Recent Viewing

This is the third update for the 104-documentary goal for 2010.

Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts, Scott Hicks, 2007.
Philip Glass’ music has haunted me through several of Errol Morris’s documentaries: The Thin Blue Line, The Fog of War, and A Brief History of Time. I never can decide if the music is just plain too much or if it’s just perfect. Hicks’ piece is a fascinating portrait that challenges the ideas of genius, tortured artists — awaiting inspiration, spiraling downward through depression, and frustrating everyone in the process. That’s not the case here: Glass maintains a calmness and confidence about his work and his visions for it, while at the same time maintaining an immense curiosity about the world around him. Hicks certainly humanizes him through certain scenes, such as making pizza and doing yoga. Glass’ current wife talks rather frankly about the composer and their relationship, offering some hints into his personal life that get only hinted at through other interviews, such as with his siblings. Overall, this is a nice portrait.

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, Larry Charles, 2006.
I watched this only because so many mentions of it refer to it being a mockumentary or being like a documentary. Sure, it contains documentary techniques: interviews, supposed candid sequences, roving “reporter.” Mostly, I just found the whole thing stupid, particularly with the homophobia, the anti-Semitism, the mocking of Eastern European cultures, and the disrespect to interview subjects. Really, almost everyone on this planet is a good person, so why mock them so meanly for other people’s entertainment, especially the boarding house couple? Really, what purpose does that serve? The most pointless movie I have ever seen.

14/104

Changing Distribution and Video Impact Links

Some links on the changing forms of distribution that I have been hanging on to in the RSS feed:

Declaration of Independence: The Ten Principles of Hybrid Distribution, by Peter Broderick, on indieWIRE

Welcome To The New World of Distribution, Part 1, by Peter Broderick on indieWIRE

Welcome To The New World of Distribution, Part 2, by Peter Broderick on indieWIRE

Impact Outside of the Box: Assessing How Digital Video Can Engage and Influence Publics, from the Center for Social Media

2010 Documentary Oscar Nominations

Here’s the shortlist, and below is the final nominee list. Here is the complete list in all categories. I’m also happy to see that Kathryn Bigelow now becomes the fourth woman nominated for best feature director. Women are better represented in the documentary areas, as seen even below.

Documentary Feature
Burma VJ, Anders Østergaard and Lise Lense-Møller

The Cove

Food, Inc., Robert Kenner and Elise Pealstein

The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers, Judith Elrlich and Rick Goldsmith

Which Way Home, Rebecca Cammisa

Documentary Short
China’s Unnatural Disaster: the Tears of Sichuan Province, Jon Alpert and Matthew O’Neill

The Last Campaign of Governer Booth Gardner, Daniel Junge and Henry Ansbacher

The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant, Steven Gognar and Julia Reichert

Music by Prudence, Roger Ross Williams and Elinor Burkett

Rabbit à la Berlin, Bartek Konopka and Anna Wydra

Site Updates

I added a new page about ethics and documentary. I also added a section for documentary makers, which is thin for now but will expand soon. I restructured the site slightly to reflect the new change.

Suggestions for pages and comments always welcome.

All in the Family: Meerkat Manor

The discourses of family that pervade animal programming never cease to amaze me. Somehow, shows find a way to adapt the usual idea of “family” — mated mother and father and their children — no matter the mating habits of particular species. I watched season one of Meerkat Manor in preparation for a television class discussion next week about the role of documentary in channel identity, in this case nature programming on the Discovery Channel.

Meerkat Manor is a Discovery Channel show that uses these discourses, and names and labels the members of the family as if they were characters. In the first season Flower is the matriarch; Zaphod is the “dominant male” and key partner to Flower; and Shakespeare, Tosca, Daisy, and others are their children. They end up numbering more than 40 as the short season one goes on, particularly since Flower breeds multiple times per year. The entire group even is called the “Whiskers family,” while the rival groups seeking their territory are called “gangs.” (Once in a while the Whiskers are referred to as a “gang,” too.)

The family in this show is run tightly: Some adults forage for food, some maintain the home, some play babysitter to the youngest ones, and some defend the territory. The female meerkats are largely the nurturing and comforting ones, while the males provide protection or, in the case of males from separate gangs, they seek mates. The children are just that: children who play, fight, and explore.

Flower is the leader. She leads them to food, new homes, to safety. She runs undesired members (her own daughters, oddly) out of the group. She is shown as a rather ruthless character. She is the head of the group, and she wants to ensure the survival of her own children. The voice over narration consistently reminds us that she can kill the pups born to other females within the group in order to retain her dominance and ensure her own pups’ survival. At one point she relocates the entire group to a new home in order to get away from an unwanted litter born by her daughter Daisy. Daisy even abandoned her litter to stay with the group in its migration.

Zaphod is the dominant male and partner to Flower. He tries to play a protective role to Flower, which she supposedly tolerates. Shakespeare is courageous for his surviving a snake bite and his protecting the children. Mozart is sacrificial in putting the children’s needs before her own. Columbus is — can you guess? — an adventurous explorer. One of them even has socialization issues.

The naming of the Meerkats and the assignment of personality traits and roles to each one makes it easier for the voiceover narration to tell this family’s story and for the marketing to hype the show. They become means for audience identification. The fate of Shakespeare after season 1 becomes the “cliffhanger” to bring us to season two. You can even find out, which meerkat are you? (I was Maybelline.)

I go through all this to ask these questions: If we did not represent animals as “characters” in nature programming, how else might they be shown? Is placing them into these normative discourses representative of the science behind their study? By using these discourses, are other, more complicated issues getting passed over?

