DOCUMENTARIES

I’ve been watching Christine Amanpour’s documentary GOD’S WARRIORS on CNN (a three part series that looks at Jewish extremists, Islamic extremists, and Christian extremists) the past three nights which got me thinking about documentaries.

Meanwhile, Ray DiPalma suggested I do a list of documentaries, and sent one of his own to me, Doug Lang, and Tom Evans, who all in turn made ones of our own, and a lively e-mail discussion of documentaries ensued.

So there was no way I wouldn’t fall asleep last night making an alphabet list of my favorite documentaries, as I could recall them (with the help of those lists and e mails in my memory):

ATOMIC CAFÉ, THE (great half-campy ‘50s collage) and AMERICAN DREAM (great “recent”—’80?—labor documentary)
BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE and BROOKLYN DODGERS: THE GHOSTS OF FLATBUSH (both of these films are heartbreaking to me)
CRUMB and CHARLIE MINGUS: THE TRIUMPH OF THE UNDERDOG (two uncompromising looks at two uncompromising geniuses)
DOGTOWN AND Z-BOYS (the favorite documentary, most days, of me and both my sons, about the origins of modern skateboarding in Santa Monica, where my older boy went to middle and high school and surfed and skateboarded, and where my little one was born and lived briefly on the street used in the first slalom style skateboarding of the 1970s shown in the film, it’s incredibly well done and in your face and possibly the only documentary to have footage of, and interviews with the still living creators of, an “art” form as it was being born! You have to see it!) and DON’T LOOK BACK (the first documentary on Dylan, that caught him in at least one scene being the not-so-nice guy I encountered in the Village before he was famous, but whose musical geniuss I eventually acknowledged, admired, and was inspired by and still am)
END OF THE CENTURY: THE STORY OF THE RAMONES
FAHRENHEIT 9/11
GOD’S WARRIORS and GIMME SHELTER (the death of the spirit of “the Summer of Love” came in December 1969 at Altamont Speedway where Mick Jagger’s deal with the devil was paid for—uh, maybe that’s too harsh, but it didn’t seem like it at the time)
HUBERT SELBY JR.: IT/LL BE BETTER TOMORROW (too many celebs and talking heads that didn’t really know him that well, but several who did and share great takes on him and his work, but more important, are the precious sequences of Selby reading his work—including in a weekly reading series I co-ran in L. A. (uncredited) that he religiously read at every week along with other regulars—and being interviewed or just doing his laundry, it captures what made him so unique, and—full disclosure—I’m in it for a few seconds) HAIL! HAIL! ROCK’N’ROLL (the Chuck Berry documentary Keith Richards thankfully got made)
INCONVENIENT TRUTH, AN
JAZZ ON A SUMMER’S DAY (a great black and white look at some real people in the 1950s, as well as some great music, including that amazing solo by Anita O’Day I mentioned on a very early post about her passing) and JAZZ (the Ken Burns documentary that’s mostly great, with a few exceptions, including leaving out the young Bing Crosby who even Louis Armstrong admitted had a clear impact on early jazz)
KIDS ARE ALRIGHT, THE (The Who documentary)
LIFE OF JACKIE ROBINSON, THE (this came out when I was a kid and Robinson was still playing for the Dodgers; I was so impressed with his dignity and heroic perseverance in the face of the widespread and often legal racism of those times, it changed my life, literally, headed me in a direction there was no turning back from (I wrote about that in the poem “Sports Heroes, Cops, and Lace” in CANT BE WRONG) and LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, MR. LEONARD COHEN (a 1965 black and white documentary about Cohen when he was still just a poet, that also changed my life: it helped me make the decision to stop playing music professionally and concentrate totally on my own poetry!)
MONTEREY POP (like I said in a previous post, full of mostly terrific music and a great take on the real “Summer of Love”) and MAN IN THE WOODS: THE ART OF RUDY BURCKHARDT (great documentary on a friend and great photographer and filmmaker, directed by poet Vincent Katz and Vivien Bittencourt)
NO DIRECTION HOME (I wasn’t entirely crazy about Scorcese’s take on what made Dylan tick in his heyday, e.g. there wasn’t much focus on the effect certain drugs had on him although watching the footage from the period it was clear how great a role those drugs played in his development, or lack of it)
OCTOBER/TEN DAYS THAT SHOOK THE WORLD (Russian Revolution, obviously)
PARIS IS BURNING (an amazing take On African-American men who dress up as women and “vogue” at their annual ball in runway competitions, etc.—it inspired the Madonna song and craze, but the real thing is so much more poignant and, well, real)
Q?
ROGER & ME (what can I say, I love Moore’s movies)
SORROW AND THE PITY, THE (in my opinion this black and white documentary about participants in World War Two by Max Ophuls is the greatest documentary ever made, but then I saw it on the big screen when it first came out, and I was born at the beginning of that war and had two older brothers in the service during it) and SEVEN UP! (a black and white documentary by Michael Apted that began the series which follows the lives of a group of British school kids, checking in every seven years—SEVEN AND SEVEN, 21 UP, 28 UP, etc.—to see what effect class and family background has on the ways their lives unfold; the series is like an unending film, as close to watching your own kids grow up as any work of art has ever been, and as such it is often uncomfortable to watch, but also fascinating and, I find, more rewarding than any other film I can think of in the long run, these people have become an integral part of my own life through this amazing ongoing lifelong documentary), SAY AMEN, SOMEBODY (great Gospel documentary) and SICKO
THELONIOUS MONK: STRAIGHT NO CHASER (as close as we’ll ever get to the real Monk, outside his music, and in my estimation he is the singular most original genius of jazz music), TO LIVE AND DIE IN MADRID (I’m pretty sure that was the name of a black and white documentary I saw in the 1960s about the Spanish Civil War that had a great impact on me, especially the scenes, real footage, of huge crowds of citizens of Madrid greeting the Loyalists with their closed-fist salute at the beginning of the film, and at the end—as Franco’s forces march into the city—similar crowds of citizens lining the streets to greet the Facists with their stiff-armed, hand-extended, palm-down salute, it made me wonder how many of these people were the same ones) and THIS IS ELVIS (a mixed bag but worth it for the early Elvis footage, as well as the sad late stuff)
U?
V?
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO KEROUAC? (a documentary by the poet Lewis MacAdams about the man), WHEN WE WERE KINGS (great documentary on Muhammed Ali when he was becoming the most famous man in the world) and WOODSTOCK
X?
Y?
Z CHANNEL: A MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION (about the channel I, and most people working in Hollywood, watched to see movies before videos and hundreds of cable channels became common)