Since the film premiered at Sundance in January, Manning has pleaded guilty and could face the death penalty, some Wikileaks supporters have taken issue with the film and Assange remains holed up in diplomatic limbo at the Ecuadorian embassy in London.
Added to this, another leak of seismic proportions rocked the US government in early June when a new whistle-blower named Edward Snowden released details of PRISM, a top-secret global spying program of unprecedented scope and size.
At the time of writing, Snowden is in diplomatic limbo at Moscow airport, but although some of the events and issues raised in the film are ongoing, there was much to chew on when I spoke with Gibney at the end of June.
The story of James Armstrong as he prepares in 2008 for the election ofĀ Americaās first black President and reflects on his own contribution to the Civil Rights Movement.
Raising questions about democracy and prejudice, it charts the long struggle for racial harmony
An exploration of the notorious deaths in 2007Ā of two Reuters journalists and several civilians at the hands of U.S. attack helicopters on the streets of Baghdad.
Recounted by US soldier Ethan McCord – one of the first troops on the scene – it has already won awards at the Tribeca and Rhode Island Film Festivals.
Documentary which exploresĀ a Pakistani plastic surgeon who returns to his homeland to operate on victims (all women) of acid violence, a grisly and disturbingĀ phenomenon in the country.
It focuses on two survivors of acid attacks and their battle for justice and their journey of healing. Directed by Daniel Junge and Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy.
Co-directed withĀ Michael Henry Wilson, itĀ explores Scorsese’s favourite American films grouped according to three different types of directors:
Illusionist: Pioneers such asĀ D.W. GriffithĀ orĀ F. W. Murnau, who helped create new editing techniques among other innovations that created the basic blueprint for film grammar and which laid the groundwork for the later appearance of sound and colour.
His documentaries about cinema are like the best film school you never went to, featuring invaluable insights from a master director and a passionate movie fan.
The best compliment I can pay them is that you should just see them as soon as you possibly can.
A 1971 documentary on the westerns of John Ford provides a fascinating insight into the director and his work.
Filled with clips from his work, it also contains interviews with colleagues such as John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, Henry Fonda and Andy Devine.
It was filmed just two years before he died in 1973 and the tone is somewhat elegiac, as the Western was dying as a genre along with the old studio system.
I love the formal way in which Wayne, Stewart and Fonda address the camera and share stories with their old director (Wayne calls Ford “Pappy”) along with expensive helicopter shots of the landscape he made famous.
Also note that it is screened in the 16:9 aspect ratio, which seems unusual for the TV of the time but was presumably so they could capture the widescreen images of his films.
For years, Iāve wanted to make a movie about the John F. Kennedy assassination.
Not because I thought I could prove that it was a conspiracy, or that I could prove it was a lone gunman, but because I believe that by looking at the assassination, we can learn a lot about the nature of investigation and evidence.
Why, after 48 years, are people still quarreling and quibbling about this case? What is it about this case that has led not to a solution, but to the endless proliferation of possible solutions?
A powerful exploration of the death penalty sees Werner Herzog probe deep into the horrors of killings in Texas.
There is a moment in Herzog’s latest film where he tells a young man that “I don’t have to like you”.
You soon realise why.
The man he’s speaking to is Michael Perry, who is on death row after being convicted, along with an accomplice, of murdering three people in October 2001.
Viewers might be conditioned to think that a film about the death penalty made by someone who opposes it (as Herzog does) might be an issue film.
But we quickly realise this isn’t an issue film about the death penalty and instead a long hard look at death itself, as seen through the ripple effects of a murder.
In a similar way to Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood it provides an examination of evil in the heartland of America.
Perry was convicted, along with Jason Burkett, of brutally killing three people in Conroe, Texas: a 50 year old nurse, her teenage son and his friend.
Herzog’s conversation with Perry is one of several: he also speaks to Burkett, the families of the prisoners and victims, as well as various people connected with the business of death, including a retired executioner and pastor.
Whilst it doesn’t come to any firm conclusion as to Perry’s guilt – he protests his innocence throughout – it seems likely he was guilty.
But the film is not an exploration of who did what and instead opts to probe around the question of why people kill and condone killing.
Since the resumption the death penalty in 1976 (after four years when it was suspended) Texas has executed nearly four times as many inmates as its closest rival, Virginia.
But Herzog isn’t singling out the Lone Star state – the disturbing details of the murder case are constantly in the air and some of the people not directly connected with the case have an impressive moral dignity.
There is the retired executioner who forgoes his pension because he is tired with legally killing people, whilst a pastor manages to give an unexpectedly profound answer to Herzog’sĀ curve ballĀ question about a squirrel.
As usual the small quirks of human behaviour are picked up on although this is a much more sober film than Herzogās recent work and at time Mark Degli Antoni’s sparse score gives it an appropriately sombre tone.
Herzog is a past master at eliciting revealing answers by asking deceptively straightforward questions.
One of the most startling dialogues here is with an articulate woman who became attracted to and pregnant by Burkett.
Quite how an inmate gets a woman pregnant from inside prison is an open question, but that is part of the rich tapestry Herzog weaves with this film, managing to touch upon the trend of death row groupies.
We never see him on screen and his regular DP Peter Zeitlinger opts for a restrained visual style, but this is purposely not a fly-on-the-wall film.
