All these wonderful things

HOT DOCS 2011: Sundance Audience Faves SENNA and BUCK Among Best Films of Year

It's been a little over a week since I returned home to Los Angeles after this year's edition of Hot Docs.  I'm a big fan of Hot Docs - it's my fourth year running at the Toronto festival - and I think it might have been my best experience yet.

Part of this is due to the opening of the TIFF Bell Lightbox.  I wasn't at TIFF last year (in fact, cost and timing has combined to make it impossible for me to attend since my own ABOUT A SON premiered there in 2006), so this was my first opportunity to view the new space.  Let me add my voice to the chorus of those who find the new(ish) building remarkable.  In spite of the fact that the gleaming cinema complex is a bit of a hike from the central action of the Hot Docs festival (which remains the Rogers Industry Center on the Victoria College Campus) and seems completely removed from any industry hobnobbing, I was more than content to hunker down in the space for a full day, taking time to get great food and wine in the midst of screenings in the building's technically top-notch theaters.

In fact, being completely removed from industry hobnobbing was actually a selling point.

One of the things that I've found at festivals, and I only have myself to blame here, is that when I actually tuck myself into back-to-back-to back screenings, I have some of my best experiences.  I'm as guilty as anyone of being attracted to the shiny allure of the undiscovered mixer or meal or moment to rest.  But my day at the Lightbox and away from the industry element of the festival helped crystalize this for me.

It didn't hurt that I saw some terrific films.  In fact, I've been pretty lucky this year in that I was asked to serve on juries for the Miami and Ashland Film Festivals and that afforded me the opportunity to see a number of this year's most talked-about films - particularly a majority of this year's Sundance crop.  The two juries I was on gave awards to THE INTERRUPTERS (Grand Jury) and IF A TREE FALLS (Special Jury) at Miami and to HOW TO DIE IN OREGON (Grand Jury) at Ashland.  From these fests, I was also a big fan of James Marsh's latest, PROJECT NIM.  All four were on the docket at Hot Docs as well.

But in Toronto, my great favorites were two terrific portrait films: Asif Kapadia's SENNA, about the Formula One champion racer Ayrton Senna, and Cindy Meehl's BUCK, the audience favorite about Buck Brannaman, the "real life horse whisperer".

My Documentary Decade

Dear Readers -

Apologies for dropping the ball here on the blog the past few weeks.  Between wrapping up shooting on my new film and prepping and planning for this year's Cinema Eye Honors, I've been procrastinating my return to somewhat regular blogging.

Here's a piece I started writing as I was en route to Branson, Missouri just after Christmas.  I'll be posting a couple more looks back at the year we just concluded in the coming days/weeks.  Pardon the delay.

_______________

There’s a story to what happened to me this decade and it starts in the spring of the year 2000.  I was then an Executive Producer at a production company that specialized in music videos, working with a bunch of talented filmmakers, routinely awarded budgets of $350K to make a 3 ½ minute clip that would – hopefully for the band, the label and their hangers-on – be awarded a coveted slot on the Carson Daly-hosted "Total Request Live".

The clips had to be of a certain high production value, the labels seemed to believe, or there would be no possibility of landing on the afternoon countdown show, one of the few venues remaining on MTV for music videos.  So the budgets, even for bands that you and I would never hear from again, had to be mid-six figures.  Or else said band might slip into the ether.

By the spring we’d surfed this wave for almost a year and I was starting to feel restless.  More and more of my own creative ideas were being poured into the work that was coming out of our company, but the execution of these ideas – and the ownership of same – fell, quite naturally, to the director. 

I remember sitting in the color correct of one particular video, a video whose concept I had proposed (and one that would later become such a hit on said MTV countdown program that it would help launch the band and the director’s career) and feeling like I had well and truly reached the end of my ability to stand in the shadows.

Simultaneously, there was a very real sense that the status quo in that industry could not sustain itself.  MTV was continually cutting back on the number of videos it was playing and the labels were under attack from digital downloads.  And how could labels keep spending that kind of money on bands with little hope of recouping the costs of such extravagant vanity videos?

Just prior to this – at the end of the previous decade – I started to direct my own projects – a friend’s music video here, a public service announcement there, and finally, a short film.  And by the end of the year 2000, there was a merger.

