Not You David Ansen, Not You! Newsweek's Critic Par Excellance Join the Doc Depression Bandwagon

One of favorite film writers and critics, David Ansen of Newsweek, has an article up declaring "THE END OF THE DOCUMENTARY FILM MARKET".  Lord-eye-lou, really?  Isn't that soooo 2007?

"(After the success of docs in 2003-2005), (d)istributors gobbled up docs at prices no one was used to paying. The market was flooded with product: some of it superb and laden with critical praise; some of it urgent and timely; some of it aimed at niche markets that would presumably rush out to see a movie about their favorite subjects: crossword puzzles, wine, women's high-school basketball; some of it merely mediocre but so cheap to make in the new era of over-the-counter digital filmmaking that investors figured they had nothing to lose.

Then everybody got burned. Unless documentaries were made by Michael Moore, or featured Al Gore talking about inconvenient truths, the theatrical market for these films collapsed. Huge expectations ran into a wall of audience indifference: CRAZY LOVE was supposed to go through the roof yet it made a measly $301,000. TAXI TO THE DARK SIDE won the best-documentary Oscar—and its grosses, paltry to begin with, went down! Alex Gibney, the director of this tough movie about the torture of terror suspects by Americans, is suing THINKFilm, its distributor, for what he says was an inadequate release. With all due respect to Gibney, he's kidding himself if he thinks tons of marketing money could have made a difference. Even Errol Morris's high-profile film on Abu Ghraib, STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE, flopped—$209,000."         

In truth, the actual information in Ansen's piece is a far cry from the debacle that John Horn foisted on the readers of the LA Times two weeks ago (Ansen actually mentions the success of EXPELLED and U23D!), but it continues to feed on a basic incorrect notion - that nonfiction film is still in the doldrums of last year - a point that I've refuted time and again.  This year has seen, in case it needs reminding, the best start for docs since 2003. 

What we haven't had - and this seems to be the underlying hypothesis of Ansen's article - is a smash hit ala FAHRENHEIT 9/11 or MARCH OF THE PENGUINS, or a $20 million plus success like SICKO or AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH (or, truth be told, a $10 million breakout like WINGED MIGRATION or SUPER SIZE ME).  But both EXPELLED and U23D have bested SPELLBOUND, which Ansen references as a reminder of the "good ole days", and SHINE A LIGHT trails it by just a few hundred thousand.

Would CRAZY LOVE, even if it had worked, been a $10 million dollar success?  Hard to see it, considering that CAPTURING THE FRIEDMANS topped out just north of 3.  And sure, FOG OF WAR and ENRON: THE SMARTEST GUYS IN THE ROOM both made $4 million plus, but neither of those film is about torture, to say nothing about the change in the mood of the country.

The irony is that what made 2003-2005 such a great time for docs was that there were a lot of doubles and triples, not just a single home run followed by a bunch of foul balls.  Fact is, a single big success does not do a lot of good for the general perception of documentary fitness for theatrical release.  Witness 2006, wherein the first doom-and-gloomers foresaw a nonfiction downturn - despite the super success of that Al Gore film.  Ditto 2007, universally declared a doc depression even with Michael Moore's health care treatise.  This year there are three films with more than $5 million in box office - and at least one (Bill Maher's RELIGULOUS) that seems like it could duplicate that feat (who knows what will happen with Sundance faves AMERICAN TEEN and MAN ON WIRE).  Meanwhile, we've got another movie that's bound for $4 million - YOUNG@HEART (a big success despite what the delusional Horn thinks). 

Bottom line - We're likely to end the year with 4-7 nonfictions grossing more than $4 million.  The record?  4 films did it in 2005.  It's hard to argue that equaling or surpassing that success denotes a industry-wide downturn for docs, yet it's apparent that even our favorite film writers might not yet have received the memo.

Comments

[Louis Cabeza]

Sheila Nevins wins $100 bet with an "indie film exec" that "Young at Heart" would be a flop? Sounds like you have different standards for measuring success than the people actually paying to make them.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/the_big_picture/2008/06/my-hot-date-wit.html

Maybe if it were your money funding these films you might have a different perspective?

[AJ Schnack]

Oh please. Sheila Nevins is far from an unbiased observer. She's gone all in on the notion that theatrical is dead. And an "unnamed indie film exec" wth reporting from the LA Times?

There's no one outside of the LA Times and those declaring the death of doc theatrical who believes that YOUNG@HEART was a failure.

[Le]

Yeah why would he have to have "The End" in the title? That just sounds so morbid. At the worst, you could call it a trend, a temporary one at that.