In fact itās quite the opposite, as Herzog’s probing presence and restless curiosity can be felt in every frame as he engages with the people surrounding the killings and the issues such actions raise.
Just a few days after filming in July 2010, Perry himself was killed by lethal injection, which provides the film with a brutal final stop.
It doesn’t come to any definitive conclusions, but therein lies its power – after the film is over the questions raised stay with us, precisely because they have no definitive answers.
The title of this film could describe many of Herzog’s previous movies, as it perfectly describes deep themes and stark feeling of awe embedded in his best work.
It is hard not to come out profoundly shaken as the questions of how and why human beings destroy one another are presented with suchĀ piercingĀ clarity that they linger in your mind long after the final credits.
Into the Abyss is out now in the US and opens in the UK on March 23rd
He has been in London this week promoting Tabloid, his new film about a bizarre scandal involving a beauty queen and a mormon, and the event was live streamed over the web on BAFTA Guru.
Interestingly, the film hit the headlines this week when Joyce McKinney (the main subject) announced she was suing Morris for her portrayal in the film, which has echoes of Randall Adams suing Morris, despite the fact that (or maybe because?) his 1988 film The Thin Blue Line got him off death row.
The crowd-sourced documentary Life in a Day is now available to watch in full on YouTube.
Depicting life on July 24th 2010, the film consists of over 80,000 video clips submitted to YouTube and is credited to director Kevin Macdonald and ‘the Youtube Community’, with Ridley Scott as producer.
Editor Joe Walker along with McDonald had the daunting task of whittling down over 4,500 hours of footage from 140 countries into a coherent 95 minutes.
You can watch it all here:
The film debuted at theĀ Sundance Film FestivalĀ back in January and the premiere was streamed live on YouTube.
It was also announced recently that a follow up film calledĀ Britain in a DayĀ will be made from videos from the public about their lives on November 12th, 2011.
Martin Scorsese’s documentary about George Harrison is an absorbing and surprisingly spiritual examination of the late musician.
After screening at the Telluride film festival last month, this 208 minute film recently aired on HBO in the US and has just come out on Blu-ray and DVD in the UK before a screening on BBC Two later this year.
Part of the realities of modern movie distribution mean that this long-form work only got a brief screening at cinemas around the UK last week, before its arrival in shops on Monday.
But it marks another landmark musical documentary for Scorsese after No Direction Home (2005), his outstanding film about Bob Dylan, as it charts the cultural impact of the Beatles from the perspective of its most reflective member.
This not only gives the familiar subject a fresh feel, but it also goes into deep and moving areas as it charts how he dealt with the onslaught of fame and attention that came with being in the biggest band in the world.
Split into two parts the first deals with his childhood in Liverpool, the early days of The Beatles in Hamburg and their eventual rise to the dizzying heights of global fame, whilst the second explores how he dealt with that fame, becoming a solo artist, staging charity concerts, financing Monty Python films and his growing interest in Indian music and philosophy.
Scorsese has long had an interest in rock music but here he seems to have found a kindred spirit in Harrison, whose desire to transcend the surface trappings of fame provides the real fuel for this film.
Brilliantly assembled from a wealth of archive footage, including some vintage photography of the Fab Four and lots of material from the Harrison home movie collection, it creates a fascinating portrait of a musician who unwittingly became part of something huge.
For Beatles fans, it doesn’t attempt the scale of the 11-hour Anthology project from 1995 – still the definitive filmed history of the band – but gives us a different perspective outside of the Lennon-McCartney axis and provides us with unexpected pleasures as it charts his spiritual growth.
There is the persistent theme running throughout that Harrison was the dark horse of the group, a songwriter who gradually became the equal of his more illustrious band mates and on Abbey Road actually surpassed them by writing Something (described by Frank Sinatra as one of the greatest love songs of the 20th century) and Here Comes the Sun.
Scorsese also captures the dizzying cultural ascendency of The Beatles as they conquer the music world and become icons.
It touches on the dynamics within the band: George’s early friendship with Paul, which later led to tensions caught on film during the Let it Be sessions, the bewildering rush of fame and money and how this affected their lives.
One revealing bit of footage early on sees the band members sign the official contracts that dissolved the group in 1970 – Harrison is uttering an Indian mantra as he signs, which hints at his trepidation at the end of an era but also his growing interest in Eastern spirituality.
Throughout his time in the Beatles he had written songs where this was noticeable – Love to You, Within Without You and The Inner Light – but, after forging a close friendship with Ravi Shankar, he seemed to be the only one who fully embraced both the musical and spiritual dimensions of something the rest of the band just flirted with.
This may explain why he made a great solo album – All Things Must Pass – very soon after The Beatles broke up and could navigate the subsequent years with a degree of serenity and humour.
These times included: the Concert for Bangladesh (a benefit gig that foreshadowed Live Aid); a bizarre divorce from first wife Patti Boyd (his friend Eric Clapton essentially stole her with his ‘blessing’); the purchase of a large Victorian estate (Friar Park in Henley-on-Thames); film production (he created Handmade Films after financing Monty Python’s The Life of Brian) and his love of F1.
For film aficionados his patronage of The Life of Brian (1979) – which was hugely controversial amongst some observers – and films such as Time Bandits (1981), The Long Good Friday 1980), Mona Lisa (1986) and Withnail & I (1987) was really quite remarkable.
