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running to a constellation
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| A Moment of Truth: This List is Sucky |
[Oct. 5th, 2007|07:40 am] |
The International Documentary Association Decides on its Top 25 Documentaries List
"Celebrating its 25th anniversary, the International Documentary Association (IDA) has announced a list of the 25 best documentaries, as selected by its membership (and presented by Netflix). The IDA's 3,000 members, including filmmakers, executives and educators, named Steve James, Peter Gilbert and Frederick Marx's "Hoop Dreams" as the best documentary, selecting the movie from a list of some 700 films. In the #2 spot is Errol Morris' "The Thin Blue Line." According to the IDA, its members ranked and submitted choices, with the option of also including write-in suggestions. "
The complete list of IDA's "25 Best Documentaries":
1. "Hoop Dreams," directed by Steve James, Peter Gilbert and Frederick Marx
2. "The Thin Blue Line," directed by Errol Morris
3. "Bowling for Columbine," directed by Michael Moore
4. "Spellbound," directed by Jeffery Blitz
5. "Harlan County USA," directed by Barbara Kopple
6. "An Inconvenient Truth," directed by Davis Guggenheim
7. "Crumb," directed by Terry Zwigoff's Crumb
8. "Gimme Shelter," directed by Albert and David Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin
9. "The Fog of War," directed by Errol Morris
10. "Roger and Me," directed by Michael Moore
11. "Super Size Me," directed by Morgan Spurlock
12. "Don't Look Back," directed by DA Pennebaker
13. "Salesman," directed by Albert and David Maysles
14. "Koyaanisqatsi: Life Out of Balance," directed by Godfrey Reggio
15. "Sherman's March," directed by Ross McElwee
16. "Grey Gardens," directed by Albert and David Maysles, Ellen Hovde and Muffie Meyer
17. "Capturing the Friedmans," directed by Andrew Jarecki
18. "Born into Brothels," directed by Ross Kauffman and Zana Briski
19. "Titticut Follies," directed by Frederick Wiseman
20. "Buena Vista Social Club," directed by Wim Wenders
21. "Fahrenheit 9/11," directed by Michael Moore
22. "Winged Migration," directed by Jacques Perrin
23. "Grizzly Man," directed by Werner Herzog
24. "Night and Fog," directed by Alain Resnais
25. "Woodstock," directed by Michael Wadleigh |
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| "If this guy is God, then this is the God that the United States of America deserves." |
[Nov. 8th, 2006|05:41 pm] |
Last night I viewed a film called Lord of the Universe, one of the early TVTV videos that was able to obtain funding and find itself aired on public TV. Made with video technology in the early 1970s, including newly developed Portapak recorders and whatnots, the piece is a display of a budding technology that is reminiscent of public access production in the 80s, even in the 90s. Lame graphics and choppy transitions, these things find a charm and even a place in a video such as this, because afterall, everything has its starting point, its time of evolution, right?
The subject matter, however, makes for a far more interesting journal entry. It's the early 70s, and America's counterculture is coming down from its anti-war, flowerpower high. All these burnout lost souls have nothing to live for, nothing to follow, until, thank God, the Guru Maharaj Ji descends upon them as God in Living Form, bringing unto everyone Peace and Happiness with his Holy Family and the Divine Light Mission. For real, the Guru was God in human form, so he claimed. At last, the hippie generation had something new to chirp about, to seek peace within, to go nuts without. When one does not have an active job or much responsibility, one gets very bored and Must Find Something.
By the way, the Guru Maharaj Ji is a chubby 15-year-old Indian kid. Yeah.
Through the Guru, one can obtain The Knowledge. Through the Guru, the collective whole can find Peace and Happiness. Through the Guru, one can attend "Millenium '73," a three-day conference at the Houston Astrodome in which the Guru and his Holy Family would appear to lead his American sheep into fits of peaceful meditation and Christian-like stadium singing led by his brother's rock-n'-soul band Blue Aquarius. Through the Guru, one can attend a Knowledge Session to finally, if they are chosen to do so, Receive The Knowledge. And oh, the people, the desperate, desperate people, the people who panic when they may not Receive the Knowledge before their flight leaves Texas, the people who freak out when they touch something that the guru has touched, the people who cannot comprehend why it is that the Rest of America thinks they are all mislead crazies under the spell of a prankster.
