Friday, June 3, 2011

If you follow me on twitter, you may have noticed I watch docs. In the past couple of years, I've watched nearly a hundred of them (complete list below). Of course I watch them because I enjoy them, but I have been also learning the techniques, modes, and styles I like (or dislike) because for my MFA thesis I am going to be making my own. Starting this summer.

I will be documenting the process here from time to time, and to kick things off I thought I would just collect some thoughts on a few of the standout docs from the big list. These aren't necessarily the best of the bunch or even my favorites, but they do represent the docs I believe I've learned from the most.

Dear Zachary. This little doc is rough around the edges, but underneath some of the cruder aesthetics is a devastating story expertly told. I can only imagine how difficult it must have been for the documentarian to pull this movie together, and he does it so effectively. I can't imagine anyone not having an emotional reaction to it.

Fast, Cheap & Out of Control. Errol Morris is always pushing the boundaries of the medium. This doc may be quirky and gimmicky, but personally, I found the editing of Fast, Cheap & Out of Control to be eye-opening. When I think about my own project, this doc always comes to mind as a personal challenge to think about the visual and sound editing and how I can use them to make my piece even stronger.

Manda Bala. I have to admit that I wasn't really looking forward to seeing a doc about kidnapping and corruption in Brazil. But from the first few minutes of Manda Bala (Send a Bullet), I was hooked by the teaser. I don't think I'd ever given much thought to those first few minutes before. The teaser (I like to call it the "xa") is the little scene right before the opening credits. It's where you put one of the strongest quotes that will set up the themes for the rest of the movie. Manda Bala was a great lesson in how to show the theme visually and skipping the chitchat.

Stone Reader. To me this one stands out as on of the worst of the docs I've watched. According to Rotten Tomatoes, I am clearly in the minority, but I felt the movie was incredibly self-indulgent. Two hours plus of a guy looking for an author, who isn't really hiding from anyone, left me feeling like the director just wants me to think he's smart and well read. I should say I have a general dislike of documentarians who feel like they need to insert themselves into the story without a really good reason for it. There were a number of docs in the list that I felt really would have been stronger if the directors stuck to the intricacies of the story rather than trying to be a star (Beer Wars, Stripped), but this one takes the prize. I also have a general hate of documentaries that feel fake, and there were just too many examples of shots that had to be staged for me to enjoy watching this movie.

A Certain Kind of Death | A State of Mind | The Atomic Cafe | Beer Wars | Bigger, Stronger, Faster | Born Into Brothels | Brick City | Capitalism: A Love Story | Cocaine Cowboys | Comic Book Confidential | Confessions of a Superhero | Connections Series 1 | Cosmos: The Shores of the Cosmic Ocean | Crips and Bloods: Made in America | Cropsey | Crumb | Danielson: A Family Movie | Dear Zachary | Double Dare | Encounters at the End of the World | Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room | Every Little Step | Exit Through the Gift Shop | F for Fake | Fall from Grace | Fast, Cheap & Out of Control | Food Inc. | Grey Gardens | Guns, Germs, & Steel | Harlan County, U.S.A. | Hearts and Minds | Helvetica (again) | I Have Never Forgotten You | I Like Killing Flies | Imaginary Witness | In the Realms of the Unreal | It Might Get Loud | Jesus Camp | Ken Burns' Civil War (again) | Ken Burns' Jazz | King Corn | Little Dieter Needs to Fly | loudQUIETloud | Lynch | Man on Wire | Manda Bala | Manufacturing Dissent | Michael Jackson's This Is It | Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr. | Murderball | My Kid Could Paint That | No Direction Home: Bob Dylan | Objectified | OT: Our Town | Outfoxed: Murdoch's War on Journalism | Overnight | Planet B-Boy | Revolution OS | Roger & Me | Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired | Scratch | Sherman's March: A Meditation on the Possibility of Romantic Love In the South During an Era of Nuclear Weapons Proliferation | Sister Helen | Stone Reader | Stripped | Tales from the Script | The Business of Being Born | The Face Is Familiar | The King of Kong (again) | The Order of Myths | The September Issue | The Thin Blue Line | The Way We Get By | This American Life: Seasons 1 and 2 | This Film Is Not Yet Rated | Up Series | Very Young Girls | Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price | Witch Hunt | Word Wars | World's Most Dangerous Gang

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