His reason for stumping up the $4m to fund Life of Brian – “because I wanted to see the film” – was both the most brilliant and eloquent reason ever given by a film financier and as Eric Idle points out was “the most expensive cinema ticket in history”.
Going in, I was expecting the film to tail off towards the end, as it deals with the last phase of his life, but it is to the films great credit that it manages to hold the attention right until the closing credits.
His second wife Olivia and son Dhani speak movingly about his home life and his struggles with cancer that were made worse by a home invasion and assault in 1999.
That nasty attack, which Dhani believes shortened his life, had chilling echoes of Lennon’s death at the hands of Mark Chapman in 1980 – an event which was extra painful for George, as he was deeply concerned with the manner in which the human spirit leaves the body.
A lot of family archive material was made available and editor David Tedeschi, who also worked on Scorsese’s Dylan documentary, has managed to arrange it with considerable skill and judicious use of music.
It also sounds great, thanks to the new 5.1 surround mix that was done by a team including George Martinās son, Giles, who worked on the recent Love remixes.
There is always the danger of hagiography when it comes to films about famous figures, but this manages to paint a broad and interesting look at Harrison’s life without slipping into sentimentality.
Scorsese has long been interested in spirituality, whether it be the Catholicism of The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) or the Buddhism of Kundun (1997), and here he digs deep into Harrison’s spiritual awareness and how it kept him sane after the global goldfish bowl that was life during and after The Beatles.
Like Harrison himself, the film contains surprising depths and offers a refreshing glimpse into the world’s most famous band from the perspective of its most thoughtful member.
The interviewees include Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton, Yoko Ono and Olivia and Dhani Harrison.
Like Scorsese’s previous documentary about Bob Dylan – No Direction Home – this is split into two parts: the first section (94 mins) covers Harrison’s early life in Liverpool and career as a Beatle up until their break up in 1970.
The second part (114 mins) charts his solo career during the 1970s and 80s, up until the end of his life in November 2001.
It is being screened at cinemas across the UK and Dublin on October 4th.
In the US it will air on HBO in two parts on October 5th and 6th and in the UK on the BBC at some point (although details are unclear, it may be on BBC2 in November for the 10th anniversary of his death).
The DVD and Blu-ray come out soon after on October 10th.
This week sees the UK release of The Interrupters, a documentaryĀ which explores an anti-violence program in Chicago based on the theories of Gary Slutkin.
Directed by Steve James, who made the classic 1994 documentary Hoop Dreams, the film follows the work of CeaseFire, an initiative which has created and implemented the concept of ‘The Violence Interrupter’.
This sees three people – Ameena Matthews, Cobe Williams and Eddie Bocanegra – with experience of crime, work on the street to mediate conflicts which could result in violent crime.
Essentially, it’s a bit like Minority Report without all the high-tech stuff.
The CeaseFire project was founded in 1995 by Dr. Slutkin, who developed the theory that violence is like an infectious disease that can be prevented by changing behaviour.
Last year he gave this talk explaining his basic ideas:
The UK release of The Interrupters is incredibly timely, with riots and looting breaking out in London and other major cities in the same week it opens in UK cinemas.
I would strongly recommend the film, as it is easily one of the best films of the year and essential viewing in a week where violence and urban decay have dominated UK headlines.
The life of a chimpanzee raised like a human makes for a rich documentary, which is assembled with considerable skill and intelligence.
After the success of their previous film Man On Wire (2008), director James Marsh and producer Simon Chinn came across another story that has its roots in New York of the 1970s.
In November 1973, a professor at Columbia University began an experiment to raise a chimpanzee like a human being in order to explore how this would affect the his communication skills with humans.
The chimp was named Nim Chimpsky after Noam Chomsky, the linguist whose thesis stated that language is hard-wired to humans only, and the experiment became a practical exploration of communication.
If Man on Wire played like an unlikely heist movie, this film is more like Frankenstein or a genre film where scientific breakthroughs have unintended consequences.
But as it progresses, the film is more than just about a curious scientific exercise as it peels away the different layers of the story to become something profound and unsettling about the relationship between humans and animals.
The opening section explores the behavioural psychologist who supervised the experiment, Professor Herbert Terrace, and his various assistants during the 1970s who treated Nim like a human child – a period which saw him introduced to human breast milk, alcohol and marijuana.
This makes for some eye-opening comedy in places, which is brilliantly augmented with interviews, period photographs and various other media from the time.
Part of the virtues of choosing a scientific project as the subject of a documentary is that the original observational materials can be incorporated into the film, as well as contemporary TV reports and magazine covers.
But the film really hits another plateau when we follow what happened to Nim when he left the supervision of Professor Terrace and his various surrogate mothers.
The story then becomes a darker tale which gradually holds up a mirror to the humans involved with Nimās life.
Without going in to too much detail, it says a lot that the person who emerges with the most credit is Bob Ingersoll, a pot-smoking Grateful Dead fan who seemed to have Nimās best interests at heart.
The second half of the film has some genuinely surprising twists and if you arenāt familiar with the real-life events I would recommend going in cold.
Part of what makes the film so effective, is the overall journey of Nimās extraordinary life, which is presented with a meticulous care that is rare, even for a documentary.
Whilst the scientists depicted in Project Nim held up a mirror to a chimpanzee, the film also holds up a similar mirror to the audience about their relationship with animals and themselves.
