All these wonderful things

2008 IN REVIEW: ATWT Favorites from the Year Past

We'll close 2008 with a look back on 15 of our favorite posts from the home team.  It's been a very exciting year as far as things go with this little corner of the web.  We've more than doubled our traffic from 2007 - and, of particular resonance to me, during those stretches when we were off making a new film, our readers seemed to return as soon as regular posting picked up again.  That's no small thing.

Further, we've been constantly touched by the kind words of both colleagues and strangers during this year.  If one can claim a goal to these writings - beyond a personal desire to promote a vision of theatrical nonfiction as a viable and growing art form - it's that I hope that we provoke conversation.  And we hope that in some small way we present thoughts and ideas that are compelling, interesting, challenging, crazy or comforting.

We'll be back up and at it soon in the new year, with a look back at our favorite films, the most important issues and developments in nonfiction as well as our coverage of the Cinema Eye Honors Shortlist, due to be announced next week.  Then we will be off and running at Sundance. 

But first, a look back at what we did here, this year:

Under Construction: The Docs of Sundance 2008 and the Nonfiction New Wave (Part One)
January 29, 2008

"Where once this debate was seemingly contained between the two dominant schools of nonfiction in the mid-1900s – direct cinema (where invisibility is the goal and the ideal) and cinema verite (which implicitly recognizes that the camera’s very presence alters the reality), over the past few years we have seen a Nonfiction New Wave that rejects dogmatic strictures of form and that is, ironically, a return to the genre’s roots.

This Nonfiction New Wave not only embraces every kind of stylistic tool (and is especially fond of animation and graphic design), it also seems not to fear that space between truth and fiction, between documentary and narrative. And it was on full display at this week’s Sundance Film Festival, which, over the past several years (as seen in 2007's MANDA BALA (SEND A BULLET), ZOO and CHICAGO 10, among others) has been a leading proponent of the movement."

True/False 2008: It's Not Fact, It's Not Fiction, It's Faction - Anna Broinkowski's FORBIDDEN LIES
February 28, 2008

"This information is conveyed through a variety of highly stylized interviews and recreations of Dalia's meeting and courtship. These recreations reach a fever pitch when the film introduces a singer/songwriter who has composed a maudlin ballad lionizing Dalia's story and the courtship between Dalia and her Christian beau is seen in music video form. Even as someone who is a strong proponent of stylization and construction, it felt like the movie was going off the rails - and we're only 20 minutes in.

But to Broinowski's deep credit, this sense of spinning out of control is all part of the plan, because it turns out that Khouri may have made the whole story up. It may be that Khouri is one of the greatest - or most desperate - con women alive. And for the next hour plus, Broinowski pulls back layer after layer of one of the most intriguing and fascinating films I've seen in some time. Who is telling the truth? Who is lying? What part of the filmmaking is completely fabricated? Is the backdrop behind Khouri even real? Broinowski weaves a technically brilliant storyline that includes her own deft and pinpoint interview skills."

For Your Consideration: MAN ON WIRE For Best Picture

For weeks now, film reviews, writers and Oscar prognosticators have lamented that 2008 was not the great year for cinema that was 2007.  Further, some suggest that most of this year's crop of Oscar hopefuls wouldn't stand a chance in a normal (read: better) year.

Others point to the flaws even in the movies that they believe will get nominated.  FROST/NIXON? Not as good as the stage play.  BENJAMIN BUTTON? Forrest Gump in a pretty package (and what's with the creepy heads on bodies thing?).  MILK? Sean Penn is good, but what was that screenplay?  DARK NIGHT?  The first two endings were fine, but the third, fourth and fifth...  DOUBT? I've haven't seen so much scenery chewing since, well, you get the idea.

So why is no one arguing that the best reviewed film of 2008 should be nominated for Best Picture?

Oh, that's right, it's because MAN ON WIRE is a documentary and documentaries are supposed to be happy with their specialized category and their 3 1/2 minutes of airtime.  And that, as they say, should be that.

