I didn’t see as many docs as last year – only 27 this year – and some of them were
truly great, and some not. I missed some of the major ones (although “missed”
in the wrong word, since I didn’t get a chance to see most of the. The ones I
missed include: Minding the Gap (probably
the most acclaimed doc of the year) along with Crime + Punishment, Hitler’s Hollywood, Science Fair, Bisbee ’17, Hale
Country This Morning, This Evening, Of Fathers and Sons, On Her Shoulders. To say I missed these isn't really fair - for the most part, I didn't even have a chance to see them here in Canada. So,
onto the films I did see.
The Worst Doc of the Year was clearly The Devil and Father Amorth (William
Friedkin) in which The Exorcist director tried to document a real exorcism
– and came up with the fakest film I have ever see – I loved Friedkin, but hated
this. Also bad but not that bad include: Seeing
Allred (Roberta Grossman & Sophie Sartain) which should have dug deeper
into its fascinating subject. Take Your
Pills (Allison Klayman) tries to delve into ADD medicine, and how’s its
abused, but was almost completely surface level.
Slightly better, although pretty mediocre docs
include: The China Hustle (Jed
Rothstein) which is about how Chinese companies conned Wall Street which is
eye opening, but standard issue. The
Final Year (Greg Barker) is about the waning days of the Obama
administration, which is just sad given how things turned out. Mercury 13 (David Sington & Heather
Walsh) is about the women in the early days of the space program, who didn’t
get the credit they deserve. Notes from
Dunblane: Lessons from a School Shooting (Kim A. Snyder) is essentially the
equivalent of a DVD bonus feature to Snyder’s Newtown – which is pretty good,
but not great.
Good, but not great docs include: Makala (Emmanuel Gras) a fascinating
film about an African man who makes, transports and sells charcoal in this
beautiful, methodical film. Quincy (Alan
Hicks & Rashida Jones) acts as a primer for Quincy Jones life and
career – it isn’t deep, but its entertaining Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind (Marina Zenovich) is more
about Williams career than you would think a doc called “Come Inside My Mind”
would be, but it’s still a treasure trove of good stuff.
There were three Netflix limited series’ that under
old rules, maybe would have been on the top 10 list, but this year, I’ll just
note them down here: Bobby Kennedy for
President (Dawn Porter) is a fascinating look at Kennedy’s brief career
after his brother’s death. Evil Genius
(Barbara Schroeder & Trey Borzillier) was a fairly insane true crime
series about the crazy bank robbery and death at its core. Wild Wild Country (Chapman Way & Maclain Way) is perhaps the
best achievement in non-fiction this year – a very strange story about a cult
who takes over an Oregon small town.
Finally, there were a few films that could have
made my top ten list in other circumstances. Dark Money (Kimberly Reed) has important subject matter – big money
in local politics – and does a terrific job of breaking it down for you. Fahrenheit 11/9 (Michael Moore) is the
most scattershot documentary of Moore’s career, and not all of it works – but
when it does, it is still effective. The
Rachel Divide (Laura Bronson) is a fascinating, sad documentary about the
infamous Rachel Dolezal – which probably didn’t get the attention it deserved
since everyone was (understandably) sick of her. RBG (Julie Cohen & Betsy West) is kind of like Ruth Bader
Ginsberg for beginners – which is good enough for most, since it will make her
more than a meme for most audiences. Reversing
Roe (Ricki Stern & Anne Sundberg) is really a history of abortion
rights in America – and it’s informative and well-made, and better than most
history lessons docs are.
10.
Divide and Conquer: The Story of Roger Ailes (Alexis Bloom)
There have been a number of “How We Got Here” documentaries
this year, examining what led to the rise of Trump, and for me, Divide and
Conquer is the best of the bunch. The movie examines how Roger Ailes became the
person he was – the founder of Fox News, and everything that goes along with
that. There is a kind of Citizen Kane quality to the story – the person who
started out with ideals, and how they got perverted along the way. It is a
fascinating and infuriating story, slickly told by director Alexis Bloom – and
that’s even before the final act, which details all the sexual assault and
harassment allegations against Ailes, and others at Fox News. The film has kind
of got lost in the year end shuffle – but make sure you check it out.
9.
Filmworker (Tony Zierra)
Filmworker tells the story of Leon Vitali – the
most loyal assistant a director ever had. From the time he worked for Stanley
Kubrick in 1975 as an actor on Barry Lyndon, Vitali gave up a promising career
as an actor, to essentially do for Kubrick whatever he needed. Kubrick was a
perfectionist – who demanded the same of everyone who worked for him – so the
fact that Vitali lasted as long as he did (25 years) is a miracle. And all
these later – despite all that it cost him – he is still dedicated to serving
Kubrick. The film is a fascinating look at one of the best directors in history
– but it’s also about the cost of living a life devoted to movies – especially
devoted to one man. I don’t know if it will change the way you see Kubrick –
but it certainly clarifies him.
8.