My short was out on the festival circuit.  I felt – for the first time – not like an Executive Producer (which was a job I loved and, if I do say so myself, was pretty good at) but like a filmmaker.  I remember flying to London to oversee the shoot a video in the fall of 2000 and writing “Filmmaker” on the occupation line of my landing card and being strangely, wonderfully proud of this new designation.

By that point I had already, mentally, turned my back on music videos.  For a decade I’d worked on more than 100 – respected indie bands and big pop artists – but now I was increasingly ready to go my own way.

And within three months, I’d be in New York shooting footage for what would become GIGANTIC, my first documentary feature.

The how and the why of GIGANTIC’s birth is less important than the fact that the arrival of this decade – one that has been castigated and bemoaned for its acts of terror, war, political combat and natural decay – signaled a significant shift in my life.

My documentary decade.

I couldn’t have known as I was running around New York with my Sony PD-150 following Johns Flansburgh and Linnell in the spring of 2001 what would happen in the decade that followed.

I could not have imagined KURT COBAIN ABOUT A SON or CONVENTION. 

I had no notion that I would start a blog (blog? What’s a blog?) or an award for nonfiction filmmaking.

I would never think that I’d end the decade in the Ozark Mountain town of Branson, Missouri celebrating the arrival of a new decade with a camera in my hand.

I never dreamed that I would take it all so seriously, so personally, so occasionally obsessively.

I fell into documentary almost by chance and – in some kind of Faustian bargain – documentary has run away with me.

Fifteen Years Ago Today

Manohla, Manohla, Manohla

There's been much rubber necking over the recent LA Times piece by Patrick Goldstein wherein he bemoans the cruelty of NY Times (and former LA Times) film critic Manohla Dargis.  Why the drama?  Apparently Dargis' pan of the Weinstein Co.'s new narrative film THE READER reminded Goldstein of past days when Harvey Weinstein wanted Dargis to stay away from reviewing Miramax titles.

The money quote that's been bouncing around the blogosphere is:

"It's an open secret in indie Hollywood that no one wants Manohla Dargis to review their movie, fearing that the outspoken critic will tear their film limb from limb. It's the ultimate backhanded compliment, since what they really fear is Manohla's persuasiveness -- that she'll write a review whose combination of vitriolic snarkiness and intellectual heft will actually persuade high-brow moviegoers to drop the film from their must-see list."

As Karina Longworth observed in her usual inimitable style, Goldstein appeared to be advocating a two-tiered system, wherein "classy" projects were given a handicap:

"Goldstein says it’s not a problem that the review was negative, but unlike her peers, who “clean the knife before they stick it in,” Dargis’ review betrays a “lack of empathy for the challenge of tackling difficult material.” In other words: people like Harvey Weinstein, who take the noble risk of milking Oscar bait out of an Oprah-approved novel about a sexy Nazi cougar, should be given extra points just for doing something a little bit more ambitious than “dumb summer comedy.” It’s almost as if Goldstein is advocating for a kind of affirmative action for art (or, at least, artsy) films: all pictures may be on a level playing field in Manohla’s eyes, but a certain type of picture should be given special consideration for at least trying to be art, even if it fails."

(Yes, really.  She wrote "milking Oscar bait out of an Oprah-approved novel about a sexy Nazi cougar" and didn't even break a sweat.)

As Karina also noted, Goldstein has previously attacked Dargis (and other critics) with the old "she's an elitist!" bullshit, which is about as useful for discussing the worth of art as is the tired "which candidate would you rather have a beer with" in determining who should be making decisions about war and peace:

"Since today's critics are famously out of touch with the common taste, I decided to recruit (producer Avi Lerner) as my own personal multiplex movie critic. He doesn't use as many five-dollar words as Manohla Dargis and he doesn't have quite as firm a grasp on the auteur theory as Kenny Turan, but he knows what he likes--and why he likes it--which is always a good starting point for any critic."

Faux-populism aside, I'm on record in finding flaws with LA Times coverage of documentaries, so let me take a moment to raise an objection to Goldstein's opening thesis - that no one wants mean Manohla Dargis to review their movie.  NO ONE!

Now maybe this is the case at the dependent indies (your Searchlights, SPCs and Miramax), but for the rest of us?  Not so much.

That doesn't mean that I haven't heard doc filmmakers who were nervous about a forthcoming Dargis review - but ask your average nonfiction filmmaker if they'd rather take their chances on a review from Manohla or one from an unknown stringer consigned to page 26, and I'd wager nearly every single one would take the risk.