This is also the reason why many have been predicting that WALL-E, also thought to be one of the year's finest films, will not be up for Best Picture.  It should take its animated statue and be proud of it.  

But at least WALL-E is the subject of some debate.

Only twice my lifetime have documentaries been seriously discussed as potential Best Picture candidates.  The first was HOOP DREAMS and the push for it came mostly from film critics who argued it was a way to correct the Academy's huge oversight of not including HOOP DREAMS on its shortlist - not to mention that it was, and remains, a great film.

The second was FAHRENHEIT 9/11, although this perhaps was mostly a vision in Michael Moore and Harvey Weinstein's heads, particularly after they purposely pulled the film from the documentary competition and said they would campaign for Best Picture.  Although their gambit was taken seriously for awhile, most agreed that Bush's second-term victory over John Kerry took the film out of contention.

But no one, as far as I can tell, has made the argument that MAN ON WIRE should be considered - even just considered - for Best Picture.  So, I will make the case.  Here are six reasons why Academy members should save a vote for James Marsh's transcendent film:

First Announced Title of 2009 True/False - BURMA VJ

BURMA VJ, the film that swept grand jury prizes last month in Copenhagen and Amsterdam, and which makes its stateside debut next month in Park City, has been named as the True Life Fund Film at next year's True/False. 

Local hero Pete Bland has the scoop at his Cool Dry Place Blog:

"In BURMA VJ — which took the top prize at the celebrated documentary festivals in Amsterdam and Copenhagen and also will screen at Sundance — director Anders Østergaard weaves together footage shot by undercover Burmese reporters during the "Saffron Revolution" of 2007. Their stories were then broadcast by the outlawed Democratic Voice of Burma.

As has been their goal with the True Life Fund films since 2007, organizers are hoping to raise money for the producer, director or subject of or cause covered in each documentary. This time around, True/False hopes to deliver more than $10,000 to the DVB, which would allow the group to purchase better equipment and focus on other vital needs.

T/F's David Wilson and Camellia Cosgray tell it best in the press release: 'This equipment will not only assist these brave journalists in telling the world about their country, but smaller, lighter cameras and microphones could actually mean the difference between life and death for these reporters.'"

Next year's T/F kicks off February 26.  Expect additional titles to be named after Sundance.

Cinema Eye is Coming

Three weeks from today the nominations for the 2009 Cinema Eye Honors will be announced in Park City (yes, we are that close to Sundance).

But first, two big announcements next week, including the fifteen films on this year's Nonfiction Feature Film Shortlist.  To take a gander at the 117 films in contention, check out the list of eligible titles, here.  To stroll down memory lane and check out last year's Shortlist, you can go here.

Feel free to use the comments to make a case for your favorites or speculate on who you expect to see on the list when it's made public next week.

2008 IN REVIEW: The Lists of Others

Next week, we'll be unveiling our own list of our favorite nonfiction films of the year, which puts us squarely behind the curve with most folks, who have been revealing their own picks since early this month. 

Call us lazy or old-fashioned, we like to wait for the year to actually end before we go full-bore, but we've still been checking out everyone else's notations and there are several worth noting for the record.

Two year-end recaps have been indispensable (indefatigable) - indieWIRE's annual Critics Poll and Movie City News' compilation of top ten lists. 

In the indieWIRE critics poll, three nonfiction titles featured in the overall top 20: WALTZ WITH BASHIR at #10, MY WINNIPEG at #13 and MAN ON WIRE at #20.  Both BASHIR's Ari Folman and WINNIPEG's Guy Maddin received three votes for Best Director (tying them for 12th place).  Ellen Kuras and Thavi Prasavath received a vote in the Best First Feature Category for their THE BETRAYAL (NERAHKOON), as did film critic/filmmaker Godfrey Cheshire for his MOVING MIDWAY.

The recently departed Ann Savage ended up in 13th place in the Supporting Performance (tied with BURN AFTER READING's Brad Pitt) for her appearance in MY WINNIPEG, which also received a number of votes for Guy Maddin and George Toles' screenplay, putting the film tied for 6th place in that category.

