"Zodiac Killer Project" and "Predators"

True crime content has raised a lot of concerns over the years for many reasons, and I'm seeing more and more media trying to address this.  Two features from last year stood out as excellent examples of the work of filmmakers trying to grapple with some of the major issues, one focusing more on form and the other one more on content.  

"Zodiac Killer Project" is a festival favorite that went largely under the radar due to its more experimental nature.   It's not a film about the Zodiac Killer, but writer/director Charlie Shackleton's film about a Zodiac Killer documentary that he was not able to make.  Shackleton intended to adapt Lyndon E. Lafferty's 2012 book, The Zodiac Killer Cover-Up, AKA The Silenced Badge, about a policeman's investigation into a specific suspect, but negotiations for the rights fell through.  This left Shackleton with detailed plans for his film and no way to realize them.  However, he still wanted to share his vision.

So, instead of making the documentary, he made a satirical meta-documentary, where he tells the audience all about the movie that never got made, using a lot of clips from other true-crime documentaries to illustrate various storytelling devices that he expected to use, and some limited original footage - mostly location shots around the Bay Area.  It's a very minimalist film, consisting almost entirely of Shackleton's narration and the cobbled-together images.  However, "Zodiac Killer Project" isn't just a look into the mind of a stymied filmmaker trying to let go of a project he was very invested in, but turns out to be a really biting critique of the whole true-crime genre.  Initially it's funny and illuminating to watch Shackleton point out all the common tropes of true-crime documentaries, from the use of grainy home movies and "evocative B-roll," to the prevalence of law enforcement figures named Bulldog, all while constantly referencing other true-crime docs like "Making a Murderer." 

As Shackleton describes how he planned to adapt parts of Lafferty's book and stage various pieces of action, the whole endeavor becomes increasingly troubling and the satire gets darker.  He's perfectly willing to stage scenes that never happened and play up the sinister nature of the suspect to make his narrative more engrossing to the viewer, even though he knows it's all bunk.  He points out the fallacies and inaccuracies of other directors, and then praises them in the next breath for making such entertaining work.  There's a fantastic moment where he describes a location that he plans to show as foreboding and creepy due to the appearance of disturbing painted symbols found there - only to reveal that the symbols are actually just scribbles and lewd graffiti that looks like a kid drew them.  Shackleton is the least interested in actually filling in the real details of the Zodiac killings, which are too well known and don't give him enough room to be more creative.       

And now it's time to talk about "Predators," David Osit's examination of the history and legacy of "To Catch a Predator," the popular reality television series that aired as a part of "Dateline NBC" from 2004 to 2007.  Osit was able to obtain behind the scenes footage and unused footage shot during the show's notorious sting operations, designed to entrap and force on-camera confrontations with purported child predators.  He also interviewed some of the crew and talent involved, including host Chris Hansen and actors who played the fake minors in the stings.  If you already thought that "To Catch a Predator" was ethically troubling, "Predators" just makes it all the more obvious that the show often operated on dubious moral grounds.  

Osit, an assault survivor, is very careful about how he presents his material.  Throughout, his position is that despite the show's enormous success, it does little to help the victims or to shed any light on why the crimes are committed.  Meanwhile there was every incentive for Hansen and his collaborators to operate recklessly, dehumanizing their targets and ignoring safety considerations to a disturbing degree.  The harms that resulted were foreseeable and preventable.  The show's targets were often caught in a way that meant they couldn't be prosecuted, and the public nature of the confrontations resulted in more than one suicide.  The success of "To Catch a Predator" also led to multiple copycat operations being run by amateurs chasing clout.  

There's been a spate of similar media lately, revealing what was going on behind the scenes of other prominent television shows from the same era, like "Fit for TV: The Reality of The Biggest Loser" and "Quiet on the Set."  "Predators" is much more thoughtful than most of these, because it has a very personal throughline thanks to Osit, and the goal is to dispel much of the sensationalism that the others encourage.  Some of the most effective moments are very simple, like seeing the additional footage of the "To Catch a Predator" targets in more human moments.  There are no real bombshells, just a conscious reframing of the narrative to call our assumptions into question.  Hansen says nothing new here, but nonetheless his interview is damning.  

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"The Librarians" and "Mr. Nobody Against Putin"

More spotlights of recent documentaries today, this time focusing on films about the politicization of education systems.

"The Librarians," directed by Kim A. Snyder, profiles several librarians and former librarians from Texas and Florida, who were at the center of the book banning controversies in their states in the post-COVID years.  From the opening frames, it is a film that had my blood boiling, because of the subject matter.  The bans are documented in great detail, shown to be based on the flimsiest pretexts and being pushed by bad faith actors from the very beginning.  Eventually, they are revealed to be the result of a concerted campaign by a handful of extremist Christian Nationalist groups to try and demonize the LGBT community by spearheading a witch hunt of inclusive educators and librarians.  

When we look back on this period in American history, "The Librarians" will provide one of the clearest examples of how the culture war was propagated through fearmongering and misinformation, and the deleterious effects on some of our most vital educational and informational systems.  The film is structured around the interviews with the librarians, who make it very clear that the losers in this fight are always the children who lose vital access to books.  While a portion of the film is spent tracing where the money is coming from that is funding the hate campaigns, I appreciate that little time is wasted on the aims of the Christian Nationalists, whose viewpoint is based entirely in ignorance and intolerance.  Instead, the focus stays on the heroic efforts of the librarians, who do their best to resist not only against their single-minded harassers, but against the complacency of the administrators who often try to appease the mob.  Some of the most uplifting moments I've seen in any film all year are the clips of the students who are inspired to speak out against the bans.

A very stark example of what happens when you don't push back against this kind of politicization of education comes in "Mr Nobody Against Putin," a documentary largely put together by Pavel Talankin.  Talankin is the former videographer and events coordinator of a primary school in the Russian industrial town of Karabash.  Due to his position, he was able to document what happened to his school and its students after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, when the government made drastic changes to the curriculum and instituted new measures to spread propaganda and nationalist fervor.  Talankin narrates and provides context to his footage, which is very rough and piecemeal, but does a good job of capturing a very personal view of Russia's propaganda tactics in a very specific context.

"Mr. Nobody" benefits from the POV of Talankin, who is exactly the kind of energetic, optimistic personality you'd expect to be working as part of the staff of a primary school.  He spends the early part of the film situating us in Karabash and showing us the ins and outs of school life before the government's disruptive edicts start coming in.  The propaganda itself is fascinating, progressing from heavy-handed justifications for the war being delivered by the teachers, to showy demonstrations of loyalty to the state, and lessons where both the teachers and the students have scripted parts.  Significant efforts are expended on looking the part of Russian patriots, and performing for the cameras, as video documentation of their efforts has to be regularly uploaded to a government website.  It's a fascinating, sobering look at the way old totalitarian tactics and new technology have intersected.