On one level the film powerfully depicts the growing pains of a chimpanzee, but as this journey grows messy and painful, it is hard not to see the human parallels ā we share 98.7% of our DNA but also a range of emotions and experiences as we age.
Marsh develops this material in such a way that it never feels simplistic or sentimental and along with his editor Jinx Godfrey have managed to whittle the story down to something that is both specific and universal.
Whilst the story of Nim is about an experiment from another era, the film of Nim is a vivid document of the humans who conducted it.
In a week which sees the UK release of an expensive reboot of the Planet of the Apes franchise, it is ironic that the chimpanzee film made for a fraction of the budget should have more drama and surprise.
But then this year has been a very strong one for documentaries with films like Senna, The Interrupters and now Project Nim prove that real stories told well can provide the drama that expensively produced fiction simply cannot match.
Project Nim is out at selected UK cinemas from Friday 12th August
The brainchild of epidemiologist Gary Slutkin, the interrupter concept treats urban violence like an infectious disease ā if you go after the most infected, then you can stop the infection at its source.
Shot over the course of a year in Chicago, it focuses on three interrupters: Ameena Matthews, Cobe Williams and Eddie Bocanegra, who all have lives shaped by past violence on the streets.
But the fascination of the film lies is the way it combines the history of the interrupters with their practical application of Slutkinās theory.
CeaseFire utilises whatever nonviolent means possible to prevent violence: interrupters listen to the chatter on the streets and intervene when something is about to go wrong.
We see the power of ‘interruption’ in practice as Ameena, Cobe and Eddie apply it in the streets, using their contacts, negotiating skills and quick wits to diffuse potentially volatile situations in areas blighted by poverty and crime.
This means that in order to be effective, they have to exercise a special brand of street diplomacy, which can involve anything from talking out issues on a porch to an impromptu trip to the local food joint.
Ameena draws on her own background as the daughter of a notorious gang leader to befriend and mentor a girl who reminds her of her younger self; Cobe uses his experience of loss and time in prison to disarm people with his charm and good nature; whilst Eddieās empathetic work with young children is driven by his own haunted past.
Each of these narrative strands could potentially provide the basis for a gripping feature film, but Steve James weaves them skilfully into a documentary which tackles a deep problem with considerable insight and human drama.
Returning to the same city that formed the backdrop of his landmark film Hoop Dreams (1994), the film is refreshingly candid about the problem of urban violence and mercifully free of the fake inspiration of mainstream TV documentaries.
The cameras here capture some extraordinarily raw scenes: a quick-witted doorstep negotiation with an angry man bent on revenge; a dramatic apology delivered to the owners of a barbershop; an interrupter lying on a hospital bed; and a school girl describing the effects of violence, are just some of the most affecting things Iāve seen this year.
But their power comes from the extensive groundwork laid out by James and Kotlowitz, who shot over 300 hours of footage and took time to earn the trust of their interviewees and the communities where they filmed.
This means that what we see on screen is filled with the kind of genuine surprises, narrative suspense and inspiring actions that only real life can provide.
Perhaps the most lasting aspect of The Interrupters is that it serves as a welcome counterblast to traditional ways in which the issue of urban violence is framed.
Hollywood favours improbable stories of mavericks beating the odds, whilst mainstream media such as CNN and Fox devote plenty of time to the gory outcome of murder whilst ignoring the root causes.
James and Kotlowitz (who served as co-producer on the film) adopt a slower and more considered approach which reaps rich dividends in exploring the complexity of human beings and the environment they inhabit.
In a sense, the film stays true to the long form journalism that inspired it, as research and a careful fidelity to the facts and issues at hand provide the backbone to the film.
According to the filmmakers, the minimalist production values and aesthetic were partly a product of making their subjects feel comfortable on camera, but it also emphasises the human factor well, which after all is what the film is really about.
The real genius of The Interrupters is that it immerses us in a particular situation but ultimately achieves a universal significance in depicting human struggle and redemption.
It also acts as a valuable document of a time when Chicago was brought into the national spotlight through the death of Derrion Albert in September 2009, and almost became a symbol for the violence across US cities.
After an acclaimed run at film festivals including Sundance, Sheffield and South by Southwest, it is very hard not to see this as an early Oscar frontrunner for Best Documentary.
At Sundance its running time was 164 minutes, but will open in the UK at a more audience-friendly running time of around two hours.
This means its commercial theatrical prospects have been improved ā and it is a film I would urge you to see at a cinema ā but presumably there is enough raw material for an extended cut on DVD or even a mini-series.
Like Hoop Dreams, the achievement here is immense and the film shines a valuable light on an issue which affects not just Chicago but every city suffering the human cost of violence.
The lasting legacy may be that practical, grass roots activism can provide relief from even the most intractable urban problems.
In what is already a very strong year for documentaries, this is one of the very best.
The film explores Fischer’s rapid rise to national fame and the political significance of his clash with Spassky, which attracted global media coverage as a wider Cold War confrontation between America and Russia.
It then delves into the later years of his life as he effectively retired at the peak of his career and became a wandering enigma, exiled from his own country, making controversial statements after 9/11, before eventually retreating to Iceland where he died in 2008.
Directed by Liz Garbus, it premiered at Sundance earlier this year and mixes rare archive footage and photos, along with interviews from those close to Fischer as well as figures such as Gary Kasparov and Henry Kissinger.