For Best Documentary, 15 films received more than one vote, with MAN ON WIRE receiving 14 votes to MY WINNIPEG's 10 mentions.  The rest of the top 15, in order:  STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE, TROUBLE THE WATER and WALTZ WITH BASHIR (tied for 3rd with 9 votes), THE ORDER OF MYTHS (6th with 6 votes), ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD, PROFIT MOTIVE AND THE WHISPERING WIND, ROMAN POLANSKI: WANTED AND DESIRED, THE UNFORESEEN and UP THE YANGTZE (tied for 7th with 3 votes) and CHRIS & DON. A LOVE STORY, DEAR ZACHARY: A LETTER TO A SON ABOUT HIS FATHER, FENGMING: A CHINESE MEMOIR and STRANDED: I'VE COME FROM A PLANE THAT CRASHED ON THE MOUNTAINS (all tied for 12th place with 2 votes).

Ann Savage, Guy Maddin's "Mother" in MY WINNIPEG, Dies

(Via MCN.)  Ann Savage, the B-movie star of the 1940s and '50s, who most recently appeared as Guy Maddin's mother in his "docu-fantasia" MY WINNIPEG, died on Christmas Day in a Los Angeles nursing home.

Savage's best known role was as the femme fatale in the noir classic DETOUR (1945).  In his essay about the film in his "Great Movies" series, Roger Ebert wrote of her performance:

"Ann Savage's work is extraordinary: There is not a single fleeting shred of tenderness or humanity in her performance as Vera, as she snaps out her pulp dialogue (``What'd you do--kiss him with a wrench?'')."

 

In a piece this summer for the UK's The Guardian, Maddin praised Savage.  The whole thing is lovely, but here's an excerpt:

"The most unknown aspect of Ann is that she has a fine ear for music. She cried for three days when Ray Charles died. I believe her ear for music extends to the music of poetry, and good film dialogue. Ann does not intellectualise these things, but she feels them - it's this music that galvanises her performance. But she speaks off camera with the same crackling music, that same staccato patter, that scores her best movies. In fact, she showed up in Winnipeg spitting rivets, styling hard and fast conversations out of another, more lyrical era. "That doesn't cut any ice with me!" was her favourite way of telling me to think of a better solution to an on-set problem.

Savage comes from a time when faces, especially faces in luminous, silvery close-up, counted most. And she still has a wealth of this dazzling currency. As in her prewar screen tests at MGM, her face today, 70 years later, seizes the camera, arrests it, and loads even the newest, cheap film stock with quantities of silver not used in Hollywood since the 1940s. The power of her visage is still shocking, at age 87. It imperiously demands a third dimension as it spectrally wafts - no, looms threateningly - out toward her beholders."

Savage even had her own MySpace page, where she described Maddin as one of her heroes:

"(H)e's like Mike Todd, Jean (Cocteau) and Jacques Tati all rolled into one!"

The Great Eartha Kitt

The video's not great, but the audio is more than fine.  The late great Ms. Kitt sings the title song from 1958's ST. LOUIS BLUES.

Update:  The wondrous Sarah Thyre points us to a rather amazing piece of video - a 1989 collaboration between Kitt and the Bronski Beat that was apparently originally intended for Divine as it's based on a line of dialogue from FEMALE TROUBLE.

2008 IN REVIEW: Emailing with I.O.U.S.A.'s Patrick Creadon

Our fifth interview with some of the year's top nonfiction feature filmmakers (see previous interviews with Yung Chang, Jeremiah Zagar, Carl Deal & Tia Lessin and James Marsh)...

Patrick Creadon's I.O.U.S.A. had its premiere last year at Sundance.  When it was released in August, it came to audiences with a unique one-night stand that netted the film more than half a million dollars in a single evening.  It's release was followed, just weeks later, by the epic collapse of the world financial markets.

