I love documentaries! A couple of favorites:
I thought Fog of War was incredible.
Hoop Dreams was the best documentary ever to be snubbed by Oscar - such an egregious oversight that the Academy was forced to change the rules regarding how documentaries are nominated.
I just got The Weather Underground in the mail from Netflix and am looking forward to watching it this week.
And another vote for Crumb!
The greatest documentary I’ve ever seen remains the Maysles brothers’ magnficent **Salesman** (now on a terrific Criterion DVD release)
To round out a personal Desert Island Baker’s Dozen:
Man With the Movie Camera (Vertov, 1929)
The Memphis Belle (Wyler, 1944)
Louisiana Story (Flaherty ,1948)
The Mystery of Picasso (Clouzot, 1956)
Harlan County, U.S.A. (Kopple, 1976)
Burden of Dreams (Blank, 1982)
Koyaanisqatsi (Reggio, 1983)
Sherman’s March (McElwee, 1986)
The Thin Blue Line (Morris, 1988)
The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl (Muller, 1993)
When We Were Kings (Gast, 1996)
Belfast, Maine (Wiseman, 1999)
The Cockettes, about a San Francisco performance group popular in the early 1970s was, I thought, fantastic. There’s tons of amazing footage taken by people in the group, a narrative that largely addresses the corruption of the counterculture by Broadway, and a complex reflection on the effects of AIDS on may of the performers.
Another good one by Errol Morris: Fast, Cheap, & Out of Control.
Another vote for Crumb.
And also “Stop Making Sense”, by Jonathan Demme.
Trekkies is pretty funny: like a real-life Christopher Guest movie - documents Star Trek ubergeeks, like the dentist who has his surgery furnished as “Star Fleet Dental”. Some of them seem quite disturbed, some seem like cool people having a laugh, but the tone is never sneering or judgemental. Interesting interviews with some of the Star Trek actors, too.
Hearts of Darkness about the making of Apocalypse Now was pretty good.
Anyone remember Ra (if that’s the actual title) about Thor Heydrahl’s (sp?) transatlantic voyage in a papyrus boat?
Spinal Tap is a mockumentary not a documentary. Christopher Guest’s movies are pretty damn good though. Check out his other mockumentaries Best In Show, A Mighty Wind, and Waiting for Guffman.
Some other mockumentaries that are really good…
Fear of a Black Hat
Fubar
Trailer Park Boys
Zelig
As far as “real” documentaries go, I recommend…
Crumb
Brother’s Keeper
Beyond The Mat
Mr. Death
Hearts of Darkness
Atomic Cafe
Decline of Western Civilization (Pts. 1 & 2)
Heavy Metal Parking Lot
Roger & Me
When We Were Kings
Hoop Dreams
Gates of Heaven
Another vote for Decline of Western Civilization I and II.
I’ll add to the list:
**We Sold Our Souls For Rock and Roll
Southern Comfort
Supersize Me
**
Sold Our Souls… isn’t available on DVD yet. It’s a documentary about OzzFest which is pretty neat.
You all know about Supersize Me, I’m sure.
As for Southern Comfort, I can’t reccommend it enough. It’s a beautiful, beautiful film.
I think I’m going to look into quite a few of the suggestions here.
Sorry, totally forgot one of my favorites (and one of the strangest)
Sherman’s March: A Mediation to the Possibility of Romantic Love in the South During an Era of Nuclear Weapons Proliferation
Rats in the Ranks, a very entertaining documentary about the cut and thrust of local government politics in a suburban Sydney council.
Southern Comfort and Capturing the Friedmans are two of the best films I have ever seen, regardless of genre. Just absolutely amazing on every level.
I’ve found fascinating a British documentary series called Seven Up!. The first documentary, Seven Up, was filmed in 1964. In the documentary a group of children, aged 7, from a variety of backgrounds were filmed talking about a whole number of subjects including what they wanted to be when they grew up.
Since then, director Michael Apted has returned to the willing participants every seven years about how their lives have changed or evolved. The most recent, Forty Two Up, was filmed in 1998.
It is a remarkable series.
Some of my favorites:
Paradise Lost - the story of the Robinhood Hills murders
Revelations - the continuing story of the robinhood hills murders
Keep the River on Your Right - the story of an artist turned amature anthropoligst who spent time in new guinea and Peru with cannibal indian tribes, and then returns years later while in his 70’s to revisit them.
Mr Death - the story of a man who improved designs for and repaired execution equipment who was asked to be an expert witness on the vailidity of the holocaust
Hellhouse - the story of christian hauntes houses in texas that help bring people to jesus through horror
Go Tigers! - the story of an Ohio town’s obcession with high school football
I’m surprised no one has mentioned Touching the Void. Fascinating, scary, gripping. Story of two young climbers who decided to try to climb a well-known peak in the Andes by a never-before-tried route (a route that has never been attempted since, either). On the way down, one of them breaks his leg…and the rest is history, so to speak.
My dad just sent me Stone Reader (along with the book that inspired it). Looks great. Anyone seen it?
I’d like to vote for Theremin. It’s the story of the Russian guy who invented the weird electronic instument in the 1930’s. He was a big hit in 1930’s New York high society, then he disappeared back in Stalinist Russia, not to be seen for fifty years, until the film makers found him.
“The Fog of War” is pretty good. It’s an interview of Robert MacNamera, the guy who was secretary of defense for most of the Vietnam War. He’s fairly candid - although Salon ran an interesting article about some of his omissions/distortions in the interview. Phillip Glass did the score, and this is probably the only documentary I’ve ever seen that I’d say is almost worth the price of a DVD just for the music.
Mentioned already but which I’d like to add my support to:
Far and the way the best documentaries I’ve seen:
Crumb
Burden of Dreams (which is much better than Hearts of Darkness - it’s about the making of Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo)
Also:
The Fog of War
Touching the Void
Not mentioned (unless I missed)
The Celluloid Closet
A Brief History of Time
Waco: The Rules of Engagement (which looks like crap from the cover but is a great documentary)
**Roger and Me ** (Michael Moore’s first and best)
Alos, it has to be mentioned, some of the best documentary work out there is on PBS’s Frontline.
I know I’m forgetting a bunch.
I thought about that one, but I don’t know if it counts as a “documentary”. Most of the on-screen action is a re-enactment of the climb and descent, which is overlaid with commentary by the climbers during a subsequent interview. That’s the most amazing thing about it, by the way: from the moment the movie starts, you know that both climbers survived, because they’re both being interviewed, but given what they went through on that mountain, you don’t see how it’s possible.
Anyway, I don’t know where “biography” or “non-fiction” ends and “documentary” begins, so I don’t know if Touching The Void counts.
Since many of my favorites have already been mentioned, I will just add American Hollow.
It’s about the trial and tribulations of an Appalachian family. It was directed by Rory Kennedy. The cousin who was to be married when John-John’s plane went down off the cape.