Documentary Films

[Erin]

I see there is a Fashion Documentaries thread, but what about ALL kinds of documentaries?

A slice of life?

I think documentaries are SO important because it's a REAL way we can get a glimpse into other worlds, ways of life, and things going on that we're unaware of.

A couple of years ago I watched The Farmer's Wife, a documentary about a Nebraska farm couple and their kids shot over 3 years in the 90's. I couldn't stop watching it. I of course now own the DVD and still watch it on a regular basis.

Since that DVD I've loaded my Netflix Queue with documentary films... they make learning fun again.

What are some of your favorite documentary films? Perhaps this thread will inspire some members - I do hope so!

 

[aycotqone]

The Brdge is a 2006 documentary that tells the stories of a handful of individuals who committed suicide at the Golden Gate Bridge in 2004. It had captured 23 suicides on camera and it also interviews one of the jumpers and also the families of the suicide victims. It's very harrowing to watch because you are watching people jump to their death. It feels weird to say i enjoyed watching it but i'm glad i did. And it stays with you for a long time after.

 

[Erin]

^ Yes! My fiance and I watched The Bridge last week. I don't think I was as moved by it as he was, but for days after watching the documentary he couldn't stop thinking about it. Very strange to see suicides on film...

 

[aycotqone]

It's a very strange experience watching people commit suicide. I can't really explain the feeling myself, just strange. And i also like to watch anything by Michael Moore, he provokes a lot of feelings from myself while watching his documentaries. I would never have guessed how big the gun culture in America is until i watched Bowling for Columbine. Personally i find all his documentaries very informative.

 

[Erin]

^ I did see Sicko in theaters...

The End of Suburbia is also an excellent documentary. I would recommend it to anybody.

 

[MulletProof]

I love love love documentaries.. thanks for starting this, Erin.

I don't think I have a favorite but I often find myself watching 'A propósito de Buñuel', which is about filmmaker Luis Buñuel. It's a great watch, I love hearing passages, friends talking about him, Luis himself talking about everything, it's good..

There are so many.. Star spangled to death & Mexico, la revolución congelada are probably the strongest stuff I've watched.. they left me spinning for a few days.. the material is political, very intense and so eye-opening it's almost infuriating . I strongly recommend them for anyone that likes that kind of 6-hour thing.

The Enron scandal documentary (can't remember the title for the life of me right now!) was also very interesting, especially if, like me, you were exposed to the scandal while it was happening but never entirely understood what it was about and how the fraud was executed. and there's Tom Waits at the end!.

 

[Erin]

^ Whoah... must look into that Enron documentary...

 

[MulletProof]

It's called The smartest guys in the room, Erin. just googled it.

 

[Erin]

^ Right, right, I've heard of that, actually... adding it to my Queue now...

Who Killed the Electric Car is on the docket for tonight.

 

[Capn_Birdseye]

Rodger & Me was pretty good

 

[Belowen]

The last documentaries I watched were

IMMOKALEE, U.S.A. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1217577/)

Every season, tens of thousands of migrant farmworkers converge on small communities like Immokalee, Florida where they plant and harvest the food that Americans consume. A vast majority of these workers are undocumented, leaving them at the mercy of the large agribusinesses who hire them, the crew leaders who contract them and the landlords and businesses that profit from the seasonal arrival of migrant workers. Their "undocumented" legal status allows for a system of exploitation that leaves workers and their families to endure conditions and wages that rarely meet international human rights standards. Immokalee U.S.A. documents these daily experiences, leading the viewer to examine their own role in the issues migrant workers face in the U.S.A.

&

JISOE (http://www.jisoe.com/)

The film is centred on the life of Justin Hughes (aka Jisoe), a young graffiti artist and part of an emerging Australian underclass. The story swings between Justin's gritty daily existence of painting trains and smoking drugs, to sharing intimate and emotional snapshots of Justin's life including the birth of his new baby, the degradation of his relationship and his eventual mental breakdown. Jisoe depicts a private, highly secretive (and paranoid) subculture, taking place completely in the face of the public. Although the film is set with a backdrop of ambitious graffiti art and a soundtrack of original local Hip Hop, Jisoe is much more than just a portrait of the Melbourne graffiti scene. It is moreover a candid human story that challenges the audience to consider an emerging Australian underclass that is both angry and disillusioned with their place in society.