I recently spoke to Liz in London at the offices at Dogwoof, who are releasing the film in the UK, and you can listen to the interview by clicking below:
Lucy Walkerās campaigning documentary is an absorbing warning about the dangers still posed by nuclear weapons, even though its optimism blurs the wider issues.
Interviewing a variety of political leaders (Mikhail Gorbachev, Pervez Musharraf and Jimmy Carter) along with experts in the field (Joseph Cirincione) it paints a sobering portrait of a persistent, yet still largely hidden, menace.
The film shows through inventive graphics and research, the newer threats have emerged over the last 20 years: how states such as Pakistan and North Korea have acquired nuclear capability; the problems of enriched uranium on the black market; the near-miss incidents caused by human error and the prospect of terrorists using a dirty bomb.
Aside from the aforementioned incident in 1995, there are documented cases involving shocking lapses within the US military and the elusive figure of Dr. A.Q. Khan, the shadowy scientist mostly responsible for Pakistan (and maybe others) getting the bomb.
Director Lucy Walker didnāt originate the project, so it perhaps lacks the personal touch of her other recent film Waste Land, but she handles the information and interviews with efficiency and intelligence.
Where the film falls down slightly, is in the campaigning edge which creeps in too often: we sees pointless vox pop interviews where members of the public around the world are asked about nuclear weapons.
Is it really a shocker that most people arenāt experts on this?
There is also a disconnect between the premise of the film, which is the noble aim of reducing global nuclear stocks to zero, and the dark side of humanity which it reveals.
After watching it you may be more convinced than ever that zero nuclear weapons is necessary but virtually impossible, so long as nation states continue to have them or pursue them.
In the last decade US foreign policy in the Middle East has probably helped accelerate proliferation, with states such as Iran seeing it as a necessary deterrent to what they regard as WesternĀ aggression (Tony Blair’s presence in the film only accentuates this point).
The example given in the film of South Africa dismantling their programme is misleading, as it remains hard not to conclude that the racist Apartheid regime simply didn’t wanting the incoming ANC government to have it.
The fact that Israel officially deny the existence of their nuclear weapons program (which convenientlyĀ allowsĀ them to opt out of theĀ Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) shows the extent to which even developed countries are literally in a state of denial about them.
One of the paradoxes of a nuclear arsenal is that countries feel safer with deadly weapons that they cannot use, as to do so would trigger their own destruction.
Speaking of which, at one point we see Osama bin Laden on screen and watching this film just days after his death was an interesting (if chilling) experience, which highlighted a pressing problem documentaries face in depicting current affairs.
As it happens the core of Countdown to Zero is still relevant, but in this day and age why does it take so long for a documentary like this to come out and risk being out of date?
Perhaps a multi-platform release around the buzz of opening at festivals might be an option for more arthouse films like this.
That being said, despite the ambitious optimism of the film’s campaign, this is still one that demands to be seen as it is an alarming reminder of the dark, self-destructive impulses of mankind.
Asif Kapadia’s documentary about the life and career of Ayrton Senna is a riveting portrait of the F1 driver.
Using only archive footage alongside voiceover contributions from those who knew and wrote about him, it constructs a compelling story of a sporting icon.
Beginning with his early career in Europe, it charts his rapid ascent to Formula One where he joined the McLaren team in the late 1980s and quickly established himself as a precocious rival to reigning world champion Alain Prost.
Exploring his extraordinary feats on the track and the joy his three world titles brought to his native Brazil, it then covers his tragic early death at the San Marino Grand Prix in 1994.
With judicious use of archive footage, which really comes alive on the big screen, it also covers the murkier politics off the track with former FIA boss Jean-Marie Balestre coming across as another rival to be beaten.
Although this will be devoured by motor racing fans, it also works as a fascinating introduction for those who know little or nothing about Senna and his impact on the sport.
Part of what makes it so exciting is his life story, which whilst not a rags-to-riches tale (he was from a wealthy Brazilian family), feels like the subject of an epic novel filled with memorable touches.
His iconic yellow helmet, loving and devoted parents, faith in God, millions he donated to charity, glamorous girlfriends and the driving skills which established him as one of the greatest racing drivers of all time are just some of the rich details which make up the story.
Assembled from hours of footage from various broadcasters and the F1 archives, the editing is frequently inspired, providing an unusual level of excitement for a documentary.
At one point we see some especially prophetic comments from Prost (“Ayrton Senna has a small problem, he thinks he canāt kill himself because he believes in God and I think that is very dangerous for other driversā) as well as footage from family home videos.
Some of the internal F1 videos of driver meetings are an eye-opening glimpse into the world of a dangerous sport and Sennaās pleas for more safety add to the tragic irony of his untimely demise.
There are also astute voiceover contributions from journalist Richard Williams, F1 doctor Sid Watkins and racing commentators GalvĆ£o Bueno and John Bisignano which explain and illuminate his impact on the sport and his home country.
For director Asif Kapadia this marks a change from his previous feature films (such as The Warrior and Far North) but he seems to have a natural feel for the drama of real life and of the intense highs which sport can deliver to both participants and fans.
