Documentary Email

Original Title: Documentary List
Original Date Sent: May 3, 2010
Sent to: A former co-worker.
Context: A co-worker had requested a series of movie recommendation emails. I have already posted the one about Film Noir (and truthfully I had forgotten that there was one about Horror Movies and was legitimately confused when I re-read the first line of this email). I sent this a year and a half ago and obviously I would add a few more that I've seen since then if I were to write a similar email today.

Here is my third promised list for you: Documentaries. I've decided to omit music/concert docs since those tend to be the most subjective of all movies (besides Comedies, I suppose). Once again, in order by director, not quality:

Grizzly Man (2005) dir. Werner Herzog: Herzog is my favorite director, hands down. I could do a whole list just with his movies. Even his stuff that fails is at least interesting in doing so. This is the best of his documentaries. I think you may have said that you've already seen this, so I won't go into detail. All I'll say is that this is one of those perfect matches between director and subject.

Lessons in Darkness (1992) dir. Werner Herzog: As the Iraqi Army was fleeing from Kuwait after the first Gulf War, they burned the oil fields. Werner Herzog travelled to Kuwait and filmed the burning oil fields. He then married that footage to a terrifying score and a Science Fiction narrative about an alien planet that had destroyed itself. It's truly a unique work and captures images unlike anything I've ever seen. One of my friends from college who is a Herzog fan thinks that this is his best movie. Not best documentary, best movie.

La Soufriere (1977) dir. Werner Herzog: An island community sits on an active volcano. That volcano is about to erupt. One resident decides to stay rather than evacuate the island with everybody else. Who better than Herzog to then travel to the island and find out why the man is staying. Herzog had already established himself as one of the world's craziest film makers, but this was the most fully-realized evidence of his death wish. This one is only 30 minutes long, so perhaps this is your best starting place for Herzog movies.

My Best Fiend (1999) dir. Werner Herzog: Chronicles Herzog's relationship with mercurial German actor Klaus Kinski. Despite making five movies together, they were never friends. In fact they traded several death threats. To make the degree of difficulty even higher, two of the movies they made together were filmed in the Amazon rain forest and a third in West Africa. The results are incredible. Kinski delivers some of the most intense performances ever caught on screen and Herzog was rarely better than when he was working with Kinski. This is essentially Herzog's love letter to his recently deceased muse and nemesis.

Burden of Dream (1982) dir. Les Blank: Herzog is so fascinating that several documentaries have been made ABOUT him. This is by far the best. The subject is Herzog's frequently doomed production of Fitzcaraldo, the story of a white colonist in South America who wants to bring an opera house to the small town where he lives. The original actor got sick and dropped out...Herzog pushed on. A border war broke out in South America (the border where they were shooting, of course)...Herzog pushed on. Klaus Kinski was so maniacal that the natives that were being used as extras tried to kill him...Herzog pushed on. Several of the European crew members left the shoot when they thought that their lives were in legitimate danger from the elements, the war, and (most of all) the director...Herzog pushed on. What makes this great are the interviews where Herzog rails against his opponents and insists that he would rather die that leave the film incomplete. An absolutely harrowing look at a type of filmmaking that we will probably never experience.

Gates of Heaven (1978) dir. Errol Morris: The greatest documentary ever made. Morris was a Herzog disciple, but his films are much different than Herzog's. They are more grounded in reality, more interested in the humanity of the subjects, and never use voiceover. The subject of this one is Pet Cemeteries; the people who run them, the people who pay to have their pets buried there, and all sorts of others in the periphery. What makes it so great is that this could easily have been a point-and-laugh movie. Instead, you get real people telling their real stories with very little interference and no editorializing (besides the editing, but that's a whole sticky subject of its own). You laugh when the characters are funny, for sure, but it's a much deeper look about why we love our pets. I could go on and on about this but you really just have to see it.