Why?  Because Dargis is a great writer and 9 times out of 10, she writes about a film in a way that seems unique.  And because everyone reads what she has to say.

My own personal experience is that I wanted Dargis to review ABOUT A SON.  And she did.

It was not a good review.  Some even remember it as being particularly harsh.  The line that everyone seemed to latch onto was:

"It’s hard to know who the audience might be for the documentary oddity KURT COBAIN ABOUT A SON, but I bet its subject, the guy who’s still being called on to entertain us even after his death, would have hated it."

As IFC's Allison Willmore wrote last week:

"It's only once in a while, as when Dargis came down full-force on AJ Schnack's ABOUT A SON when it received a small release, that it's felt unbalanced."

I remember that as we were opening in NYC, we were waiting for a bunch of theaters to decide whether or not to book the film.  And when the Times review broke, there were those who thought that we were done for (despite quite strong reviews in the Voice and other outlets).  After all, who would the audience be for such a film?

But what happened instead was that a bunch of theaters booked the film the day Dargis' review ran.  The feeling was that if Manohla Dargis had reviewed the film then it must be worthy of discussion.  (We also made more money and had a longer run in New York at the IFC Center - more than a month - than in any other city.)

And Dargis' review - pan though it was - inspired responses from other critics, including a lengthy piece from Sean Nelson in Seattle's The Stranger weekly, that was recently included in the Best Music Writing 2008 collection, who answered directly:

"Why should the subject like the documentary? Did those greedy Bible hucksters like SALESMAN? Did Robert Crumb like CRUMB? Could anything matter less? More importantly: The whole point (I hesitate to use the word "tragedy," though it certainly felt like one) about Cobain, consecrated by his mirthless image on posters down the ages and reinforced dramatically in the film, is that he didn't like anything about himself for very long."

So then, even for our small film, overshadowed as it was by the releases of numerous other films at the same time, a review by one of the nation's better critics started a conversation, which is, I'd hope, what we want our films to do. 

Now, I've got plenty of issues (as do others) with the state of film criticism related to documentaries, and Dargis is no exception.  She's more than once given head scratching praise to films that I consider to be exceptionally by the numbers or even off-the-rails mistaken - and she seems far more supportive of experimentation and form-busting in narrative than she is for nonfiction, which strikes those of us 'round here as mighty old fashioned. 

But when you create art - and if you haven't figured it out by now I do think that nonfiction films are (or at least can be) art - are you really supposed to be seeking the 100% fresh tomato rating?  You want to create discussion, debate, passion.  And sure, occasionally it's great if most (if not quite all) look upon what you've done and pat you on the back and give you laurels and awards and a bevy of praise. 

As Karina rightly noted in a post today about the success of CHE's roadshow this weekend:

"Any film worth a damn is going to inspire conflicting opinions."

In an age when film critics are underpaid, being bought out, termed out and forced out, I say let's raise a glass for the good writers who love movies, whether we agree or disagree with their judgments.  The democratization of film writing has reduced the power that critics once held - which is likely one of the key reasons (along with newspaper cutbacks) for the perilous state of film criticism.  But the ability of so many voices - whether in the NY Times or on our humble blog - to join the conversation encourages us to engage, to expand, confront and continue the conversation for any film that's worth a damn.

Wyatt Troll Has a Moonman

Congratulations are in order to our dear friend Wyatt Troll, who picked up the MTV Video Music Award for Best Cinematography Sunday night for his work on the White Stripes' "Conquest/Conquista" video.  The video was directed by Diane Martel.

Funnily enough, the category was a bit of a battle of KURT COBAIN ABOUT A SON principals as Troll (who DP'd) took the award over Death Cab for Cutie's "I Will Possess Your Heart", featuring KCAAS co-composer Ben Gibbard (though the latter did pick up the editing award).

Sean Nelson's "Dead Man Talking" Featured in Da Capo's Best Music Writing 2008

A nice little piece of news.  Sean Nelson (who writes about film and music for Seattle's The Stranger when he's not touring with Harvey Danger or starring in indie films like Lynn Shelton's MY EFFORTLESS BRILLIANCE) has a contribution in the always excellent compilation Da Capo's Best Music Writing 2008, and it happens to be his review of our KURT COBAIN ABOUT A SON.