In this interview, Patrick talks about his work with graphic design collaborator Brian Oakes, the stress of making a film about a topic that's constantly evolving and how his team created one of the highest grossing single nights in the history of nonfiction.

ATWT: When I saw this film at Sundance, I was immediately struck by the immediacy of your topic.  And I couldn't help but think that it was an example of a film that needed to get to people as quickly as possible.  Then, when I.O.U.S.A. came out in theaters later in the year, so much was developing with the financial crisis that I wondered if you wished you could be continually making updates.  What's it like to make a film where the ground underneath you is constantly shifting?

Patrick Creadon:  It was terrifying actually.  Making I.O.U.S.A. was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life, and I know many of our team members feel the same way.  We all felt a tremendous responsibility to tell this story accurately and in a non-partisan way.  The day of our premiere at Sundance in January of 2008, Ben Bernanke was on the cover of The New York Times Magazine.  We were starting to get the sense that this was going to be the story of 2008.  The version we showed at Sundance was "festival-ready" but we ended up working another 6 months on the film after Sundance.  By the time we released the film on August 21 we had made four different versions of I.O.U.S.A. (Sundance in January, Maryland in March, Silverdocs in May, and theatrical in August).  The versions were quite different from each other due to the fact that the story was moving so quickly throughout 2008.  It was a very exciting (and somewhat stressful) period for all of us.

You had such a creative and interesting release for this film, including an extremely successful one-night kick off event in hundreds of theaters.  Can you describe how that came about and why that worked so well for you?

Our theatrical release was scheduled for Friday, August 22, 2008.  As we were all brainstorming about how to build awareness for the release, Roadside Attractions came up with a fantastic idea.  They took the film to National CineMedia and Fathom Events and said that we'd like to do a live simulcast of I.O.U.S.A. along with a "town hall meeting" immediately afterward.  NCM liked the idea a great deal and said that if we could get a big name to be on the panel they'd do it.  Once Warren Buffett agreed to take part in the event, NCM agreed to run it.

Original estimates for the event were that we'd get 150 theaters and maybe 15,000 people to attend.  By the time the lights went down in Omaha (where the live event took place) I.O.U.S.A. was being fed to 359 theaters in 43 different states to over 43,000 people.  It was successful for all of us -- the filmmakers, NCM / Fathom Events, the theater owners, and most importantly our audience.  It was a wonderful way to kick off the traditional theatrical release that began the next day in the top ten markets around the country.

There were other factors that helped make the release a success. For one, NCM ran a 30 second commercial (cost-free to Roadside and the film) for an entire month leading up to the event in all of their theaters (almost 15,000 screens nationwide).  It was in their best interest to do so because they not only keep some of the ticket sales but the theaters keep all the concession sales for the event.  On a typical Thursday night in America the average movie theater sells about 10 percent of its tickets.  The Thursday night I.O.U.S.A. played in those 359 theaters we sold half of all tickets available.  Because it was so successful NCM and Fathom Events are anxious to do more of these kinds of events in the future.

Also, we teamed with CNBC to be a broadcast partner for the event.  Becky Quick, the co-host of CNBC's "Squawk Box" (their popular morning financial show) was chosen to be the moderator of the town hall meeting in Omaha.  As part of the arrangement CNBC agreed to run commercials all week during "Squawk Box" promoting the event.  This was another key way to spread the word about the Omaha event, the theaters that would be simulcasting the film that evening, and the general release as a whole.

Having Warren Buffett was critically important too.  The whole world was aware by then that America was heading toward a terrible financial storm.  Although he didn't agree with everything in the film, Mr. Buffett told me "there's never a bad time to teach fiscal responsibility" and was happy to take part.  He was also pleased that we moved the event to Omaha and that his family, colleagues, and the people from Omaha could come to the theater and be a part of the evening. 

It's interesting to note that throughout the town hall event Mr. Buffett kept taking the "Pollyanna" position (as he called it) saying that things aren't as bad as people think and that we're going to get through this current downturn just fine.  In the four months since that evening Mr. Buffett has lost about $10 Billion in net worth due to the stock market collapse.  True to his word, however, he has kept the majority of his investments in US currencies and companies and continues to be one of the biggest cheerleaders of the US economy.