I wish we'd gotten a better look at the lives of some of the individual students, but Talankin is only able to include a very few glimpses of young men bound for the front lines and the families they leave behind.  Considering that Talankin was forced to flee Russia by mid-2024, however, I'm not inclined to look a gift horse in the mouth.  

   

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"The Alabama Solution" and "Perfect Neighbor"

All the better documentaries I've watched lately are about social issues that are deeply infuriating, and require more emotional bandwidth to process than I normally have.  It's taken me a while to work up to writing about them, but I definitely want to spotlight these films.  I've got several that I want to talk about, so I'm grouping them by subject matter.  Today, we're going to look at two recent docs that look at the state of the American justice system.

First up, "The Alabama Solution," directed by Andrew Jarecki and Charlotte Kaufman.  This is an examination of the Alabama prison system, which is in such a horrific state that it prompted a federal investigation in 2016.  Much of the footage of the appalling conditions inside the prisons was captured by the inmates themselves on smuggled cell-phones.  The film follows the lives of multiple incarcerated men, including activists Robert Earl Council and Melvin Ray.  We also see the progression of the investigations over multiple years, and an inmate strike that took place in 2022.  Most damningly, the directors also dig into the financial incentives for the terrible treatment of the prisoners, who are exploited as a labor force and fuel the lucrative incarceration industry.    

What is so effective about "The Alabama Solution" is that it is giving a rare voice and platform to the inmates.  The cell-phone footage in particular is acutely disturbing because it shows the world as the inmates view it, unvarnished and uninhibited.  Some of the same subject matter was covered in Ava Duvernay's excellent documentary "The 13th," but "The Alabama Solution" is far more direct and visceral, because we see the abuses up close.  Probably the most important thing that "The Alabama Solution" accomplishes is humanizing its subjects, providing a portrait of the prisoners that stands in direct opposition to the political narrative being used to justify the indefensible actions of those in power.  As with all documentaries about the American justice system, race may not explicitly be a central theme, but the divide between the predominantly black and brown inmates and the almost all-white Alabama politicians is obvious.

A smaller scale, but no less engrossing film is "The Perfect Neighbor," from director Geeta Gandbhir.  In 2023 Ajike Owens, an African-American mother of four, was murdered by her white neighbor Susan Lorincz, in a case that became a subject of debate related to Florida's "stand your ground" laws.  The majority of the film is composed of bodycam and other law enforcement footage, along with audio from 911 calls, documenting the two years worth of incidents involving Lorincz that led up to the killing.  We learn that Lorincz was isolated and paranoid, constantly calling the cops on the neighborhood kids who played on her street.  We learn that she and Owens had had confrontations before, leading Lorincz to claim she felt fearful and persecuted.  From her interactions with law enforcement, we see that she's manipulative, selfish, and holds grudges.    

Susan Lorincz makes for an infuriating subject, who seems to live in her own, miserable closed-off bubble where everyone is out to get her.  However, what's more interesting is how she's treated by the police, especially in the final round of interrogations, which the director includes lengthy, uninterrupted portions of.  The authorities seem to have endless patience with her in every interaction, always polite and giving her the benefit of the doubt, even when her claims are ridiculous.  It's clear that this deference is a tactic in the interrogation scenes, which do not end well for her.  However, it's still striking to compare the treatment of Lorincz to the prevalent image of overzealous policing we see with African-Americans and other racial minority groups.  Director Gandbhir offers little commentary, allowing the footage to speak for itself.  However, an exception comes at the very end of the film, where it is stated plainly that "stand your ground laws" are disproportionately used by white perpetrators against black victims.

Next time, we're going to look at two films about education.  Stay tuned.

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The Nostalgia Documentaries

I've noticed that several of the prominent documentaries I've watched over the last few months fall into a specific category, and seem to be targeting the same audience.  These are documentaries that spotlight performers and entertainers who became prominent in the 1970s and 1980s, with narratives that largely serve as retrospectives of their careers.  This includes "Pee-Wee as Himself," "Cheech & Chong's Last Movie," and "Devo."  Though biographical documentaries have always been common, lately it feels like everyone from that era is getting one.  Over the past few years we've had documentaries about Val Kilmer, Anthony Bourdain, Sly Stone, Christopher Reeves, Steve Martin, Albert Brooks, Jim Henson, John Candy and multiple Beatles tributes.  Plenty more are on their way soon.

Now, some of these documentaries are very good.  "Pee-Wee as Himself" stands out as one of the best, not only because it reveals Paul Reubens' private life and struggles as a persecuted gay man in the 1980s, but also because of the adversarial relationship that Reubens had with the documentarian Matt Wolf, which is on display in their interviews.  However, most of the others follow a similar pattern of either having the documentary subject reminisce about their life and career, hopefully offering an entertaining personal account of what it was like to live through their successes and failures, or if they're deceased, piecing together this information through interviews with their friends and family.  There are a few that fall into the category of exposes or tell-alls, like the Martha Stewart and Bill Cosby documentaries, but these are fairly rare.  

Instead, most of the nostalgia-centered docs are all about evoking good feelings and providing an excuse to traipse down memory lane.  I've been fascinated with some of these, because these celebrities come from an era where I was aware enough to understand who they were, but often too young to really grasp the historical context in which they existed.  "Cheech & Chong's Last Movie," for instance, did an excellent job of not just getting across who Cheech and Chong were in their heyday, but the counterculture of the '70s that they were a part of.  I also like the framing device of the two old stoners going on one last imaginary road trip together, occasionally picking up other interviewees as their passengers.   Alternately, I have a much harder time with music documentaries like "Becoming Led Zeppelin" and "Pavements" because music culture remains ever elusive for me.  I think you have to be an existing fan to really appreciate what they're doing. 

Fundamentally, there's nothing wrong with spending a few hours listening to Steve Martin or Lionel Richie tell stories about the good old days, but I do feel that some of these biographical documentaries get awfully indulgent, to the point where some of them are pretty obviously just vanity projects.  The more ambitious, hard-hitting historical documentaries are much more rigorous about their research, and often much more critical of their subjects.  I prefer the documentaries where the subject is deceased, because the filmmakers are often willing to paint a less flattering portrait, with more shadings and more nuances.  One of my favorite documentaries remains "Mr Best Fiend," Werner Herzog's wonderfully candid look at his tumultuous friendship with the Austrian actor and madman, Klaus Kinski.  

