"How the sausage is made" type documentaries (politics specifically)

[Oedipus]

I’d love some suggestions for “how the sausage is made” kinds of documentaries. I really, really liked 6 Days To Air about the South Park guys and would love to see more of those about areas of work that remain somewhat mysterious - mainly film or politics but also wrestling or sports if you want to include those too.

I’ve seen The War Room and really enjoyed it and I actually liked the FX show The Comedians, though apparently I was the only one.

[Oedipus]

Bump

[installLSC]

Startup.com, a documentary on a (failed) online company during the dotcom boom. It’s incredibly telling how the two founders appear more like overgrown boys than serious businessmen.
Overnight, the story of how “Boondock Saints” creator Troy Duffy both became Hollywood’s biggest shooting star and how he crashed to earth. Duffy gets slammed regularly by most observers, and he certainly doesn’t help himself at all. But it also started the first chips in the Weinstein brothers armor by showing how much of their mystique was mostly marketing.

[rowrrbazzle]

“Taxes Behind Closed Doors”, Frontline, 1986. http://www.nytimes.com/1986/04/15/movies/congress-and-taxes-behind-the-scenes.html

‘‘YOU’RE not going to see any profiles in courage here.’’

That line, repeated twice by Representative Dan Rostenkowski, the Illinois Democrat who is chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, is the main message of ‘‘Taxes Behind Closed Doors,’’ an unusually candid look at the decision-making process behind the tax-revision effort in Congress. The hourlong documentary can be seen tonight at 9 o’clock on Channel 13 as part of the strong ‘‘Frontline’’ series on public television.

The program is a civics lesson - of the sort rarely taught in school - on Administration and Congressional cynicism, lobbying, wheeling and dealing, and just plain ‘‘honest graft’’ (in the famous phrase of George Washington Plunkett, the old Tammany Hall philosopher who left his mark in the annals of municipal corruption)

One member of Congress, noting how representatives get contributions from lobbyists seeking to insure tax exemptions for their favorite industries, observes: ‘‘The only reason it’s not called bribery is because Congress itself defines bribery.’’

[Shalmanese]

Game Change is the movie version of the book Game Change about the 2008 presidential campaigns. Although it’s not technically a documentary (actors play the characters involved), it does give you insight into how the sausage is made.