It is said, in Lord of the Universe, that when the Guru was about to move to the United States from his home in India, barely an adolescent, it was requested of his followers that they send any "extra appliances" they may have to his new home on Long Island. Yes, God lives it up, with a big house and fancy cars (that I don't think he was able to drive yet?) and many gadgets. He's a rich guru, could ya believe it?
I couldn't even really explain the wealth found in Lord of the Universe. Seeing is believing. Thank god, the ex-Premies (followers) have created a site with video clips. See it for yourself. Rennie Davis and Abbie Hoffman both make appearances in the film, with Hoffman delivering the best (and most sense-making) line of the entire piece. While the outward intent of the film is to capture the 3-day Event in Houston, I personally found the film to be more of a criticism of desperation. The guru, he's just there, serving as the master of this bizarre three-ring circus.
God is a smug bastard?
Funny enough, the Guru still lives, and preaches, and sends his messages via multimedia websites, although he seems to be known as the Prem Rawat nowadays. I guess God had to shed that nutty Guru image in order for anyone to take him seriously. Does anyone take him seriously?
The house where God lives.
Another wonderful chapter in American history. |
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| "There was this spirit of exploring the unknown for me. That's something deeply imbedded in me." |
[Apr. 20th, 2006|09:35 am] |
Last night, I had to videotape an interview with a friend of mine for a video-photo project I"m working on. It was the first time I'd been behind the camera with a specific, necessary purpose that I was completely in control of in a very long time. It was very primitive in a filmmaking sense, since the way I'm structuring this piece, I don't plan on using any actual video footage at all, just the audio. But I need the image to reference as I edit the audio together, because we cannot pick up cues from sound alone.
Even though this is for an assignment that someone 'told me to do,' it felt quite good being in this position again. For years I've studied how to be a good interviewer, simply by questioning my friends about everything, asking people questions they'd find surprising, engaging strangers in random dialogue that I simply initiate, and not steer. You study people, and their body language as they respond, and you warm them up until they tear down the barrier between you and them, and that's when you really start asking. And I don't do this as a journalist, because it's not the facts that I care so much about; I care about the portrait that is merely shaded, highlighted, by fact.
My friend was great. She likes to talk a lot--actually, she doesn't like to talk a lot, she just really has a lot to say--and I found that if I asked very simple questions and let her answer them in her own directions, I was getting material I'd have never even dreamed up. I need audio of her that totals approximately 1 minute 30 seconds; she gave me about 60 minutes of her thoughts, ideas, experiences. It was compelling.
The ethics of the situation were distracting me a bit, though. You see, I was interviewing one of my closest friends about very personal things in her life, things that I didn't want to bring up, but rather wanted her to bring up if she so chose to. She's a fairly candid person, but she is not one to rant and rave about things either, so here I have this person who's important to me going through an incredibly rough time in life right now, and while I've heard about her situation before, here I was getting all the 'gory details' as they say. Many things I was hearing for the first time, and I was torn between sitting there as her friend and feeling the conversation, empathizing with her, allowing myself to be pulled into her world to try to understand her; and sitting there as a 'filmmaker' so to speak, as someone who had to say "can you repeat that" because there was a distracting sound in the next room, or she spoke too quickly, or didn't repeat the substance of the questions in her answers. Having to keep track of how her voice sounded, ambient noise, diction--all of that pulled me completely out of the situation as an empathetic ear, and dropped me into it as an unaffected observer who was there to make sure the conversation was technically correct. It was really making me feel horrible too; heartless. I told her about these feelings in the car, and she said she could understand what I was saying, but that I in no way came across as uncaring. Which is good. I was worried.
I think if someone allows you to observe them that closely, you owe it to them to treat that exchange with a certain degree of reverence. I'm sure this is nothing new, but it's nothing I've given much thought to in the past either. Does the filmmaker have a degree of responsibility to not exploit the subject? If that's the case, how do all these reality television shows get away with utterly exploiting people to the ninth degree? Is there an ethical responsibility to be considerate, or when someone allows you to observe them with a camera, are they opening the door for you to do what you will with what you've observed? Is it even irresponsible as a filmmaker--a truth-seeker in some cases--to not exploit the material? Maybe I'm really naive when I say an interview, a taping, an observation, deserves to be treated with reverence. I don't know yet; I just know last night made me really uncomfortable, and that is something I'm going to have to contend with.
This experience severely puts a dent in my theory about observed systems and the filmmakers as the observer. |
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