I love seeing extraordinary individuals getting the spotlight, and learning more about what was really going on behind the scenes for certain moments in pop culture, but I find myself raising my eyebrows more often lately when I learn who the subject of a new documentary is.  I'm not going to name specific names, but it often feels like if one documentary about a particular performer is successful, everyone in their cohort is suddenly next in line.  Frankly, not everyone needs a documentary, though in the vlogging age I suppose there's the material for anyone to make their own.

It's going to get very interesting in a few decades when we're all old enough to be nostalgic for any years where social media was active.  I guess I should just enjoy this era of nostalgia docs while it lasts.  

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Rewatching "American Cinema"

I've always liked documentaries about movies and television, and I feel like being a nerd about media was part of my fandom DNA from early on.  One of the earliest ones that stuck with me was the 1995 "American Cinema" series, an ambitious ten-part PBS program that was designed to be part of an educational course.  

The main part of the series consists of ten hour-long episodes on topics like "The Studio System," and "Film in the Television Age," each with an introduction by John Lithgow and narration from an array of different actors.  There were also a few shorter supplementary episodes intended for classroom use.  My local PBS stations ran marathons of the series a few times, but the two episodes I kept stumbling across were "The Film School Generation" and "The Edge of Hollywood."  The first is about the rise of Francis Ford Coppola, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and their cohort in the 1960s and 1970s.  The second is about independent American cinema in the late 1980s and early 1990s, including films from Spike Lee, Quentin Tarantino, and the Coen brothers.  

I recently got a chance to finally watch the whole "American Cinema" series from start to finish, and I found it well worth my time.  It was impossible to cover all of the history of American moviemaking in the allotted time, but I found "American Cinema" a worthy attempt.  There's some variance in quality from episode to episode, but all feature good interviews from historians, working directors, and other Hollywood players.  There are also lots and lots of classic film clips that it must have been a monumental effort to licence.  Five of the episodes are focused on the history of American cinema, looking at the development of the studios, movie stars, and some of the major changes affecting the industry.  The other five are about the movies themselves, specifically a handful of genres that had their genesis in Hollywood - the western, the film noir, and the romantic comedy.  The opening episode is entirely devoted to the "Hollywood style," where Martin Scorsese and Sydney Pollack, among others, try to define what made Hollywood films stand out from the crowd.  

With the benefit of hindsight thirty years later, it's fascinating to see the choices and delineations made by "American Cinema" that don't match up with modern expectations.  There are episodes that spotlight directors who came out of the early television ecosystem, and the "movie brats" who came up from films schools, but the term "New Hollywood" hadn't been popularized yet, and Peter Biskind's Easy Riders, Raging Bulls wouldn't be published for a few more years.  "Combat films" get a whole episode, but there's barely any mention of musicals or horror or animation.  African-American cinema, LGBT cinema, and outsider cinema are all lumped together in the one episode on independent cinema.  

Clearly a lot of thought and care went into the series, however, and despite some of the dodgy calls on what was included and what wasn't, I still found the presentations valuable.  Information in episodes like "The Star" may no longer be relevant to 2020s Hollywood, as it compares the careers of Golden Age stars like Joan Crawford and the more modern Julia Roberts.  However, I found the discussion made for a fantastic time capsule for the brief era where movie stars were real players in the movie business, and had a major say in what got made.  Many of the interviews are very prescient, such as Robert Altman predicting the death of physical film in favor of "electronic" media.  

Because I am easily swayed by nostalgia, I was frequently delighted with the chance to see directors like Scorsese and Spielberg as they were at the height of their powers thirty years ago, departed old masters like Joseph Mankiewicz and Billy Wilder, and even appearances by an appallingly young-looking Whit Stillman and Gregg Araki.  There are a couple of problematic figures in the mix - James Toback participates in one of the supplementary discussions - but the series manages to avoid tripping over most of the serious cultural landmines that I was expecting.  

Modern viewers might find the early installments too laudatory and inoffensive, but the romantic comedy episode has a great time letting Amy Heckerling and Kathryn Bigelow point out the conservative gender politics inherent in the genre and provide a more critical viewpoint.  Other directors air plenty of grievances about their time in Hollywood, and the examinations of the business side of the movies are all pretty even-handed.  I find the historical episodes much more interesting than the ones on genre and style, maybe because this is where I feel the series' age the most acutely.

There have been many other documentaries made about American cinema since "American Cinema," some much better and more insightful about their specific subjects.   However, I haven't found anything as ambitious or comprehensive on the subject yet.  And I do think it's important to acknowledge that this is one of my foundational media experiences, especially as a film fan, and something that I'll continue to judge every other entertainment documentary against.      

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My Top Ten Best Documentary Oscar Winners

So… this list is going to require a lot of caveats.  The films that have won the Best Documentary Academy Awards are an eclectic bunch, but tend to fall into a few major categories, and I wanted all of them represented - music films, nature films, biographies, histories, war films, exposes, and current events.  Of course, there's a lot of crossover.  

I also have significant biases regarding some of the subject matter, despite my doing my best to be objective about the quality of the films below.  Frankly, though many of these films are vital and important, they can be difficult to watch.  If this were a list of my favorite Best Documentary winners, it would be a list of all the music documentaries and a few biographies of artists and performers.  The list below is unranked, and ordered by release date.     

 

The Sea Around Us (1952) - Based on the book by biologist and environmentalist Rachel Carson, Irwin Allen's ocean documentary offers stunning views of marine life, coastal habitats, and fragile ecosystems.  The format of the film is old fashioned and education oriented, as most documentaries were in this era, but the content remains engrossing.  I was especially struck by the way it closed on a warning about climate change - already a concern in 1952.  

The War Game (1966) - A game-changer at the time of its release, "The War Game" is better described as a partially fictional film made in the documentary style.  Sections of it are made up of accounts of a hypothetical nuclear war and the consequences of it faced by everyday British citizens.  However, many of the dramatizations are based on real governmental positions and policies.  A whole genre of nuclear war fiction can be traced back to this film.  

Woodstock (1970) - "Woodstock" is here to represent all the music films and films about musicians.  The legendary concert film was a box office smash, and nominated for Best Editing and Best Sound along with winning Best Documentary.  It played a huge part in popularizing and adding to the mythology of Woodstock as a major event in American culture.  You simply can't beat the lineup, or the sight of Jimi Hendrix becoming an icon in the finale.