The Thin Blue Line (1988) dir. Errol Morris: I once had an AD tell me (and the rest of the staff) during a production meeting that "We're not curing cancer here." For the most part, that's true. Very few movies matter. Very few movies can change the world. This is a movie that matters. It tells the story of a Dallas police officer's murder and the bungled investigation that followed. This wrong man was convicted and sentenced to death. This movie got him out of jail and led to an overhaul of the whole Texas criminal justice system. Of course, the guy later sued Morris for the film's profits. In addition to being important, it's also a great piece of entertainment filmed in a really unique way (the milkshake part comes immediately to mind). Plus the Phillip Glass score is a great piece of film music that totally captures the mood of the story.

The Fog of War (2003) dir. Errol Morris: Morris breaks out his brand new Interrotron camera to grill former Secretary of Defense (under JFK and LBJ) Robert S. McNamara. McNamara recounts his involvement in firebombing Tokyo during World War Two, his presidency of the Ford Motor company, and, of course, Vietnam. Again, Morris never puts in his two cents. He lets McNamara tell his own story and leaves it to the viewer to decide if he is a great hero or a great villain of history.

King of Kong (2007) dir. Seth Gordon: One of the funniest, liveliest, entertaining documentaries I've ever seen. It is about one man's fight to set the Donkey Kong world record and the videogame establishment that stands in his way. The true star is Billy Mitchell, the long-time world record holder who is worshipped in the videogaming community. He carries himself with a menacing accomplishment and compares himself to both the Red Baron and the Abortion Debate. Great subjects, great soundtrack, infinitely rewatchable.

American Movie (1999) dir. Chris Smith: The story of a broke, pathetic independent filmmaker trying to finish his low-budget horror movie while simultaneously trying to piece his life together...and pretty much failing at both. Despite the fact that the film almost openly mocks the subject, there is a great undercurrent: why we make movies. Mark Borchardt doesn't WANT to make a movie, he HAS to make a movie. The kind of desire is certainly commendable and a trait that he has in common with the greatest of filmmakers, even if he doesn't share their talent.

Pumping Iron (1977) dir. George Butler & Robert Fiore: Arnold Schwarzenegger and Lou Ferrigno (TV's Incredible Hulk) battle for the Mr. Olympia title. Arnold is the long-time champion and Ferrigno is the young upstart from Brooklyn trying to make his mark in the competitive bodybuilding world. The best part is Arnold discussing how weight-lifting is like sex. One of the few documentaries that can be considered "star-making."

Street Fight (2005) dir. Marshall Curry: Who knew the 2002 Newark mayoral campaign was so interesting? Corey Booker (sort of a small-time Obama) takes aim at Sharpe James (sort of a small-time Al Sharpton) contend for the position using what can only be described as Third World tactics. The lingering question: Who in their right mind would want to be mayor of Newark?

Hoop Dreams (1994) dir. Steve James: Two black highschoolers (one from a private school, one from a tough public school) in Chicago gun for basketball scholarships and a future. Dives headfirst into the underhanded world of college sports recruiting and camps. The film is especially good (in a heartbreaking way) in hindsight since neither kid was ever able to make it to the NBA and instead were spit out by the machine that they so desperately wanted to be a part of.

Brother's Keeper (1992) dir. Joe Berlinger & Bruce Sinofsky: Berlinger went to Colgate and this movie was filmed in that area. So perhaps I'm a little biased. This is really great. Four elderly brothers live together in squalor on a farm in upstate New York. One of the brothers dies under mysterious circumstances. When the police come calling, the community rallies around the outcasts. No movie better supports my assertion that Upstate New York = The South.

Who Killed the Electric Car? (2006) dir. Chris Paine: Paine is also a Colgate grad. Again, maybe some bias. The film talks about how GM released an electric car that was so popular that...it was taken off the market. The film explores the possible culprits and interviews several former owners (including Mel Gibson). It's a bit heavy-handed at times and jumps to a few conclusions too quickly, but makes up for it by being legitimately entertaining.

Man with a Movie Camera (1929) dir. Dziga Vertov: One of the first documentaries and one of the strangest. Vertov took his camera around Moscow and basically just played around with it. In the process he discovered the possibilities that the moving image could have. He also captures some incredible images of the daily workings of Moscow.

I'm sure there are many more that I'm forgetting. And a few that I excluded due to your "no excessive violence" decree. This will get you started at least.

Mike Coast