Sorrow and the Pity
Probaby the greatest feat of documentary filmmaking in the history of cinema.
'Heavy' isn't the word for it, and it weighs in over 4 hours long.
But every self-aware adult on the planet should watch it at least once.
Hoop Dreams
As DT pointed out, everything you need to know about race relations in America in a two hour capsule. Fascinating, involving, entertaining, heartbreaking.
Paradise Lost
Another one by the team responsible for Brother's Keeper. Not quite as good, but still excellent. A goth kid in the midwest gets railroaded for murder. A fine portrait of outcast disaffected youth, small town bias and the tragic collision between the two. The danger of blaming the "other" for problems resting much closer to home concretized.
Burden of Dreams
My second favorite documentary about the making of a film. Les Blank (an inspiration for and contemporary of Errol Morris) films Werner Herzog (himself a documentarian of note) filming his epic of the creative process, Fitzcarraldo.
It's only flaw is the documentary team running of money; the end of the film is rushed and sketched in...you don't get the payoff you deserve after the appropriately monumental buildup.
Still, it's well worth watching just for the mania of leading man Klaus Kinski and for Herzog's crazed monolog about the rot of the jungle.
Gates of Heaven
Another winner from Erroll Morris, tracking the history of a pet cemetary and the personalities surrounding its creation and rebirth. Big themes well grounded by fascinating characters, as usual with Morris.
No comments:
Post a Comment