Recent Viewing

The second 2010 update for watching 104 documentaries in a year:

Life by Joseph, A Documentary, Tyler Hicks and William Newman. 2009.
This short piece reveals aspects of the life of Batavia-area community artist Francis Joseph Gagnepain IV. Gagnepain’s life is consumed by his art and his family. He battles depression as he creates brilliant pieces of work. This 20-minute piece is part of a longer production, which I look forward to seeing more of.

Lipstick and Dynamite, Ruth Leitman, Koch, 2004.
Lipstick and Dynamite is about the pioneering women in the world of wrestling. Through their own words and experiences, the film shows us about their lives and their challenges through the sport. This is one of my favorite documentaries.

Outrage, Kirby Dick, 2009.
Outrage caused quite a stir when it came out and when it aired on HBO. It focuses on Republican politicians who are accused of being closeted on the one hand and who vote against gay rights initiatives on the other. The film is pretty firm in its finger-pointing, but it does raise some powerful questions about self-identity, identity, and society.

After Innocence, Jessica Sanders, New Yorker Video, 2005.
Many crime documentaries focus on the justice process, placing the innocent’s verdict at the height of its drama. Others, such as The Thin Blue Line, retrace evidence and witness trails to uncover flaws in the system. After Innocence brings forward the work of DNA cases overturning wrongful convictions of men who had served multiple years on their sentences, and it also raises some key questions about what happens to them after their releases. Assistance remains unavailable for them, and they try to rebuild their lives with their criminal records often not expunged. This piece offers a key extension of important questions raised in other docs.

How’s Your News?, Shout Factory, 2004.
How’s Your News? is a much larger project than this documentary first indicated: It aired on MTV briefly, it had short films before the documentary, and it overall continues to be an ongoing project. It involves adults with disabilities who attend Camp Jabberwocky, and they serve as on-the-street reporters approaching people and asking questions. Some reporters even use eyeglass cameras to record their interviews. In many ways this piece tells us as much about living with disability as it does about people’s attitudes toward them, both bad but also especially good.

Farmingville, Carlos Sandoval and Catherine Tambini, 2003.
Farmingville explores the issues of undocumented workers who moved to a Long Island town looking for day labor. While some groups try to assist the laborers, other groups demand their removal. State and local officials get involved, and the INS gets some blame for not doing its job. Instead of pointing fingers, Sandoval and Tambini do an excellent job of presenting balance to the story, the problems, and the perceived problems.

Total count: 12/104

Production Update

This semester’s production has gone through a couple changes in the last week or so. Instead of a shorter, online-only piece, we’re going to try for a documentary short running about 30 minutes. That length, of course, will depend on the material we find after all the research and recording.

The general topic is still agriculture. We’re currently between two topics. One is about the intersection of farming and disability. The other is about generational farming, or farms that pass down from generation to generation.

Next up are a inquiry into human subjects research (since this is being made in a university setting) and more research.

Gender and Advertising

Don’t mind me; just trying to get some links together for a lecture on gender and advertising.

Older Representation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Q1gksqqhLU

Humor
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdUP3dtRynk

Pantene
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hz8ul-gmLyA

Nike: Athlete
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9It24cN3_E

Dove: Pro-Age
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vilUhBhNnQc

Gap: Mellow-Yellow
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4Hu6up9Xng

Diesel Unlimited
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_dciaAYjh4

Wonderbra
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYMeHW9NGZk

Gap: SJP
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1Qv-37rLRY

Titan Watches
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yI4PpZ5pE1I

Diet Coke Break
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzMfW7oSKLQ

Dell
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKrscBVWIdg

Jim Beam
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aQXBE1bfis&NR=1

Underdak
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=km6tGDlYsew

Gatorade: Michael and Mia
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liKnJ-ejztw

The Mail
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xd5LwzTiL8

Nike: Men vs. Women
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLyFlDAikac

Real Men of Genius
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsC3ni7A88M

For Love of Liberty: The Story of America’s Black Patriots

For Love of Liberty: The Story of America’s Black Patriots chronicles 200 years of African Americans’ contributions to the U.S. fighting efforts. According to the press release, it boasts an impressive cast of readers: Morgan Freeman, Mel Gibson, Susan Sarandon, Louis Gossett, Jr., Ossie Davis, Robert Duvall, Danny Glover, Jeffrey Wright, Sam Elliott, Isaac Hayes, John Goodman, Jesse L. Martin, Peter Coyote, Ice-T, James Garner, Robert Townsend, Alan Rickman, Ruby Dee, John Amos, Eriq La Salle, Angela Bassett, Chris Cooper, Alfre Woodard, Cliff Robertson, Blair Underwood, Charles Dutton, Kris Kristofferson, Donald Sutherland, and Isaiah Washington, among others. Also according to the press release, the film brings these stories forward “Through the innovative combination of personal writings and memorabilia, historical text, rare photographs, archival materials, location footage and reenactments.”

The four-hour program will be broadcast on some PBS stations in February 2010, and the DVD will be available at that time also. The project is sponsored by the U.S. Army even.

Comments
One of my favorite research projects in grad school was about Susie King Taylor’s autobiography from the Civil War and during Reconstruction. One of the amazing aspects about her memoir is that it even exists — she was taught to read and write as an adolescent even though it was forbidden at the time. Because of that horrible law, the amount of written, personal accounts from that era is very, very few. I’m curious to see how this film handles that fact.

Documentary of the Day? Or Week?

In catching up with the RSS feeds yesterday, I came across something called the “documentary of the day” in the St. Petersburg Times. Briefly, it read

Filmmaker Ken Burns is adding a 10th inning to his 1994 documentary entitled Baseball. Burns told the Boston Globe that the Red Sox’s 2004 World Series champion ship will be “prominently emphasized.” Burns also said he is asking Red Sox fans to submit personal photos from that season for possible inclusion in the film.

I’m wondering if there is some blogging value to doing something like that here, not just with recent titles, but with other ones as well.