Oh I only own a Pink Floyd documentary haha, no others, though I wish I had lots of those mentioned here: Kubrick, Hitch and others, yes, TCM: The Shocking Truth also…
I’ve seen both Bowling for Columbine and Farenheit in cinemas, Farenheit in Luxembourg, haha that was funny when they made fun of Belgium (it was Belgium, right?), made fun of its army, everyone in the audience cracked up and applauded, cool! The audience laughed in both movies. Anyway, I don’t see them as documentaries, I see them as political tools and pacifist propaganda, I personally hate the idea conveyed in Farenheit 9/11, I like Bush, I always will. I can’t stand the fact Quentin gave it the award, my mom (a Tarantino admirer) still thinks it was his joke, but I know better, MM brainwashed him, pure and simple.
Bowlign for Columbine is amazing, hands down one of the best, and it has a whole lot more truth than Fahrenheit, not that I hate Fahrenheit, but i’ve got mixed feelings, he twisted a lot of events, plus he makes himself look like the angel that came down from heaven to inform in the world of the devil’s arrival, no you didn’t, you came down from heaven to make a film and earn money, that’s it, we KNOW he’s the devil, and I doubt we’ll ever forget it, I doubt the Americans will forget that GW Bush jr is gonna go down as probably thé worst president the country has ever had, BUT it’s well made though, I like his style of filmmaking, putting in clips of movies, make the right music come in at the right time, asking the right questions, mostly to trap the guy he’s asking questions (remember Charlton Heston’s interview at the end of Bowling? inbeleivably awesome) etc. he’s a talented guy, he sure is, but he should stop acting like a non-profit organisation helping the world, he doesnt “happen” to make money, he does what he does to make money, like a tabloid, the sleazier, the better, he knows the Americans people so well 
[quote=“LetsGoToWork”]
Oliver Stone’s Looking for Fidel & Persona non Grata
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isnt that called Commandante? that was very entertaining
i also just saw
Loose Change. very controversial stuff
[quote=“The Seb”]
isnt that called Commandante? that was very entertaining
i also just saw
Loose Change. very controversial stuff
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My version is not called Commandante. Maybe it’s got something to do with what region you’re in. very good documentary, I also think Stone is a good interviewer
A very good documentary is the excellent ‘Comic Book Confidential’ by Ron Mann. Contains interviews with Will Eisner, William M. Gaines, Lynda Barry, Robert Crumb, Jack Kirby, Art Spiegelman and many other American comic legends. It begins with the ‘Funnies’ and finishes on Frank Miller’s ‘The Dark Knight Returns’. Of course there are extracts from the comics (including one brief Spiderman strip which is an amalgamation of two different Spiderman stories recited by Stan Lee) and some good rockin’ music in the film. Best one of course is Dr John’s ‘Comic Book Crazy’.
I guess I’ll read 'em when I join the geriatics
Long gone comic book crazy
Of course had the film been made this year then Alan Moore would have definitely been interviewed. Some films are made too soon. Alas! Alas! But it is still a must see.
A must see documentary is Alain Resnais’ ‘Nuit et Brouillard’. It is cinematic poetry and has one of the most beautiful soundtracks in cinema and that is probably why the film is so shocking and is definitely a must see. Apparently when there were attacks on Jewish graves in France many years ago ‘Nuit et Brouillard’ was broadcast simultaneously on all five French television channels. If only one film could be preserved for the next thousand years then perhaps it should be this one. Alain Resnais is a French treasure.