It's a lovely, lengthy piece of writing, which we'd think even if it had nothing to do with us.  Some excerpts:

"The fact that this footage is shot in the present day instead of archival adds a layer of meaning that might not register so much outside the Northwest—which is fine; if it's about place, let it be about place. Seeing the familiar sights—there's Neumo's, there's the library, there's a lot of new condos—under Cobain's soliloquies is a powerful reminder that he's both a building block of the contemporary psychic (and physical) architecture of the region, particularly Seattle, and also in danger of being forgotten—not as a face or a voice, obviously, but as an exponent of a certain regional character. When Cobain was alive, the desire to escape your small town, make a name for yourself, make some music, and make some money presented a genuine dilemma for people schooled in what Cobain (sounding a bit like Courtney Love) disdainfully calls "the bohemian theory of musical revolution."

By the time the film's interviews took place, Nirvana was a global phenomenon and its frontman had had to reconcile himself to being thought of as a hypocrite by the devotees of this theory, whose spiritual center, not for nothing, was Olympia, the very town whose "taste of culture" made him get real about his music. Though he sounds convinced that the bohemian theory was full of holes, there can be no question that the man with a K Records tattoo on his arm was tortured by it while he lived. Surely, Nirvana was the first band for whom the appropriate way to demonstrate true appreciation was to not wear the T-shirt.The then-prevailing idea that being punk meant being real, and being real meant rejecting fame, money, and attention—that barely exists anymore, except as a marginal objection or a quiet personal choice. Even the notion that there's such a thing as selling out is largely obsolete today, partly because of Nirvana's success. In 1992, that notion was central to music culture in the Northwest (and plenty of other places), even as bands vied to swim in Nirvana's wake. If Cobain is a martyr to anything, it's not rock 'n' roll, it's that brutal ideology, which, like all ideologies, was utopian, and therefore built to fail. The film never says any of this, but the thwarted anger in Cobain's voice, and the scenes of a changed Seattle (including Sub Pop's well-appointed new offices) make it impossible not to consider.

(...)

And while it's probably true that he wouldn't have liked the film—too indulgent, too whiny, too many shots of Aberdeen—one can at least imagine that Cobain would've appreciated the opportunity to speak for himself, without the constant interpretation that he so despairingly resisted when he was alive. This is probably the ultimate reason that About a Son is the only way to do a film about Kurt Cobain, who was, for all important reasons, the last rock star: There's no thesis, no exegesis, no attempts to put him in a frame he didn't choose. It's just: Here he is, his words, his version—unfiltered, unmitigated, unmagnified even by his own blinding beauty. And for those of us who really did hang on his every word when he was alive, getting frustrated along with him at the way no one seemed to like him for the right reasons, the film's mandate to humanize a musician who has been handed down to history as a glowering 2-D icon is a welcome innovation.

But that still doesn't make it easy to watch, even all these years later."

About A Son Premieres Tonight on Sundance Channel

Further proof that the life of a film is long, my own KURT COBAIN ABOUT A SON has its television premiere tonight on the Sundance Channel (it's playing all month on Sundance on Demand).

As much as I promote the theatrical experience for nonfiction films, there is little doubt that the largest audience for my film (as with most) will come from folks who catch it on TV.  Pleasantly, Ken Fox at TV Guide gave us a lovely review - 3 1/2 stars out of 4:

"Aside from a few black-and-white photographs, Kurt Cobain never appears in this documentary, nor is a single note of his music ever heard. Instead, filmmaker AJ Schnack's hauntingly beautiful film is a bold and successful attempt to recover the human being who disappeared under the heavy mantle of "face and voice of a lost generation," and whose life has been increasingly overshadowed by his sensational early death in 1994."

Thanks once again to all who helped make the film possible and to Sundance Channel for continuing to support my work.

KURT COBAIN ABOUT A SON Out Today on DVD

Nearly three years ago, I started this blog in large part to serve as a filmmaking diary as I was about to start work on my second feature.  It has, over time, morphed into something else entirely, which is all for the good.  But occasionally we return to the original intent and purpose and today is one of those days.

There are many, many stages of getting your film out there, to a strangely inverse corollary of your own level of excitement or nervousness vs. the number of people who actually see the film.  There's that first screening, where tens or hundreds or, in the right festival or venue, a thousand people see your film, and your emotion is running high.  But as time goes on and you're at your fourth, fifth, sixth festival, the level of anticipation is obviously diminished, even as another hundred people here, another hundred there, sit in the dark to watch your film.