A subtle but atmospheric use of music augments the film nicely and the use of internal F1 footage of the drivers observing the horrific accidents during that fateful weekend in 1994 brings a new perspective to what would be a turning point the sport as a whole, as major safety changes were brought in following the crash that killed Senna and Roland Ratzenberger.
Although the exact cause of Senna’s crash at Imola still remains a mystery, it seems an unlikely confluence of events was ultimately to blame: the new rules imposed on the Williams car that season, an engineering fault, a previous crash at the start of the race and bad luck in how the car actually crashed on impact.
On paper this might sound like a film just for devoted F1 fans, but perhaps its greatest achievement lies in how it not only makes the races truly thrilling but finds universality in the details of a sportsman’s life.
After scoring major buzz at Sundance earlier this year, Universal and Working Title will be quietly confident that it finds a deserving audience hungry for engaging factual entertainment.
With the summer movie season fuelled by comic book fantasy, Senna provides a welcome injection of real-life drama and excitement.
Presented by Steve Rider, the 50 minute programme features plenty of archive footage from Senna’s life and interviews with Frank Williams, Alain Prost, Gerhard Berger, Martin Brundle, Damon Hill, and Nigel Mansell.
Sad news Tim Hetherington died in Misrata now when covering the front line. Chris Hondros is in a serious status. Michel Brown and Guy are wounded but fine.
A regular contributor to Vanity Fair, Hetherington reported on wars for the last decade and along with author and journalist Sebastian Junger, co-directed the recent documentary Restrepo.
Detailing a year in the life of US soldiers stationed in the Korengal valley in Afghanistan, it won the Grand Jury Prize for best documentary at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival and got nominated for the Best Documentary Oscar.
This is a lengthy discussion about the film Hetherington did with Peter Bergen at the New America Foundation last summer:
Also worth looking at is this short film he made called ‘Diary’, which he uploaded to his offical Vimeo page.
Of it, he says:
‘Diary’ is a highly personal and experimental film that expresses the subjective experience of my work, and was made as an attempt to locate myself after ten years of reporting. It’s a kaleidoscope of images that link our western reality to the seemingly distant worlds we see in the media.
He was also a cameraman on the documentaries Liberia: An Uncivil War (2004) and The Devil Came on Horseback (2007), in addition to winning numerous awards for his photography including the World Press Photo of the Year 2007, the Rory Peck Award for Features and an Alfred I duPont award.
Yesterday marked the 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin‘s pioneering mission into space and First Orbit is a new documentary that gives audiences a view of what the cosmonaut would have seen.
Directed by Chris Riley, it uses footage shot aboard the International Space Station the film mixes some extraordinary images with Gagarin’s historic voice recordings aboard the Vostok 1 along with an original score by composer Philip Sheppard.
A riveting documentary about Danish soldiers in Afghanistan provides an eye-opening view of the War on Terror.
The directorial debut of Janus Metz is a startling one and the title comes from the military base in Helmand province where troops are based for six months.
Over the course of the film we see various troops as they leave home, go out on patrol, get involved in skirmishes with the Taliban and deal with civilians caught up in the conflict.
Comparisons will be made with last year’s Restrepo, the Oscar nominated documentary about US troops in the mountainous Korengal Valley, and even Susanne Bierās drama Brothers (2004) which explored how the conflict affected Danish troops.
But Armadillo has its own distinct flavour and part of this comes from the extraordinary level of access afforded to Metz and his crew, which one suspects would not have been afforded to a similar film about US and UK troops.
A brutal honesty pervades the film and it doesn’t shy away from showing details which donāt make it on to the nightly news.
We see soldiers bored in their downtime as they watch porn, play first-person shooter computer games and make phone calls to worries relatives.
When it comes to the battlefield, the uncertainty and mistrust of the localsĀ isn’tĀ whitewashed as the local elders demand to know why innocent people are dying in the crossfire and even children insult the troops.
But where the film kicks into another gear is with the remarkably candid and unsettling scenes where the troops confront the Taliban.
One fire fight involves a hauntingly ambiguous image of a corpse and the images captured are a world away from the carefully edited coverage you see on the nightly news.
The most memorable sequence involves an extraordinary shootout at dawn where the soldiers find themselves right next to five Taliban soldiers in a ditch.
After it screened at Cannes last year, this sequence proved controversial in Denmark and led to an official investigation which eventually cleared soldiers in the film of any wrongdoing.
Part of the footage was actually shot from a camera attached to a soldierās helmet, and the resulting images provide an incredible glimpse into life on the frontline.
This will prove a turn off for some audiences, but as a document of the brutal realities of war, it remains vivid and valuable document of this conflict.
There are numerous interviews with the soldiers and some revealing conversations, which capture their love of battle as well as the anxiety of knowing death is close by.
Shot on a variety of digital cameras, the visuals by DP Lars Skree are highly impressive and effectively mix the energy of combat with quieter moments.
The mood of the film is also greatly enhanced by Uno Helmerssonās atmospheric score and the sound design by Rasmus Winther.
There also appears to be a use of colour correction to give the film a consistent look, giving it the visual sheen of a dramatic feature like The Hurt Locker (2008).
Aside from being a technically brilliant portrait of modern warfare, Armadillo also poses interesting questions about how the war in Afghanistan has been represented.
Could it be that mainstream media have subconsciously watered their coverage down to gain access and submit to a conventional narrative of the troops as heroes? Recent revelations would suggest things are more complicated.