 

[*Bianca*]

I love documentaries

Some I highly recommend:

The Thin Blue Line by Errol Morris

"The Thin Blue Line" is the fascinating, controversial true story of the arrest and conviction of Randall Adams for the murder of a Dallas policeman in 1976. Billed as "the first movie mystery to actually solve a murder," the film is credited with overturning the conviction of Randall Dale Adams for the murder of Dallas police officer Robert Wood, a crime for which Adams was sentenced to death. With its use of expressionistic reenactments, interview material and music by Philip Glass, it pioneered a new kind of non-fiction filmmaking. Its style has been copied in countless reality-based television programs and feature films.

Terrence Rafferty in The New Yorker has called it "a powerful and thrillingly strange movie. Morris seems to want to bring us to the point at which our apprehension of the real world reaches a pitch of paranoia -- to induce in us the state of mind of a detective whose scrutiny of the evidence has begun to take on the feverish clarity of hallucination."

"The Thin Blue Line" was voted the best film of 1988 in a Washington Post survey of 250 film critics. Premiere magazine, in a survey of films of the 1980s, described it as one of the most important and influential movies of the decade.

—errolmorris.com

 

[*Bianca*]

Thin by Lauren Greenfield

A cinema verité documentary that takes us inside the walls of Renfrew, a clinic in southern Florida that specializes in the treatment of eating disorders. Renowned documentary photographer Lauren Greenfield makes her directorial debut with this film and chronicles the treatment of four women as they struggle to overcome an illness that has consumed their lives. With breathtaking style and remarkable intimacy, Greenfield interweaves both the physical and emotional ramifications of this complicated disease and the stories of the brave wounded women on this arduous journey to recovery.

—arp.tv

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-N2Cv52gB8

 

[*Bianca*]

Capturing the Friedmans by Andrew Jarecki

Truth is often more harrowing than fiction, but it is a desperately elusive entity; even in a case such as the one explored in this disturbing but mesmerizing documentary, for which first-time filmmaker Andrew Jarecki enjoyed remarkable access to his subjects. Even Jarecki, who persuaded the family of accused child molesters Arnold and Jesse Friedman to cooperate with him, cannot decide whether the two are guilty, and his film raises as many questions as answers.

Capturing the Friedmans deals with the middle-class Long Island family torn apart in 1987 by child-molestation charges filed after a police raid uncovered kiddie p*rn apparently belonging to dad Arnold, a respected high school science teacher. He and his 18-year-old son, Jesse, were subsequently accused of molesting dozens of young boys, and their travails are painstakingly documented in this videotaped compilation, which even includes family footage recorded by another Friedman son, David. We see strategy sessions between Arnold and his attorneys, conflicting testimony from alleged victims, posturing by police investigators and legal teams, and even the heartrending family farewells taped the night before Arnold goes to prison.

Despite this wealth of material, the truth remains elusive: We’re not sure that shell-shocked son Jesse was guilty, and there’s a suggestion that he was railroaded when the Friedman case made national headlines. Arnold himself never comes right out and admits to all of the molestations. With various people pursuing their own agendas, it’s hard to know if justice was done fully and impartially. But that seems to be what director Jarecki intended; the Friedman case was extraordinarily complex, and watching it unfold will certainly make you think. One of the most absorbing documentaries in recent memory, Capturing the Friedmans will linger in memory for a long, long time.

—awardannals.com

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R10VjJgx1dU

 

[aycotqone]

^ I actually went to see that at the cinema. I highly recommend it to anybody to go and watch it.

 

[plumaffair]

I really seem to be drawn to the sports docs, probably because I'm a pretty big sports nut. Hoop Dreams is one of my favorites as is Dogtown & Z-Boys and the Muhammed Ali doc When We Were Kings...brilliant!

I also really like nature documentaries - the images are just SO amazing, hard to believe we live in a world with so much beauty. March of the Penguins is a total must-see if you love animals. I recently saw a trailer for an upcoming Disney Nature movie called Earth - if you ever saw the series, this movie looks like it'll blow you away!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G06r7eKKjkI

 

[*Bianca*]

^I must see March of the Penguins - I can't believe I haven't already! Has anyone seen Herzog's Encounters at the End of the World? I have it downloaded but still haven't got around to seeing it.

^ I actually went to see that at the cinema. I highly recommend it to anybody to go and watch it.

I saw it at that cinema as well. It couldn't shake it out of my head for weeks.

 

[ElectricAlyce]

I know that most other documentaries are more sombre, but for anyone interested in fashion/music I reccomend Party Monster: The Shockumentary. A documentary about Michael Alig and the club kid scene.

 

[plumaffair]

^^ I saw the movie based on him but didn't know there was a documentary. I'll have to check that out one out as well!

 

[Erin]

Everybody should see Dear Zachary.. but have some Kleenex handy.