I also have a fondness for Humphrey Jennings who worked within the genre of the second world war propaganda films and also helped organise the first surrealist exhibition in London. Yes that exhibition where Salvador Dali fainted in his diver’s suit. Considered by Lindsay Anderson (‘if…’, ‘O Lucky Man’, ‘Britannia Hospital’) to be the only poet of English cinema he is one of if not the perfect reminder that documentaries are an art form in their own right. I would couple ‘A Diary For Timothy’ with ‘Nuit et Brouillard’ as the perfect double bill. The only feature that he made (which is either called ‘Fires Were Started’ or ‘I Was A Fireman’ depending on which print you watch) can be described as an early docu-drama. Humphrey Jennings used real firemen to play themselves and re-create putting out the fires in the Blitz. It was considered realistic in every way except for one aspect. In real life there would be a lot of swearing. After all they wouldn’t be calling out, “I say old bean, could you put out that jolly fire so I can have a cup of tea with digestive biscuits. It’s getting frightfully stuffy in here.” One example of Jennings’ cinematic poetry is in ‘Listen To Britain’. In the church scene we see female soldiers singing a hymn, their helmets are hanging on the wall. The film cuts to a longer shot revealing a statue of King Charles I who of course lost his.
One man went to mow
He went to mow a meadow
One man and his dog
Went to mow a meadow
Humphrey Jennings began his work in the GPO Film Unit (that’s General Post Office Film Unit which later became the Crown Film Unit during world war two) whose famous output was the delightful ‘Night Mail’ directed by John Grierson and included music by Benjamin Britten and a classic poem by W.H. Auden that is far more enjoyable than that bloody ‘Stop All The Clocks’ as featured in ‘Four Weddings And A Funeral’. Michael Powell was a bit snotty about the British documentary movement headed up by John Grierson in the 1930s but some of them are works of art in their own right. One great piece of cinema is Alberto Calvacanti’s ‘Coal Face’. Rhythmic, percussive, operatic and dirty. It really packs a punch. Calvacanti of course went on to direct the final story in the portmanteau horror film ‘Dead of Night’ and even today it is quite scary. Michael Redgrave is excellent in that film.
As for our contemporaries. I like the school documentary ‘Être et Avoir’ made by Nicolas Philibert. When I first saw that film on television I felt for that terrified little boy on his first day who immediately began to miss his mother. “Where is she? I demand to see her.” The bit where all the family were helping one pupil with his homework made me giggle especially when his mum clocked him round the ear when he giggled. Nick Broomfield is another good filmmaker in the documentary tradition with works such as ‘Fetishes’, ‘Biggie and Tupac’, ‘Kurt and Courtney’ and his two films on serial killer Aileen Wuornos where I first heard of the term “a frank breach birth”. Which means leaving the vagina arse-first. Another good British documentary film-maker working today is Kevin MacDonald who made ‘Touching The Void’ which is quite appropriate for the grandson of Emeric Pressburger since his first British film was a movie about mountaineering. He also made a very good documentary on Howard Hawks which I have lost somewhere in the house. That specific tape also contains a good documentary on Sam Fuller entitled ‘The Typewriter, The Rifle and The Movie Camera’ which has Quentin Tarantino and Tim Robbins rooting through Fuller’s old stuff.
I quite liked that brief moment we had where documentaries could be seen at your local cinema. I only wished mine showed ‘Bowling For Columbine’ and ‘Lost In La Mancha’.
Documentaries I own are
’My Best Fiend’ (Werner Herzog’s documentary on Klaus Kinski)
‘The Hamster Factor’
‘Lost In La Mancha’
‘The Queen’ (about a drag-queen beauty pageant)
‘GPO Film Unit: Thirties Britain Volume One’
‘Touching The Void’
‘Nuit et Brouillard’
‘The Humphrey Jennings Collection’ That sadly does not include ‘The Silent Village’ which I really want to see.
Full Tilt Boogie 8/10
Taxi Driver-Making of - 8/10
Snowball Effect: The Story of ‘Clerks’ - 8/10
Document of the Dead - 7/10
Sam Peckinpah’s West: Legacy of a Hollywood Renegade - 7/10
Bob Dylan: No Direction Home - 10/10
Fahrenheit 9/11 - 9/10
A Personal Journey With Martin Scorsese Through American Movies - 10/10
The Making of Casino (The 2 Disc interviews and Las Vegas/Mob documentary) - 10/10
At the moment I only own Lost in La Mancha, which is more comedy than documentary. I really want to get No Direction Home.