It is easy to forget that Afghanistan isnāt just an American war. The allied forces which make up the International Security Assistance Force are drawn from many countries from around the globe, including Denmark.
Perhaps it took a Danish perspective to craft such an illuminating film, which doesnāt take sides but still confronts the audience with difficult questions about an intractable conflict.
Armadillo is currently out at selected UK cinemas and is released on DVD on June 13th
Lucy Walker’s inspiring documentary Waste Land explores the work of Brazilian artist Vik Muniz as he creates art with the cooperation of garbage pickers at a landfill site just outside of Rio.
The film portrays their lives and working conditions as well as Muniz’s efforts to help them to gain recognition and better living conditions.
Nominated for the Best Documentary Oscar, the soundtrack features many tracks from Mobyās latest album āWait For Meā, and he has announced that he will add this album to his free film music site, www.mobygratis.com, making the full track listing available for all independent film makers to use for free.
You can watch many of the films at the Mobygratis Vimeo channel by clicking here.
Walker has also given the following interviews to PBS and MCN about the film:
Waste Land is out in selected UK cinemas from Friday 26th February
Unseen for years, it was only recently made public by the National Security Archive and is from a DVD supplied by the U.S. National Archives’ motion picture unit.
A grim but fascinating document of the Cold War, it feels like the kind of film Stanley Kubrick would have wanted to see in his research for Dr Strangelove (1964).
It says a lot about the era when the death of 60,000,000 citizens is described as a ‘success’.
Directed by Charles Ferguson it explores the deeply troubling relationship between financial and political elites which triggered the current recession.
Opening with a startling prologue about how Icelandās economy was ruined, it sets up in microcosm the wider story of how, over a period of 30 years, successive governments have allowed large financial institutions to inflate an economic system until it eventually burst in the autumn of 2008.
I spoke with director Charles Ferguson and producer Audrey Marrs at the London Film Festvial last October and we discussed how they made the film and the issues it raises.
For those unfamiliar with the film (and if you haven’t seen it, you really should), it features a filmmaker named Thierry Guetta who documents Banksy and then later becomes an artist himself, using the moniker of Mr. Brainwash.
This new cat-themed site purports to be that of a performance artist and ‘professional nose dancer’ Charlie Schmidt, the originator of the Keyboard Cat meme from a couple of years ago.
But it looks to me like this is the work of Banksy and his cohorts as they mount what is the most unusual campaign in Oscar history.
Whilst Hollywood and Oscar pundits digested the Oscar nominations yesterday, in the documentary category a small bombshell went off when Banksy’s debut film made it on to the final list.
It purports to be the story of Thierry Guetta, a Frenchman who films street artist in Los Angeles, who comes across the reclusive Banksy and also starts making his own art under the name ‘Mr. Brainwash’.
An intriguingly constructed film-within-a-film, it is also a gleefully anarchic film with plenty of intelligence underneath the frequently hilarious exterior.
At Sundance Banksy opted not to introduce the film but got festival director John Cooper to read a statement at the premiere:
“Ladies and gentlemen, and publicists.Trying to make a movie which truly conveys the raw thrill and expressive power of art is very difficult. So we havenāt bothered.
Instead, this is simply an everyday tale of life, longing, and mindless vandalism. Everything you are about to see is true, especially the bit where we all lie.
Thanks for coming, please donāt give away the ending on Twitter. And please, donāt try copying any of this stuff at home, wait until you get to work.”
The relatively low budget nature of the film, plus its unlikely subject matter, meant that the films backers (Cinetic Media) opted to bypass the traditional indie route of trying to attract a distributor.
John Sloss – who represented rights to the film at Sundance (and then Berlin) – co-founded a distribution entity called the Producers Distribution Agency with his Cinetic partner Bart Walker.
With a team including Richard Abramowitz, Donna Daniels and Marc Schiller, the company decided that despite offers coming in the wake of āExitāās acclaimed screenings in Sundance and Berlin, it was a highly unlikely project for a traditional distributor.
Sloss explained last week that this was due to the fact that not only is Banksy very controlling, but you canāt talk to him (Sloss himself never expects to meet the elusive man).
With this in mind Sloss raised a ‘sizeable chunk’ of money and created a specific distributor called the Producers Distribution Agency in order to give it a platform release.
To call this unconventional is an understatement (or is it all part of the ingenious marketing?), but the grass roots campaign worked with strong showings in April at cinemas in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.
The enigma of Banksy helped build buzz and once people saw the film as it rolled out to other cities, it ended up grossing a highly respectable $3.3m in the US and $4.9m worldwide.
“We very little P&A to work with in buying traditional awareness,ā he said. āWe did not have a āmoneyā New York Times review. So I think this is close to unprecedented to make this kind of film work with very limited resources.ā
Some didn’t expect it to make the final nominations, but yesterday it did and Banksy issued this statement:
āThis is a big surprise, I donāt agree with the concept of award ceremonies, but Iām prepared to make an exception for the ones Iām nominated for. The last time there was a naked man covered in gold paint in my house, it was me.ā
But will he show up at the Kodak Theatre on February 27th?
I’m expecting that another Banksy mural might be seen outside the morning after.
A short film by Andrew Wonder provides a fascinating glimpse of hidden areas in New York City.