Hearts and Minds (1974) - A sobering accounting of American involvement in the Vietnam War, that some have called propaganda.  However, plenty of propaganda has won awards in this category, and it seems fair that an anti-war film that doesn't paint the United States military in the best light should also have its say.  Everything about "Hearts and Minds" was incredibly controversial in its day, so my kudos to the Academy for their guts in giving it the statuette. 

Harlan County, USA (1976) - It was very difficult to choose between this film and Barbara Kopple's other documentary about a labor strike, "American Dream."  I ultimately went with "Harlan County" because of its historical importance and influence.  The film captures a miners' strike from all angles, and in the process captures the spirit of the affected communities as they existed in this era.  Nobody could dream up some of the characters we meet in this film.

Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt (1989) - This one took me by surprise, as it's a very simple, low-key film that simply seeks to humanize AIDS patients through a series of memorials by their loved ones.  Director and activist Rob Epstein had previously won for "The Times of Harvey Milk," and here covers the history of the AIDS crisis and the NAMES Project in very personal and empathetic terms.  Also, I want to highlight the excellent score by Bobby McFerrin.   

When We Were Kings (1996) - I only knew Muhammad Ali by reputation, having been born well after his heyday, and it was so gratifying to get an up-close and personal look at the boxer in his prime.  The subject of the documentary is the 1974 "Rumble in the Jungle" match between Ali and George Foreman, but Ali is the star attraction.  It's made very clear why the man had such an outsized influence on American culture, and the film offers plenty of him.

Bowling for Columbine (2002) - Whatever you think about Michael Moore, his politics, or his methods, he made a fantastic film about American gun violence, with the Columbine high school shooting as a focal point.  The film says less about the killers and their motives than it does about the dangers of American gun culture, and that's exactly as it should be.  Moore's interviews with Charlton Heston and Marilyn Manson remain especially indelible.  

Taxi to the Dark Side (2007) - I should disclose that current events definitely influenced this pick.  Alex Gibney's wrenching deep dive into the use of torture on Afghan detainees and others during the War on Terror is one of the most upsetting, but most important films about the modern American military.  Of all the lessons that it imparts, the most important one is this - the guards and the lowest level wrongdoers were the only ones who ever saw consequences.

O.J.: Made in America (2016) - Finally, of all the biographies and sports films in this category, the one that went above and beyond was Ezra Edelman's massive four hour examination of O.J. Simpson.  It offers so much context for the public's fascination with his criminal case, from charting his rise as a black sports hero, to the racial upheaval in Los Angeles at the time of his arrest.  I lived through the events, but didn't really understand them until this film.

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The Best Documentary Oscar Winners

I watched all the winners of the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature Film that I hadn't seen yet over the last year, well all but the four I couldn't find.  I sort of stumbled into this exercise by accident, having gained access to a lot of titles unexpectedly.  Also, the controversy around the most recent winner, "No Other Land" made me curious about the past winners.  There has been an awful lot of fuss raised over the years about an Oscar category that has been consistently terrible at recognizing great work, to the point where people feel obliged to keep track of all the great documentaries, like "Hoop Dreams" and "The Thin Blue Line" that weren't even nominated.

However, I don't hear much mention of the films that were recognized, or how they show the evolving attitudes of audiences and the Academy toward documentary films over time.  None of the films I watched were bad, though many are significantly dated.  Among them are some of the documentary all-timers, including Peter Davis' "Hearts and Minds," Barbara Kopple's "Harlan County U.S.A" and Errol Morris' "The Fog of War."  

The Best Documentary categories have existed since 1942, and all the winners from that decade were WWII and military propaganda pictures.  The US Navy won twice for "The Battle of Midway" and "The Fighting Lady."  The 50s were dominated by stirring portraits of historical figures, and nature films.  Three of the Disney True-Life Adventure series won, including the notorious "White Wilderness" that staged a lemming mass suicide.  Jacques Cousteau's underwater adventures won twice - and watching those filled in a big cultural blind spot for me.  

However, from fairly early on the nominees included films trying to address current social ills, like "The Quiet One" and "On the Bowery."  A major turning point was the 1967 winner, "The War Game," Peter Watkins' depiction of a fictional nuclear war and its aftermath.   In the '60s, the nominees became more eclectic and diverse, including documentaries about sports, contemporary life, scientific innovations, and social activism.  The 1970 winner was the concert film "Woodstock," which had also been a box office smash.    There was an interesting run of nominees promoting greater environmental consciousness in the early '70s, including winner "The Hellstrom Chronicle," supplanting the cutesy Disney True-Life Adventures.  The Best Documentary Feature Film category by this point looked more or less like it does today.  Nominees almost always fit into certain categories - biographies, histories, nature films, sports films, music and performing arts films, corruption exposés, and attempts to shed light on present day social issues.  

Watching the winners of the '70s, '80s, and early  '90s often felt like watching an alternate history of the United States, trying to add to and correct common misconceptions about the American experience.  "Hearts and Minds" tackled the American government's involvement in the Vietnam War, while "The Panama Connection" was an exposé on their actions in Panama.  "Broken Rainbow" detailed the history of abuses of Native Americans, and "Harlan County U.S.A" and "American Dream" covered contentious labor strikes.  "Common Threads" addressed the AIDS crisis, "Down and Out in America" targeted Reagenomics, and "Just Another Missing Kid" spotlighted the sorry state of American law enforcement.  The biopics were of unusual figures like gay politician Harvey Milk, revivalist preacher Marjoe Gortner, a mentally challenged man named Philly Wohl, and children's dance teacher Jacques d'Amboise.  The films may not have always been great, but they reflected issues of the day that Academy voters were concerned with.  The wildest winner of the era was probably "Scared Straight!" about the infamous program where prison inmates would attempt to terrify juvenile delinquents into better behavior.

Even though "The Thin Blue Line" and "Roger & Me" failed to win nominations, their influence on the documentary form was clear.  However, the film I feel had the most impact on the Best Documentary Feature Film category in the '90s wasn't a documentary.  WWII films remained popular during this period, including winners like "Genocide" and "Hotel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie."  However, it wasn't until after "Schindler's List" brought renewed interest in the Holocaust that we had a run of four Holocaust documentaries winning in six years, from 1995 to 2000, plus "One Day in September" winning in 1999.  None have won since. 

