The Great Documentaries Instructor: Michael Fox Tuesdays, 2:30-4:00pm, January 19-March 9, 2021 [email protected] With nonfiction films entrenched as a genre of mainstream movie entertainment, we revisit the pivotal films that established the technique, tone and tenor of the modern documentary. From Frederick Wiseman’s Titicut Follies (1967) to Werner Herzog’s Grizzly Man (2005), this screening, lecture and discussion class appraises key works of lasting power and influence. The discussion will encompass perennial issues such as the responsibility of the filmmaker to the subject, truth and storytelling, the thin line between observation and activism and our evolving relationship to images. The Great Documentaries is a historical survey that follows and builds on Documentary Touchstones I and II, which I taught at OLLI a few years ago. I’ve appended a list of those films—if you have never seen them and wish to journey further back in the history of documentaries—and more information at the end of the syllabus. Most of the titles are available to watch for free on YouTube, although the quality of the prints varies. Jan. 19 Titicut Follies (1967, Frederick Wiseman, 84 min) Kanopy Wiseman’s debut film is a stark and graphic portrayal of the conditions that existed at the State Prison for the Criminally Insane at Bridgewater, Mass, documenting the various ways the inmates are treated by the guards, social workers and psychiatrists. “A great work, a near-masterpiece not just of the documentary form but of moviemaking in any category. It's a film that transcends the time and place of its manufacture, and it should be seen not just by documentarians and film students but by anyone interested in the movies as a medium capable of powerfully presenting the human condition.” - Ray Greene, Village View A Boston native and graduate of Williams College and Yale Law School, Frederick Wiseman is in the pantheon of U.S. filmmakers. He has made dozens of documentaries that have aired on PBS, including At Berkeley (2013), and he’s received countless awards. His most recent opus, City Hall (2020), focuses on Boston’s city government. Jan. 26 Dont Look Back (1967, D.A. Pennebaker, 96 min) Criterion Channel, Amazon, HBO Max Bob Dylan is captured on-screen as he never would be again in this groundbreaking film. Pennebaker finds Dylan in England during his 1965 tour, which would be his last as an acoustic artist. Dylan is surrounded by teen fans, gets into heated philosophical jousts with journalists and kicks back with fellow musicians Joan Baez, Donovan and Alan Price. A radically conceived portrait of an icon that has influenced decades of vérité behind-the-scenes documentaries. D.A. Pennebaker (1925-2019) made numerous music documentaries (including Monterey Pop) as well as the Oscar-nominated The War Room (1993), about Bill Clinton’s first presidential campaign. Feb. 2 F For Fake (1975, Orson Welles, 89 min) Criterion Channel, Amazon Trickery. Deceit. Magic. In this free-form sort-of documentary, the legendary filmmaker (and self-described charlatan) gleefully reengages with the central preoccupation of his career: the tenuous lines between illusion and truth, art and lies. Beginning with portraits of the world- renowned art forger Elmyr de Hory and his equally devious biographer Clifford Irving, Welles embarks on a dizzying journey that simultaneously exposes and revels in fakery and fakers of all stripes, not the least of whom is Welles himself. Charming and inventive, F For Fake is an inspired prank and a clever examination of the essential duplicity of cinema. Orson Welles (1915-85) is best known for his fiction films Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons, The Lady from Shanghai, Touch of Evil and several Shakespeare adaptations. His last film, The Other Side of the Wind, completed long after his death, is on Netflix along with a documentary about its production, They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead. Feb. 9 Grey Gardens (1975, Albert and David Maysles, codirected by Ellen Hovde and Muffie Meyer, 95 min) Criterion Channel, Amazon Big Edie and Little Edie Beale, mother and daughter, high-society dropouts and reclusive cousins of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, manage to live (thrive?) together amid the decay and disorder of their East Hampton mansion in an eerily ramshackle echo of the American Camelot. This intimate portrait quickly became a cult classic and established Little Edie as a fashion icon and philosopher queen. The Maysles brothers’ celebrated oeuvre includes Salesman (1969) and Gimme Shelter (1970), which followed the Rolling Stones to Altamont. Feb. 16 Harlan County USA (1976, Barbara Kopple, 103 min) Criterion Channel An unflinching document of a grueling coal miners’ strike in a small Kentucky town. With unprecedented access, Kopple and her crew captured the miners’ sometimes violent struggles with strikebreakers, police and company thugs. Featuring a haunting