2008 IN REVIEW: Guest Columnist Bryan Stamp on His Favorite Nonfictions of the Year

As 2008 comes to a close, we'll be looking at some of our favorite films of the year as well as some of the year's biggest issues and stories.  I've also asked a couple other folks to give their takes on the same topics.

At Participant Media, Bryan Stamp worked on a number of notable docs this year, including Errol Morris' Oscar shortlisted STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE and two films that are sure to be seen more in 2009 - FOOD, INC. and PRESSURE COOKER.

In 2008, I saw many docs I liked and a few that I loved. 

With special recognition to WALTZ WITH BASHIR, MAN ON WIRE, MY WINNIPEG, and THE CLASS for eschewing convention and transcending genres; and filmmakers Terrence Davies, Agnes Varda, and Guy Maddin, each for dramatically celebrating the places in their heart - with varying degrees of warmth, sentiment, humor, melancholy, absurdity, wit and charm.

These are my favorite nonfiction films of 2008:

IN A DREAM - my favorite surprise on the Oscar shortlist

TROUBLE THE WATER and THE GARDEN - two unflinching films that expose tragic injustice but more importantly honor the triumph of the human spirit

WILD COMBINATION - the series of festival posters is among my favorite designs of the year and Arthur Russell’s new album (released in October) is one of my favorite records of the year.

PRESSURE COOKER - I worked on this film, and I love it.  The best film about teens, featuring one of the most memorable 'characters' in a doc this year- their teacher and mentor Mrs. Wilma Stephenson

BURMA VJ and UP THE YANGTZE - Two important international films that intimately document the poltical, economic, and emotional turbulence and injustice of two of most significant "issues" of recent history.

ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD - That poor penguin.  Only Herzog could make a film like this.

THE ORDER OF MYTHS - The complex dynamic of Mobile, Alabama and its tradition is a reminder that the we're not that far removed from our past, but plenty capable of overcoming it.

OF TIME AND THE CITY - Terrence Davies gets my vote for best voice over – sorry Herzog.

THE BEACHES OF AGNES - Agnes Varda’s beautiful recount of her life and films so far.

MY WINNIPEG - Why not? After all, Maddin himself calls it a docu-fantasia.

THE ENGLISH SURGEON - The music by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis is Cinema Eye worthy.

STRANDED - Simply, the most insightful documentary I saw this year.

STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE - The most effective use of recreations - that snarling dog and shredded paper still haunt me.

I.O.U.S.A. - With expertly designed graphics by Brian Oakes - expanding and collapsing like the economy itself.

MAN ON WIRE - An instant classic.

WALTZ WITH BASHIR - Not sure about the last 30 seconds, though.

THE CLASS - I know Laurent Cantet has distanced himself from this categorization, and it’s certainly not a classic documentary; and I went back-and forth on how to define it.  If you consider BORAT a documentary like many people did, including the NYFCC where it was a runner-up, then you have to also consider THE CLASS a documentary – not necessarily for the same reasons, but close.  I’m not sure where I land on this issue, but I really wanted to list the film here and provoke discussion about what it means to be a documentary. And for the record, I don’t think some of the scenes in AMERICAN TEEN, for example, were any less rehearsed, re-shot, or manufactured. In either case, it’s one of the best films of the year.

THE EXILES (1961) - Kent MacKenzies's richly observed docu-realist account of one night in the life of a group of now displaced Native Americans in LA's Bunker Hill area.  Gorgeously shot in black-and-white. The film was finally released here by Milestone (also responsible for last year's release of THE KILLER OF SHEEP). It may seem like a cultural artifact now, which doesn't give the film or its subjects enough credit.