I'll refrain from putting forth too many generalizations about the more recent winners, except to say that I found the quality of the films generally got better.  1994 was when the big controversy over "Hoop Dreams" happened, and the documentary nominating process was overhauled.  The awards have always been a platform for various causes - the category started out awarding propaganda films, remember - but we still get the occasional musician biopic or inspirational sports story winning the statuette.  "No Other Land" is far from the most politically charged or controversial winner, and its win will probably be viewed extremely well in retrospect.  

I'll have a Top Ten of my favorites posted in a couple of days.

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My Favorite Shirley Clarke Film

Shirley Clarke was a Jewish female filmmaker who came to prominence in the 1960s, which meant she was almost unique.  She started out as a dancer and choreographer, who moved in independent and experimental film circles when she crossed over into filmmaking.  Her later work in the '70s and '80s consists almost totally of live video projects and dance-related endeavors.    When she was active as a feature filmmaker, her work was almost totally unknown in the mainstream, and it was only after significant restoration efforts by Milestone Films that much of Clarke's work became available to the wider public in 2012.  

Though some of her short films won awards and were well received, her features were not.  Perhaps this is because so many of them were about African-American men.  As Clarke put it, she didn't know how to deal with the "woman question," and found that she could relate better to the struggles of black men - a Harlem gang member, a beloved jazz musician, and a fascinating gay hustler and performer, who goes by the name Jason Holliday.  Holliday is the subject of Clarke's 1967 film "Portrait of Jason," and I don't know whether to call it a documentary or not, because I have no idea how much of what we see is real and how much is a performance by the title character.  

Jason Holliday is the only person we ever see in "Portrait of Jason," as he's being interviewed by Clarke and her partner Carl Lee, who can be heard offscreen.  The interview took place entirely in Clarke's living room, during a shoot that reportedly lasted for twelve hours.  The film cuts the footage down to 105 minutes.  During this time, Holliday reels off stories about his life and adventures, several of them salacious and shocking.  He frequently appears to be inebriated.  He giggles, rambles, and seems to be on the verge of tears at one point.  He spars with the interviewers, who call him out for his bad behavior, becoming more and more emotional as time goes on.  There's been a lot of conjecture about what really happened during the course of that marathon all-day shoot.  Was Clarke's goal to get Holliday to break down on camera?  Is the film exploitative?  Is it in bad taste?  Holliday himself seemed to be delighted with the results in interviews, or at least with the attention and the notoriety the film brought him.       

How much of what Holliday is telling us, is the truth?  His stories certainly have the ring of authenticity to them, giving us a glimpse of the usually invisible lives of sex workers, LGBT individuals, and others on the lowest rung of the social ladder.  What's so striking here is Holliday's attitude.  He speaks about controversial, and at the time what would be considered indelicate subject matter, with great pride and wit.  He's not ashamed of who he is and what he's done, even when challenged by the interviewers.  He styles himself as an aspiring cabaret performer, sharing his observations on life and love with his audience.  Jason Holliday is a persona, but it's a persona that has been chosen wholeheartedly.  

Shirley Clarke had a fascinating career, and by her own admission it was only possible because she was rich and privileged, with the connections to get things made that other filmmakers couldn't.  However, she used that privilege to put the lives of black men, heroin addicts, the unseen, and the ignored on screen.  Her first feature film (which also happens to be the first found-footage film), "The Connection," was the subject of a pivotal censorship lawsuit due to its realistic use of vulgarity.  Most of her narrative films blur the lines between truth and fiction, telling their stories through the improvisations of non-actors, usually to a jazz soundtrack.  "Portrait of Jason" has more in common with these films than her straight documentaries, which is why I'm still hesitant to put it into either category.  

Finally, I want to make a quick note that Andy Warhol tried to make a movie with Jason Holliday before Shirley Clarke did, which never came together.  And this is probably the closest I'll ever come to covering Andy Warhol's work on this blog.   

What I've Seen - Shirley Clarke

The Connection (1961)

Robert Frost: A Lover's Quarrel with the World (1963)

The Cool World (1963)

Portrait of Jason (1967)

Ornette: Made in America (1985)

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"Ibelin" and "Grand Theft Hamlet"

Machinima media is media that uses the existing digital assets and graphics engines of video games to create original animated works.  It's been around for a long time, with the popular "Red v. Blue" series still going after twenty years.  Two recent Machinima documentaries - or rather documentaries that use significant amounts of Machinima - have been getting some attention, so I want to take the opportunity to acknowledge a part of the cinema landscape I'm not very familiar with.  

"Ibelin," or "The Remarkable Life of Ibelin" in some markets, chronicles the life of a Norwegian man named Mats Steen, an avid gamer whose life was limited and cut short by a severe form of muscular dystrophy.  After his death, his family discovered his online life, based around the "World of Warcraft" online game, where he found friends and even love.  Director Benjamin Ree made one of my favorite recent documentaries, "The Painter and the Thief," and displays the same playfulness with the narrative here.  We jump backwards and forwards in time, and significant portions of the film are spent in-game with recreations of Steen's interactions, using the "World of Warcraft" graphics.  The graphics are pretty outdated looking, and the animation is nothing fancy, but they still get across the personalities of the people involved.

While there's a lot about "Ibelin" that feels piecemeal and cobbled together from secondhand accounts, it successfully makes its case that gamers can develop meaningful relationships in digital spaces.  And this was especially important for an individual who didn't have a chance to create those relationships otherwise.  Most of the events of "Ibelin" took place in the early 2010s, and gaming culture has changed considerably, but it's nice to have an optimistic look at how online gaming has the potential to make a positive impact on people's lives.  I was surprised at how much real emotion the filmmakers were able to evoke from scenes of fantasy RPG avatars just having conversations with each other.  

Because I'm not much of a gamer, part of me still thinks of modern video games as resembling "World of Warcraft."  So, I was completely knocked for a loop when I got a look at "Grand Theft Auto Online," the setting for "Grand Theft Hamlet."  This is a pandemic film, where a pair of UK actors, Sam Crane and Mark Oosterveen, are playing "Grand Theft Auto Online" during lockdown together, when they get the bright idea to stage a production of William Shakespeare's "Hamlet" in the virtual environment.  Sam's wife, filmmaker Pinny Grylls, documents the process of holding auditions, assembling a cast, trying to keep the rehearsal process on track, and finally holding the live performance.  It's not an easy venture, with so many amateur participants, and everyone tends to get killed a lot by griefers.                 