The King (Eugene Jarecki)
The King is an odd and fascinating documentary. It
finds filmmaker Jarecki travelling across country, in one of Elvis’ old cars,
getting people to talk about Presley – the positives, the negatives, his music,
his politics, greed, and well, America. He has other interviews – outside the
car- that do basically the same thing. Jarecki’s film tries to use Elvis as a
metaphor for America – so young and pretty, but built on the work of black
people who didn’t get rich, who slowly grows overweight and consumed with
excess – while never quite begin able to acknowledge the sins of the past. It
isn’t a perfect metaphor – and no matter what your feelings on Elvis are, you
were almost certainly find things in here that will drive you insane or want to
make you argue. But then again, that is precisely the point. The King kind of
came and went this year without being noticed – but it deserved more attention.
7. They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead (Morgan
Neville)
They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead is a documentary
about Orson Welles’ long delayed The Other Side of the Wind, made by Netflix to
come out the at the same time. No matter what your thoughts on Welles’ last
film, the story of its making – and what Welles was going through while trying
to make it (which was pretty much the last 15 years of his life) is
fascinating. The film is hardly a puff piece on Welles – there are more than a
few unflattering stories about him, and the film loves to embrace all the
contradictions about Welles. Yes, there is probably a darker version of this
film (then again, perhaps that’s just The Other Side of the Wind) – but this
one is fascinating in its own right – and I think a necessary companion piece
to the film itself.
6.
Hal (Amy Scott)
The legacy of the late, great Hal Ashby has grown
in recent years – as more and more people are properly recognizing his place in
the list of great American directors of the 1970s. During that decade he made 7
films – The Landlord, Harold & Maude, The Last Detail, Shampoo, Bound for
Glory, Coming Home and Being There – and each of them has had a lasting impact
on American film, and perhaps even more impressively, they are all very
different from each other. The film collects interviews with his many collaborators,
who talk about Hal lovingly – his conflict with authority, how he went about
making his films, and why it all seemed to fall apart in the 1980s before he
died far too young. It comes close to hagiographic – but it does at least touch
on his less than perfect personal life. Most importantly though, it highlights
the work – and if it inspires more people to see his work, all the better (my
favorite has always been Being There – but you cannot go wrong with any of the
titles above).
5.
Did You Wonder Who Fired the Gun (Travis Wilkerson)
A fascinating and troubling documentary, in which
filmmaker Travis Wilkerson dives into his family’s history – when his
great-grandfather killed a black man with zero consequences in 1946 Alabama –
as a jumping off point to explore the personal and National myths we tell
ourselves about racism and violence – and their lasting impacts. This is not a
traditional documentary – more of a personal journey in which we follow
Wilkerson as he explores his family’s past, and allows it to take him any which
way it can. It is a personal howl of pain and rage, which larger ramifications.
4.
Free Solo (Jimmy Chin & Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi)
Free Solo is the most intense documentary of the
year. It tells the story of Alex Honnold, a rock climber whose real passion is
“free soloing” – that is climbing up the sheer side of mountains by yourself,
with no ropes. It is a dangerous passion – one wrong move and you’re dead, and
almost every climber who free solos a lot will eventually die doing it. For
Alex though, it is something he feels he needs to do. The film follows him as
he prepares to climb El Cap – in Yosemite – a difficult climb in the best of circumstances.
It also documents his life – as for the first time, he has a serious
girlfriend, who doesn’t want to stand in his way, but also does want to see him
die. All the ground work of the first hour pays off in the heart stopping half
hour finale – where even though you know what happens, it’s still almost
unbearably intense.
3.
Three Identical Strangers (Tim Wardle)
If Three Identical Strangers was not a documentary,
you would never believe it. The film is about triplets, separated at birth and
never told about each other, who find each other by chance 20 year later. They
become a minor media sensation – on all the talk shows and magazines – and they
quickly become an inseparable trio. That is where the media attention stopped –
and it never really covered the darkness that came after all of that. The film
is a fascinating movie, that goes to the heart of nature vs. nurture, to how similar
we are to our families, and how different. The film takes several shocking
twists, and will leave you baffled, angry and confused. This is the type of
story docs were made for.
2.
Shirkers (Sandi Tan)
Shirkers is a different kind of lost movie story
than The Other Side of the Wind – a less happy version, because at least
Welles’ film can be seen. Director Sandi Tan’s film is about the film she wrote
and starred in, made in the early 1990s, as a movie loving teenager in
Singapore – and about the older, white male director who said he was going to
complete the film, and then just vanished. Tan would eventually get the footage
back after he died – but the soundtrack was gone, so the film is silent. Here,
she documents the person she was – and who her friends were – the man she
thought she could trust, and the film they made together, but was never
finished. It’s a fascinating story, one that certainly has darkness inside it,
but comes out surprisingly hopeful.
1.
Won’t You Be My Neighbor? (Morgan Neville)
In many ways, Won’t You Be My Neighbor is the
simplest documentary of the year. Director Morgan Neville takes old footage
from Mr. Rogers show, and cuts in some interviews with those who worked on the
show, or those who knew Fred Rogers, and crafted a very simple film, about a
very nice man. In other ways, it’s one of the most devastating films of the
year – not because it recalls a simpler time (the film makes clear that the
times weren’t simple) or for simple nostalgia (I wasn’t much of a Mr. Rogers watcher
as a kid) – but in the same way Paddington 2 was this year. This is a portrait
of a nice man, who believed that the best solution was treat others with
kindness and respect – and not treat children like they’re stupid. It is, in
many ways, the exact opposite of our current climate. We need a Mr. Rogers
again – and one isn’t likely to appear.
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