2008 IN REVIEW: Emailing with UP THE YANGTZE's Yung Chang

Picking up where we left off last week (see previous interviews with James Marsh, Carl Deal & Tia Lessin and Jeremiah Zagar), we come to Yung Chang, director of UP THE YANGTZE.  Nominated for a Film Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary and a big success at the box office in the US and Canada, Chang's film premiered at the Vancouver International Film Festival last year, before going on to high profile screenings at both IDFA and Sundance.  It was in Park City that YANGTZE's distribution deal with Zeitgeist was announced.

In this interview, Yung talks about how his film has similarities to Altman, why the Three Gorges Dam project inspires filmmakers and how timing is (almost) everything.  Below, Chang accepts the Golden Horse Award for Best Documentary.

ATWT:  One of the things I loved about your film was the limited way that you used the personal narrative of your grandfather's travels on the Yangtze and his feeling that the China he knew may have disappeared.  You give us this as a backdrop, which strikes me as a sort of indicator to the audience that the themes of the film are of particular importance to the author.  But it never overwhelms the film itself, which ends up not actually being about your grandfather but rather a more universal rumination about this thing he feels he's losing.  How did you come up with that particular approach and did it change or expand in the edit?

Yung Chang:  From the get-go, I always wanted to have a meandering river film that would be held together by the stories of Cindy Yu Shui, her family and Jerry Chen Bo Yu, while also allowing for the narrative to segue into tangential asides that would then flow back into the central story. The intention was to never be didactic or informational with my personal narrative.

During production, I used the river journey to explore the onshore world (riots, protests, flooding villages) and archaeological landmarks (White Crane Rock, Shibozhai Pagoda) in an effort to make the film more like a river cruise. I felt that my voice in the film, through subtle narration, could add another layer into understanding complicated China and also add depth as we followed the lives of the main protagonists.

I also felt that I was in a unique position being an "overseas Chinese" - (which is) the Mandarin terminology for an ABC/CBC (American born Chinese/Canadian born Chinese) - (in that I could) offer a perspective and cinematic insight that was not Western or Eastern but somewhere in-between. I felt that I could be your guide between two worlds, above and below decks.

That being said, during production I did occasionally step in front of the camera. There is a long scene, gratefully nixed out of a rough cut, where I try to shoot a promotional video for the cruise company. The initial intention was to use this scene throughout the film to parallel my cruise experience with Yu Shui and Chen Bo Yu. It was obvious in post that using any image of myself in the film would be a dumb idea.

Another thing is the extraordinary craft in the film, particularly in the cinematography and editing, which creates this sense of fragility and beauty.  Even the Three Gorges Dam, this sort of industrial/developmental villain, looms as this expansive thing of wonder.  When it was done, I just thought that so many filmmakers could have had a very textbook approach to this idea, a kind of good-versus-evil presentation.  My feeling in watching it was that by focusing on the cruise ship, you were able to tackle these big topics with a kind of sideways approach. 

Obviously part of this was based on your personal experience of having been on one of these cruises, but did you know from the start that you wanted to base the film around it and how did you find your two main characters, "Cindy" and "Jerry"?

Yeah, I always wanted to base the film around the cruise ship. In an early proposal, I didn't even want to get off the boat! Way back in development I wanted to make a film about the culture of tourism and the tourism of culture - a sort of China "Cannibal Tours" based on a personal experience as a tourist on a luxury cruise ship. I thought I could tell the story entirely contained from the offshore vantage point. My producers at EyeSteelFilm, Mila Aung-Thwin and Daniel Cross (my former prof), luckily convinced me that it would be imperative that the onshore/offshore connection was made.

For me, the cruise has always been a microcosm for contemporary China, like Robert Altman's GOSFORD PARK was a microcosm for 1930's British society. Below deck (you find) the workers who come from along the river and whose lives will be directly affected by the Three Gorges Dam flooding. The workers want to climb above deck to be with the affluent Chinese and foreigners who take-in the disappearing landscape. The cruise is also a window into the onshore world and becomes our link to discover the Chinese experience. As we travel on the Yangtze, the River of Life, as it's known to the Chinese, we eventually end up at this huge monument and symbol of modernization, the Three Gorges Dam.