Though the emotional hooks aren't as strong as in "Ibelin," I still found "Grand Theft Hamlet" thoroughly watchable.  A big part of this is because the graphics of "Grand Theft Auto Online" are so much more cinematic than "World of Warcraft."  The gameplay takes place in a virtual recreation of neighborhoods in the Los Angeles area, with much more realistic and sophisticated graphics.  Crane and Oosterveen come up with their bright idea when they stumble across the game's version of The Hollywood Bowl - standing empty and ready for a performance.  Their version of "Hamlet" ends up being staged in multiple in-game locations, including rooftops, street corners, and even on a moving blimp.  The whole time, they're under threat of their avatars being shot by machine guns and blown up by rocket launchers.

As with "Ibelin," "Grand Theft Hamlet" often feels pieced together out of available footage and whatever limited recreations the filmmakers could manage on a minimal budget.  However, I like that the whole film, aside from a brief coda, takes place in the game.  We hear the players discussing their personal lives and real world complications, and a particularly poignant moment comes when we witness a marital heart-to-heart, but we never leave the "Grand Theft Auto Online" world.  A fascinating reveal late in the film, which I wish had been expanded on, is that one of the organizers is spending much more time on the project than anyone else because it's the only thing he has to focus on in lockdown.       

As for the "Hamlet" performance itself, we only get to see the highlight reel, but it's thrilling nonetheless.

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Two Jim Henson Documentaries

Thirty years ago in 1994, I developed an obsession with "The World of Jim Henson," a documentary produced for PBS's "Great Performances" series.  I'd grown up with "Sesame Street" and the Muppet movies, but only vaguely understood who Jim Henson was.  Seeing the path of his whole career and fantastic success laid out in 85 minutes, with interviews with all these famous people making the case for his extraordinary worldwide impact was revelatory.  After an initial viewing of "The World of Jim Henson," I made it my mission to find and watch the later Henson projects that it talked about - "The Dark Crystal," "Labyrinth," and "Jim Henson's The Storyteller."  I was a diehard fantasy fan, and always on the lookout for this kind of media anyway.  I also scoured the TV listings for months so I could rewatch the documentary.  I still have it recorded on VHS tape, and occasionally pull it out for comfort viewing.

It's only now, after so many years, that I can start to turn a critical eye toward the program.  "The World of Jim Henson" was made only a few years after Henson's death in 1990, and was very much making the case for Henson's legacy.  It characterized Jim Henson as a once-in-a-lifetime artistic visionary, who built a creative empire out of puppets, challenged the rules of the television and film, and managed to help do some real social good through the programs he helped to create, like "Sesame Street" and "Fraggle Rock."  The ambitious failures that came in the later part of his career were explained as being the result of Henson being "pigeonholed" as a children's performer.  And in any case, his death at the age of 53 was so tragic that I don't blame anyone for not wanting to say a bad word about him.  I watched "The World of Jim Henson" as a teenager, and took all of this to heart.  For a very long time, I considered Henson a sort of ideal for the kind of creative person I wanted to be when I grew up.      

And now it's 2024, and Ron Howard has made a new documentary, "Jim Henson: Idea Man," for Disney+.  It covers a lot of the same material as "The World of Jim Henson," and even uses clips of some of the interviews, since many of the participants have since passed away - notably Jane Nebel Henson, Jim's wife and collaborator.  "Idea Man," however, digs much deeper into who Jim Henson was as a person, faults and all.  With a longer running time, and more access to Henson's archives, there's more time spent examining Jim Henson's childhood and early days.  There's also significant emphasis placed on Henson's career in puppetry being essentially begun as a means to an end.  He saw puppets as a way to get into the television industry, but was more of an experimental filmmaker at heart.  He did commercials to fund his short films like the Oscar nominated "Time Piece."  He did "Sesame Street" because it meant he got to make some of the filmed segments that had nothing to do with the Muppets, like "Numerosity" and "The King of Eight."

Interviews with family members also present a much more nuanced portrait of Jim Henson.  He was a workaholic and constantly on the road, so he essentially had no home life.  His marriage was troubled for a long time, and fell apart by the mid 1980s.  His children describe not having much of a relationship with him until they were old enough to start working on his productions.  Fame and success did affect him negatively, and several of his failures weren't simply a matter of being pigeonholed.  I appreciated that "Idea Man" added some necessary context to one of the most devastating stories told in "The World of Jim Henson," where the studio executives all walked out of an early screening of Henson's ambitious fantasy feature, "The Dark Crystal."  That early  version of the film, Frank Oz reveals, was one where none of the characters spoke English, but their own made-up languages.  After dubbing some comprehensible dialogue into the film, "The Dark Crystal" actually broke even at the box office.

To be clear, most of the interviewees had nothing but good things to say about Jim Henson.  It was lovely to see Jennifer Connelly and Rita Moreno sharing their working experiences, and a new Frank Oz interview is always a treat.  However, I appreciate that "Idea Man" is a much more well-rounded and honest look at Henson and his work.  "The World of Jim Henson" is still a great watch, and spends more time on the later projects like "The Storyteller" and "The Jim Henson Hour," but "Idea Man" is the one to see if you really want to know about the man behind the Muppets.

After two movies about Jim Henson (and that Defunctland series), I'd like a documentary about the Jim Henson Company since 1990.  They've existed for about as long without Jim Henson as they have with him, and survived some big ups and downs over the last three decades.  How they're still standing after all this time surely must be a compelling story too.       

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How to Blog About "John Wilson"

I haven't written about the "How to With John Wilson" documentary series before now, because I haven't watched the show consistently.  It was a show that took me a few tries to get on the same wavelength with, because it's so utterly unique.  There are three seasons of six episodes each, where our host, writer, and cinematographer, John Wilson, gives advice on a particular topic of the day, like "How to Put up Scaffolding" or "How to Be Spontaneous."  

This is really just a jumping off point for Wilson's long, rambling, existential monologues as he explores his native New York, capturing all the little oddities and idiosyncrasies of life in the city.  His spoken observations are ironically contrasted with the images his camera captures, and he's prone to going off on these amazing tangents, and meeting interesting characters from all walks of life.  In one episode he ends up in a convention of "Avatar" enthusiasts.  In one episode he checks in on self-cleaning public bathrooms.  Many episodes are deeply introspective and involve exploring Wilson's own life and search for self-improvement.  Sometimes he touches on fairly deep and heady material, as Wilson struggles with how to approach modern society and his place in it.  The show is also known for wild turns, like the time "How to Appreciate Wine" turned into a meditation on how to fit in with groups, and we eventually learned that John Wilson participated in a contentious college a capella competition that ended in beef with a notorious NXIVM cult leader.  However, Wilson's adventures always start with the mundane and ordinary little frustrations of living in a city crammed with so many other human beings.  