soundtrack with country and bluegrass artists Hazel Dickens, Merle Travis, Sarah Gunning, and Florence Reece, this is a heartbreaking record of the 13-month struggle between a community fighting to survive and a corporation dedicated to the bottom line. Few figures have shaped the form of modern documentary storytelling more than Barbara Kopple, who, with the landmark Harlan County USA, fused the techniques of cinema verité with the radical spirit of 1970s political activism to create an electrifying account of an extended strike. Fifteen years later she won a second Oscar for American Dream, another bracing look at union organizing and class struggle that also stands as one of the most trenchant films ever made about labor in the U.S. Feb. 23 When We Were Kings (1996, Leon Gast, 88 min) HBO Max, Amazon An electric, entertaining record of the events surrounding “The Rumble in the Jungle,” the 1974 heavyweight championship fight in Zaire between George Foreman and Muhammad Ali. Academy Award-winning filmmaker and photographer Leon Gast’s credits include co-directing The Grateful Dead Movie (1974) with Jerry Garcia, directing the paparazzi doc Smash His Camera (2010) and producing The Trials of Muhammad Ali (2013). Mar. 2 Grizzly Man (2005, Werner Herzog, 103 min) Hoopla, Amazon Herzog brings his singular perspective to bear on idealistic activist Timothy Treadwell and his girlfriend, Amie Huguenard, who lived among grizzly bears in Alaska—for a while. Werner Herzog shot to prominence in the 1970s as part of the German New Wave of narrative filmmakers with memorable films like Aguirre, The Wrath of God (1972) and Fitzcarraldo (1982). He has focused primarily on documentaries for the last 30 years, and that extensive body of work include Little Dieter Needs to Fly (1997), My Best Fiend (1999), Encounters at the End of the World (2007) and Nomad: In the Footsteps of Bruce Chatwin (2019). Mar. 9 The Gleaners and I (2000, Agnès Varda, France) Criterion Channel Varda’s late-career renaissance began with this wonderfully idiosyncratic, self-reflexive exploration of the world of modern-day gleaners: those living on the margins who survive by foraging for what society throws away. Embracing the intimacy and freedom of digital film- making, Varda posits herself as a kind of gleaner of images and ideas, one whose generous, expansive vision makes room for ruminations on everything from aging to the birth of cinema to the beauty of heart-shaped potatoes. By turns playful, philosophical and subtly political, The Gleaners and I is a warmly human reflection on the contradictions of our consumerist world from an artist who, like her subjects, finds richness where few think to look. Born in Ixelles, Belgium in 1928, Agnès Varda’s long career spanned her narrative debut, La Pointe Courte (1955)—widely seen as a forerunner of the French New Wave in its location filmmaking and use of non-professional actors—to her final first-person documentary, Varda by Agnès (2019). Her work included fiction and documentary, shorts and features. Her narrative films include the New Wave classics Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962) and Le Bonheur (1965), the feminist musical One Sings, the Other Doesn’t (1977) and Vagabond (1985). Varda’s docs include Jacquot de Nantes (1991) a memoir of the childhood of her husband, filmmaker Jacques Demy, and the Oscar-nominated Faces Places (2017). Reference books: Documentary: A History of the Non-Fiction Film. Erik Barnouw, Oxford University Press, second edition, 1993 Documentary Film: A Very Short Introduction. Patricia Aufderheide, Oxford University Press, 2007 Touchstone Documentaries: Nanook of the North (Robert Flaherty, 1922) An Inuit hunter and his family struggle to survive in the harsh conditions of Canada’s Hudson Bay region. Enormously popular upon its release, Nanook remains a milestone for its pioneering use of narrative techniques: a defined central character, structured and shaped scenes, and dramatic pacing (alternating action and calm). www.criterion.com/current/posts/42-nanook-of- the-north Robert Flaherty (1884-1951), arguably the first documentary filmmaker, also made Moana (1926), Man of Aran (1934) and Louisiana Story (1948). The son of a mining engineer, Flaherty became a filmmaker in order to document his travels as an explorer and prospector in the Canadian Arctic. He lived and worked with the Inuit, who served as his guides, companions, technical crew, navigators, dog sled driver and collaborators on many expeditions. He made more than 1,500 photographs of the Inuit from 1908-24, which are now housed in the National Photography Collection in the Public Archives of Canada and the Robert and Frances Flaherty Study Center at Claremont College. www.sensesofcinema.com/2002/great-directors/flaherty/ Man with a Movie Camera (Dziga Vertov, Soviet Union, 1929) 68 min A day in the life of a city (though it was actually shot in Moscow, Kiev, Odessa and elsewhere) from dawn until dusk.