Undercity follows urban historian Steve Duncan as he ventures underground to subway stations, sewers, tunnels where the homeless live and the Williamsburg Bridge.
Shot on a Canon 5D MKII in a raw, handheld style it is surprisngly tense, mainly down to the fact that much of the filming was illicit.
Not only does it look professional, but it has an exciting climax with some stunning shots of the Manhattan skyline.
The Economist have partnered with PBS for a film project in which they are seeking documentary submissions over the next year.
The aim is to eventualy showcase independent documentary films from around the world and eventually screen selected segments on PBS NewsHour through in 2011-2012.
They are looking for films that:
“…offer new ideas, perspectives, and insights that not only help make sense of the world, but also take a stand and provoke debate”.
The Project is open from January 10, 2011 and will continue monthly until January 2012.
Documentary shorts and feature-length films can be be submitted and winning films will get exposure through The Economist’s YouTube channel and Facebook page, and the PBS NewsHour website, YouTube and Hulu channels.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences have announced the 15 films which will compete for the Documentary Feature category at this year’s Oscars.
The Documentary branch of the academy viewed all the eligible documentaries for the preliminary round of voting and members will now select the five nominees from among the 15 titles below.
The films are listed in alphabetical order by title, along with their director and production company:
Charles Ferguson recently sat down with Katie Couric of CBS to discuss his documentary Inside Job which explores the global financial crisis and the troubling relationship between financial and political elites.
It was one of the most acclaimed films at Cannes earlier this year and paints a devastating picture of the disaster unleashed by Wall Street greed and their connections with Washington.
The full 36-minute interview is here:
If you are in the US, it opens to its widest point this weekend and is arguably one of the most important films to be released this year.
Charles Fergusonās documentary explores the global financial crisis with devastating clarity and paints a deeply troubling picture of the relationship between financial and political elites.
Within the space of just two hours, using interviews, graphics, impressive editing and a sober narration from Matt Damon, Inside Job takes us through the causes of the current economic meltdown.
Although a lot of the information presented here has been explored in other books and TV programmes (such as the BBCās The Love of Money), to see it presented in a single film is both constructive and chilling.
Ferguson himself cross-examines a number of government and private sector officials – though many of the key culprits refused to be interviewed – and his probing questions elicit some revealing requests to stop filming when they appear unexpectedly thrown by certain questions.
One startling aspect of the film is how much academics, supposedly independent from Wall Street banks, are actually paid by them for opinions or even serve on their boards – a clear conflict of interest which several of them appear oblivious to.
Using a sober tone throughout, the narration, interview footage and graphics all collate and explain the financial jargon of CDOs, credit default swaps and the policies which left much of the public scratching their head as they tried to process the full extent of what happened.
But this is more than just an academic primer: featuring widescreen lensing, aerial shots of New York and some appropriate music (the opening credits feature Peter Gabrielās āBig Timeā) it is a cinematic experience, which visually reflects the gravity of the subject.
The relentless approach is both appropriate and effective, although it also reveals some ghoulish comedy when exploring the widespread use of cocaine and prostitutes on Wall St and the stuttering angst of interviewees caught out by Fergusonās well-researched questions.
The revolving door connecting the political and financial worlds, along with figures such as Henry Paulson, Lawrence Summers and Robert Rubin, has effectively shielded large banks from any effective regulation.
But this was essentially socialism for the rich, in which the public paid the price for the irresponsible actions of political and financial elites.
Inside Job might appear to be an incendiary title, but it is wholly appropriate: two years on from the averted meltdown, there appears to be no meaningful financial reform and the governments appear to have little taste for prosecuting those who helped cause the crisis.
Could the embattled Obama administration, currently suffering because of the economic collapse, find renewed energy in restoring the financial regulations lost over the last thirty years?
Bringing those responsible for the fraud that triggered trillions of dollars in losses would certainly be a vote winner, even if the Wall Street backlash was severe.
That may or may not happen, but in the mean time this documentary is a worthy call to arms: in examining the root causes of the crisis and emphasising the importance of restoring honesty to the global financial system, it is one of the most important films of the year.
Inside Job screened tonight (Oct 27th) and plays tomorrow (October 28th) at the London Film Festival.
It is currently out in the US in limited release and opens in the UK on February 18th February 2011
It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short and like a lot of US government films of the era, has a distinct reds-under-the-bed tone.
The events that day not only saw the death of thousands of innocent people but were also aĀ catalyst for theĀ political and religious turmoil that has engulfed the first decade of this century.
But earlier this week Channel 4 screened the most compelling documentary about the events of September 11th that I have seen.
Entitled 102 Minutes That Changed America, it was produced by The History Channel and consisted of footage shot on the day in (almost) real time without any framing,Ā voice-overĀ or overtĀ editorialising.
It contained a lot that I hadn’t seen before and the editing of raw video gave it a haunting and visceral impact, whichĀ this footage shot from the dorms of NYU gives you a flavour of.
Some of it was graphic and upsetting, but it is a film I would urge people to see and the History Channel’s website has an interactive map with more information and interviews with the people who turned on their cameras that day.
UK viewers can watch it again on 40D whilst US viewers can watch it on the History Channel tonight at 9pm or watch selected clips here.
According to Morris the project (entitledĀ TheMovie Movie)Ā was based on the idea of taking Donald Trump, Mikhail Gorbachev and others and putting them in the movies they most admire.