"John Wilson" feels like watching a series of video diaries, made by a very endearing, very anxious man who doesn't get in front of the camera if he can help it.  Wilson has a great knack for catching weird moments of modern life on film that are unquestionably authentic.  Clever editing might smooth out some of the bumpy transitions, but I take Wilson at his word that many of the lucky chance encounters he has are real.  He's incredibly relatable and reassuringly ordinary in every interaction, and thus able to express the experience of living in New York in a way that I don't think anyone else ever has.  Wilson also has a love of nerdy minutiae that is reflected in the show.  There's an entire, wondrous episode just devoted to scaffolding, the omnipresent, building-obscuring structures that every New-Yorker is well-practiced in navigating themselves around.  And Wilson is able to construct an insightful, funny half hour on the topic that both despairs of how scaffolding has gotten so out of hand in the city, and celebrates how New Yorkers have found ways to deal with it, work around it, and maybe even embrace it.

Many episodes take Wilson out of New York, and send him on long trips to interview people across the country and attend events, like a convention on the Mandela effect in Idaho, or a vacuum cleaner enthusiast convention in Pennsylvania.  He always winds up back home, however, and we get to know his spartan apartment, his cat, and his ancient landlady, who he always addresses as "Mama."  The style of the show is very DIY and no frills, which just adds to its charm.  The opening titles are done in Wilson's messy scribbles, and he provides the voice over narration for every single episode.  It's a little disappointing to learn that Wilson isn't a one-man filmmaker, doesn't shoot all the footage in the show himself, and has help on his scripts.  However, his vision and his voice never feel compromised for a second.    

"John Wilson" makes for an excellent time capsule of 2020s New York, especially one episode from the first season - "How to Cook the Perfect Risotto," that starts with John Wilson's attempts at cooking and ends with the city shutting down as the COVID lockdowns start taking effect.  This collision with current events is truly surreal, and seen through Wilson's eyes it feels especially anxious and bleak.  It's a turn that he clearly didn't script, but dutifully filmed and preserved as part of his life.  And I'm very, very grateful that he was able to share it with us, and that HBO somehow funded three seasons of this strange, profound, ineffable and truly singular piece of television.    

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"SmartLess" Brings the Laughs

There's a very specific kind of documentary about performers on tour, usually about musicians, though most of the ones I've seen have been about comedians.  Some spend significant time capturing the live shows for posterity, but then also look in on all the parts of touring that happen between performances - catching flights, killing time on tour buses, trying to navigate venues, settling into hotel rooms, and sometimes taking in the local sights.  They offer a view of a strange, liminal existence, as nobody is at their best on the road, away from their families and everything that grounds them.  

And so we come to "SmartLess," which is an interview podcast hosted by Jason Bateman, Will Arnett, and Sean Hayes.  The trio are friends in real life, and started "SmartLess" during the pandemic, taking turns springing surprise guests on the other two.  Because the three of them are famous people, the guests include A-list actors like George Clooney, sports stars like LeBron James, and even President Biden.  In 2022, the three of them went on a special cross-country tour together, presenting "SmartLess" to live audiences in six cities across the USA.  A six episode documentary series, shot in black and white, currently available on Max (though who knows for how much longer), chronicles their adventures.  It's called "SmartLess: On the Road."

I admit I had never heard of "SmartLess" until I stumbled across the documentary series.  I did not start listening to the podcast "SmartLess" until after I had watched all of it.  Immediately, the appeal of the enterprise was obvious.  The hook is the surprise guests every week, but the real fun is listening to these three guys banter and gab with each other with comfortable familiarity.  On tour, they make no attempt to look good for the cameras or hold back their kvetching.  They're frequently getting on each other's nerves, amplifying each other's frustrations, and talking one another down.  I've seen media featuring all of these actors, but I wasn't familiar with them at all offscreen.  Bateman turns out to be a tightly wound neurotic with many dietary obsessions.  Arnett is there to call him out and roll his eyes every step of the way.  Hayes has a lot of little brother energy.  They're constantly insulting and jabbing at each other, as only close friends can. 

And it's hilarious.  I don't know why one of the funniest things I've seen in 2023 is Jason Bateman ordering room service like a total lunatic, but it's undeniable.  It was a little jarring at first to hear Bateman and Arnett casually tearing each other down, but as the show went on, I got my head around their antagonistic, dryly sarcastic dynamic.  And soon they're on Segways for a city tour of Washington DC together, and then goofing around on the ice of a frozen lake in Wisconsin, and finally home in Los Angeles.  I love the jetlagged, grumpy hangout vibe, and the long, meandering running times, and the nervous backstage anticipation.  The tour mostly goes well except when it doesn't - there's real tension in the Boston episode, where one of the shows totally bombs. 

"SmartLess" the podcast has been a nice, easy listen with its slickly produced, well-paced, hour-long episodes.  However, I can't help wishing for a sequel to the much shaggier, unvarnished documentary.  It reminds me so much of "The Trip" movies, which also feature cantankerous, middle-aged white guys constantly needling each other and talking too much about their ailments and food.  However, there's a far more intimate, comfortable mood with the "SmartLess" guys.  They're not afraid of letting us see a few glimpses of their families and talking about their colorful pasts.  I think it's helpful to be at least a little familiar with the work of the trio beforehand, but it's not necessary.  

The guest list, however, is truly remarkable, especially if you're a comedy fan.  There are some genuinely pleasant surprises in the mix.  I was disappointed that we didn't get to hear more of some of the featured interviews, but then again I still have roughly three years of the show to catch up on.  And the miniseries isn't about the guests - it's about three guys and their friendship, and how a cross-country tour in pandemic times would drive anyone insane.    

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Disney+ Docs

No media company is committed to the gilding of their own mythology as much as The Walt Disney Company, which extends to their PIXAR, Marvel and Lucasfilm operations too.  Padding out their Disney+ shows have been a ton of making-of docuseries, behind-the-scenes looks at Disney parks and media operations, and general content about Disney.  I've watched more than a few of these, which have existed in various forms long before there was a Disney+ streaming service.  There's some good stuff here, as long as you understand what you're getting into.

Programs like "Behind the Attraction," and "One Day at Disney," about the Disney theme parks have a very familiar format, featuring insider looks at Disney operations, sometimes with a familiar face acting as host and tour guide, with a couple of celebrity cameos along the way.  The parks have been in operation for over half a century, and have constantly been featured in specials for anniversaries, inside looks, and tech demonstrations.  These have always essentially been commercials for the company aimed at Disney geeks.  More stripped down versions used to run on the various cable travel and arts channels with different branding as easy filler.  