Same goes with a theatrical release, if you're lucky enough to get one.  It's not quite the same sense of wonder - after all, now it actually starts to matter whether or not anyone shows up - but you're potentially reaching a larger audience and getting more press.

Today is my third signpost on the journey to endless runs on the Sundance Channel, the release of the DVD of KURT COBAIN ABOUT A SON.  It's not been a smooth journey, I will say quite frankly, and there were days when I started to wonder if there'd ever be a DVD release, and if there was one, whether I'd write anything about it here.  But ultimately, I'm proud and happy that all the folks who have written me asking why the film didn't come to theatres in Florida or Texas or Iowa or wherever, can now get the film from Netflix or Amazon or whatever outlet they choose.  (PS - If a film doesn't come to your town or state, it's not because filmmakers or distributors are snobs, it's because your local art house won't book it - and that includes the vaunted Landmark chain.)

The Docs of Sundance 2008: ANVIL Meets PATTI SMITH (Part Two)

Festival coverage sponsored by IndiePix.

As a student and practitioner of the sub-genre known as the music documentary, I was very interested in two titles at this year's Sundance Film Festival - the competition doc PATTI SMITH DREAM OF LIFE and the Spectrum doc ANVIL: THE STORY OF ANVIL. What I didn't quite expect was that the two films would remind me of the themes and styles of my own films, so apologies in advance for a post that will be more self-referential than I normally allow.

There was good word-of-mouth coming into the festival for Sacha Gervasi’s ANVIL: THE STORY OF ANVIL, and the film did not disappoint, providing a welcome relief from some of the more serious nonfiction films at the festival.

Telling the tale of a Canadian heavy metal band that apparently rivaled Megadeth, Anthrax and Metallica in the burgeoning days of metal, the film is a hilarious and surprisingly touching story of how two musicians – friends since high school – have fought to keep making music even as they reach 50 and as they’ve watched their contemporaries reach stratospheric levels of fame and fortune.

Right off the bat, this story plays right to my personal preferences. GIGANTIC, after all, is also a story of two boyhood friends who are two decades into a career that has been filled with ups and downs, yet who are still looking for ways to make music. At the time of its making, They Might Be Giants had reached a kind of sweet spot in their careers - able to record and tour and still have a decent, comfortable (if not opulent) lifestyle. The two leaders of Anvil find themselves at 50 still searching for the audience they glimpsed in the metal '80s.

ANVIL: THE STORY OF ANVIL has frequently been referred to as “a real-life Spinal Tap” and, in fact, there are several deliberate references to the 1984 mockumentary classic (not the least of which is the fact that Anvil’s drummer is named Robb Reiner). A couple of these spot-on homages straddle the line between brilliant and contrived, such as a visit to the real Stonehenge, but the film is so fun that it seems petty to complain.

The Birth of a New Award for Nonfiction

This idea, that there should be awards for nonfiction that recognized the breadth of the genre and included the crafts of cinematography and editing and producing, has been simmering for more than a year. 

Little moments began to build.  I was dumbfounded that groups like the ASC - the American Society of Cinematographers - didn't give an award for cinematography in nonfiction features.  I was surprised to see filmmakers twist themselves and their bank accounts into knots trying to qualify via the Academy's byzantine and oft-changing rules.

Last summer, at the AFI Silverdocs film festival, I found myself in several conversations about the Academy and its qualification procedures.  I'd see filmmakers stressed, wondering where they'd get the money or whether they'd be able to qualify through the IDA's DocuWeek.  And at some point, sitting with filmmakers and others from within our community, I began to insist that the only way to fix this broken system with the Academy was to dilute the hypnotic power it seemed to hold over filmmakers.  And one way to do that was to create a new award, one that would salute the craftspersons and artists who work in nonfiction.  One that would not be subject to the same bizarre requirements and mysterious screening committees.  One that truly grew from within the community.

My first thought, at least the one I proposed in Silver Spring with at least one drink consumed, was that this was a job that should be handled by an existing entity - perhaps the IDA with an expanded list of awards that included areas of craft, or maybe a top nonfiction festival like Silverdocs.

But it soon became clear that these organizations and others had their hands more than full.  Getting someone else do take on this project would take years of persuasion (of boards, sponsors, etc.).

So, with Silverdocs completed, I returned to Los Angeles with this little idea tucked away.

Then came the Academy Shortlist.