thin Blue Line (Morris, 1988) - Morris at his best.

3. High School (Wiseman, 1968) - The documentary as lens through which the inner workings of social institutions and the true horrors of the mundane can be exposed

Runner's Up: Koyaanisqatsi, Salesman, Ici et Ailleurs, Harlan County USA, The Atomic Cafe, Man on Wire

[B-side]

1. Hour of the Furnaces (Getino/Solanas, 1968)

I'm probably going to watch this in near future for my new column on Next Projection focused on Third Cinema. It's supposed to be one of the key films of the movement.

[D_Davis]

Vernon, Florida - Because it's a look into the real-life world of Mayberry as shot through a Twin Peaks lens.


I love the jars of sand...

[D_Davis]

After the 3 by Peralta, I'd probably have to go with Ken Burn's The National Parks.

Just a beautiful testament to a truly great concept and actuality.

My favorite thing about Burns' films is how slow and meditative they are. They are the antithesis of modern film making.

[Irish]

Ken Burns is a douche. There. I said it.

I feel so much better now. I've been waiting to get that off my chest for years.

[D_Davis]

Ken Burns is a douche. There. I said it.

I feel so much better now. I've been waiting to get that off my chest for years.

So brave!

[Irish]

So brave!

iknorite? Ken Burns should totally do a documentary about me.

[D_Davis]

iknorite? Ken Burns should totally do a documentary about me.

It should at least be 7 parts. Irish: Match Cut's Pariah needs at least 14 hours to be told with the detail and nuance it deserves.

[Sven]

It should at least be 7 parts. Irish: Match Cut's Pariah needs at least 14 hours to be told with the detail and nuance it deserves.

Now all of Irish's posts will, in my head, be read by Peter Coyote.

[Ezee E]

Douche, why?

[Winston*]

Douche, why?

Yeah, it seems so uncharacteristic of Irish to be unnecessarily combative.

[D_Davis]

Now all of Irish's posts will, in my head, be read by Peter Coyote.

I wish I heard Coyote's voice all the time.

[Russ]

I wish I heard Coyote's voice all the time.

You and me both. I'm fucking stuck with Tom Sellek.

[chrisnu]

Grey Gardens
F For Fake
Hoop Dreams

[transmogrifier]

I don't really go in for documentaries, but I love non-fiction books. Maybe it's because I prefer flicking through true stories at my own pace, answering my own questions when they arise, and cinema has always seemed like a bit of a con job, to be honest.

[Bandy Greensacks]

Have you sought out documentaries that don't push a "message" and avoid talking heads and/or narration?

In what way is cinema as a whole equatable to a con job?

Not trying to be facetious... I'm legitimately interested in your history with docs and your thought process, because I've never really heard anyone say that before.

[ContinentalOp]

Hoop Dreams- Because it's the best. It's compelling, moving, epic, smart and rich. I love it.

American Movie- Funnier than most movies and extremely engaging. Really unforgettable.

F For Fake- Just the coolest movie ever. Fast paced and mesmerizing.