The "Marvel Studios: Assembled" and "Disney Gallery" series are the kind of making-of material that are usually found as special features on the DVDs and Blu-Ray discs for various Marvel and Lucasfilm media, but are now content in and of themselves.  "Assembled" in particular has gotten more elaborate over time as episodes aren't just devoted to the Disney+ shows, but also the Marvel features.  Bruce Campbell acted as a host for the recent "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" episode.  It's always a very slick, very cleaned-up behind-the-scenes narrative, with nary a negative comment about anything, but you're not going to get this level of access to the productions from anywhere else.  Also, being on Disney+ means that the behind-the-scenes for a movie like "Turning Red" can expand into practically its own feature.

I like the more formal documentary series about various divisions like "The Imagineering Story" and the recent ILM series, "Light & Magic."  These tend to approach their subjects from a more historical angle, the way that older Disney docs like "Frank & Ollie" and "Walt & El Grupo" have.  I suspect that "Light & Magic" was released when it was in part to counter the less flattering Lucasfilm narrative found in the Vice docu series about the "Star Wars" franchise, "Icons Unearthed: Star Wars."  "Light & Magic" covers some of the same ground in early episodes, as it examines the making of the original "Star Wars" in 1977.  Where "Icons Unearthed" is more interested in playing up the drama of the production, "Light & Magic" is all about giving the hardworking ILM effects creators their due.  There's a beautiful sequence in the first episode where Joe Johnston explains his design process for the Millennium Falcon, step by step.  And if that's not magic, I don't know what is.

I also appreciate that there are some truly nerdy series here, for the Disney die-hards.  "Prop Culture" unleashes movie nerd and collector Dan Lanigan on the Disney archives, and has him use props and costumes from Disney movies like "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" as a starting point for interviews with artists and actors.  "Sketchbook" shows you how to draw Disney characters, with actual Disney animators talking you through sketching the Genie, Simba, or Mirabel from "Encanto."  You pick up quickly that the show is not really about the drawing, but to let Disney spotlight a bunch of diverse artists and their personal stories.  "Marvel 616" is a docuseries about some of the more obscure corners of the Marvel universe, devoting episodes to a Japanese TV adaptation of "Spider-man" and the cosplay community.

I truly cannot imagine another studio like Paramount or Warner Bros. putting so much into generating this kind of content.  Well, in a few cases I know they've tried, but it would never have the audience that Disney has managed to cultivate over decades and decades of carefully maintaining their sterling brand and family friendly credentials.  No matter how blatant the advertising or the self-mythologizing is, all of these series are entertaining and high quality productions.  They're made by people who you can tell care immensely about what they're doing.  And for that, I salute the effort.     

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My Favorite Frederick Wiseman Movie

Frederick Wiseman has been making his documentaries about American institutions for decades now.  He's made films about hospitals, schools, museums, courts, social services, a boxing gym, a racetrack, and once the New York neighborhood of Jackson Heights.   Some have been frightening, some mundane, and all of them thought-provoking.  Because of his fly-on-the-wall style and naturalistic pacing, his films are highly immersive.  However, Wiseman insists they are meant to be subjective rather than objective, capturing an experience that is not free from bias, often with narratives that are very pointed in their messaging.    

Initially, I intended to write this post about "Welfare" or "Juvenile Court," provocative early films showing the dysfunction of our governmental systems, and the plight of the people dependent on them.  These features are very powerful and influential, but as a viewer I don't enjoy watching them very much.  I tend to like Wiseman's more recent films more.  As his stature has grown and his projects have gotten longer, and longer, they've become less like investigative journalism and more concerned with capturing the daily rhythms of a particular place.  They fit right into the "slow cinema" aesthetic, and as much as I might grumble about their multi-hour length, I've enjoyed the relaxing, undemanding experience of watching Wiseman films like "Ex Libris" and "National Gallery."  I also appreciate that there's really no one but Wiseman who makes documentaries like this - long, slow, absorbing, and almost totally free of commentary.  

"At Berkeley" is 244 minutes long, Wiseman's third longest film.  It profiles an institution that is quite functional, the University of California, at Berkeley, one of the best public universities in the United States.  Wiseman's camera roams all over campus, giving us a macroscopic view of the university.  There are plenty of familiar shots of students walking between classes, attending Cal football games, and enjoying the picturesque campus.  However, the film mostly consists of Wiseman looking in on various classes, lectures, and meetings.  There's a few minutes with former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, now a professor, delivering a lecture on public policy.  There's a segment in a lab with grad students who are busy testing robots and prosthetic limbs.  There's a seminar on Henry David Throreau's "Walden."  There's a glimpse of rehearsals for "Our Town."  No introductions are provided, and no text onscreen clues you in on who anyone is, or what topic you're about to listen to.  However, it's almost impossible not to listen, not to form opinions, and not to learn, just a little.  

We also get to see parts of Berkeley that almost no one does.  Material related to administrators discussing imminent tuition increases and student protests generate the most tension in the film.  "At Berkeley" was filmed during a state fiscal crisis, when UC and CSU funding was cut, leading to budget shortfalls.  This is a looming existential danger that rears its head many times, in many different contexts.   At the same time, it's comforting to see smart people earnestly trying to tackle these problems head-on.  I love the scene with university administrators meeting with the local police to plan out security measures for student unrest, with clear-headed and empathetic discussion of the concerns on all sides.  In the budget meetings, there is spirited debate on how to preserve the university's diversity and accessibility to low-income students.  None of these segments are very long or conclusive, but Wiseman gives them more time to play out than you might think.    

As always, Wiseman leaves viewers to draw their own conclusions about what he has presented.  You could read the film as a chronicle of the university's decline due to the deprioritization of education by the state, or as a triumph as the staff and educators commit to soldiering on regardless.  You could see the efforts of the administration as admirable or cynical as they struggle to preserve the ideals that the university is supposed to embody and promote.  I find it notable that where Weisman chooses to focus his efforts is on maintaining a balance - showing both sciences and humanities, arts and sports, the ideal of what the university should be, and the difficult reality of living up to that ideal.   

What I've Seen - Frederick Wiseman

Titicut Follies (1967)

High School (1968)

Hospital (1970)

Juvenile Court (1973)

Primate (1974)

Welfare (1975)

Blind (1987)

Boxing Gym (2010)

At Berkeley (2013)

National Gallery (2014)

Ex Libris: The New York Public Library (2017)

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