Only 6 documentary films have cracked the $20 million mark at the box office. Data retrieved from BoxOfficeMojo.com;
Fahrenheit 9/11: $119,194,771 (2004)
March of the Penguins: $77,437,223 (2005)
Earth: $32,011,576 (2009)
Sicko: $24,540,079 (2007)
An Inconvenient Truth: $24,146,161 (2006)
Bowling for Columbine: $21,576,018 (2002)
A look at the top twenty:
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For some perspective, Fahrenheit 9/11 (as of the moment I type this) is the 332th highest grossing film of all time in the domestic box office with $119,194,771. This is eight spots below I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry at #324, which cracked the $120,000,000 mark.
Generally viewed as the greatest documentary of the 1990s (if not all time), Hoop Dreams is an epic look at two basketball wonders from inner-city Chicago; William Gates and Arthur Agee. The film tracks the most formidable years of their lives, from the time they are literally scouted by high school teams in middle school through their first year in college. In the end the film transcends the sport of basketball. It is an epic narrative of their lives, their families, and their communities.
Both boys are recruited by St. Joseph High School, a Catholic, predominantly white high school in an affluent neighborhood. The school is both culturally and physically far from their own neighborhoods. They have a three hour commute everyday. Before their sophomore year, tuition issues arise. While William finds fortune in the form of a sponsor (who oddly happens to be the President of the Encyclopedia Britannica Corporation), Arthur is forced to drop out of school because his parents can’t keep up with the expenses. He ends up attending Marshall Public High School. This offers an affecting contrast between the two protagonists.
Gene Pingatore, the well-intentioned drillmaster coach from St. Joseph, barks at his team to “think about the game on the way to the game” before sitting in the front seat of the bus in front of his stoic student-athletes. Cut to: loud mayhem on the Marshall High School bus, including kids playing cards in the back. It feels like a romanticized account of contrasted bus rides, but it’s all real. In fact, if this film were fiction, much of it would be dismissed as too unbelievable.
There are certain moments that were serendipitously caught on film. For instance, when Arthur’s vacant father unexpectedly shows up at the courts, he briefly plays with his son before walking off to the far side. The camera then captures him brazenly making a crack deal in plain view of his son. Other moments seem to magically fall into place, like when William’s mother is solemnly sitting in the O.R. waiting room as a melancholic Phil Collins track plays diagetically on the radio.
Time has aged this film beautifully. Some of the characters in the film, who often seem to be caricatures of themselves, have become even more exaggerated over time.
William with his math teacher at St. Joseph High School
*SPOILER ALERT* The filmmakers chose the perfect two kids for their project. Both found some success on the court. Amazingly, Arthur and the Marshall Commandos actually make it all the way to the state championships, but come up short in the final game. It was cathartic to watch the Commandos lose. Not out of some kind of sadistic joy, but seeing them lose was reality. In real life, making it to the state championship game is a victory in and of itself. Rather than a Hollywood tale, in which the protagonist’s team would have undoubtedly, unquestionably, positively won the state championships (and the national title in the sequel, etc.).
Arthur cleaning his kicks. You should see this kid's Trapper Keeper.
Many filmgoers are reluctant to see documentaries, for reasons I've never understood; the good ones are frequently more absorbing and entertaining than fiction. "Hoop Dreams," however, is not only a documentary. It is also poetry and prose, muckraking and expose, journalism and polemic. It is one of the great moviegoing experiences of my lifetime.
Trivial Tidbits:
Hoop Dreams was not nominated for the best feature documentary at the Academy Awards. This caused such an uproar that the selection process was modified thereafter. (source)
However, it was nominated for best editing (lost to Forrest Gump)
In May, we here at DocZine reported on the lawsuit of multinational energy corporation vs. filmmaker. Chevron had brought suit against director Joe Berlinger in an effort to subpoena over 600 hours of unused footage from his 2009 film Crude, which itself was a film about a court case in which the Ecuadorian people sued Chevron (then Texaco) over the pollution of the Amazon Rain Forest. Chevron believed the outtakes from the film would expose corruption on behalf of the Ecuadorian legal team.
Yesterday an appeals court ruled that Berlinger had to turn over some, but not all, of the footage. According to the LA times, “While the judges said a full opinion would follow, they did order that Berlinger give Chevron footage not appearing in ‘Crude’ showing counsel for the plaintiffs in the environmental lawsuit (who discuss trial strategy in the film); experts in the proceeding (some of whom Chevron has accused of partiality); and current or former Ecuadorean government officials (which the oil company says colluded with the plaintiffs' lawyers).”
Evidently this was a fair decision, as both sides seemed pleased with the compromise. Chevron got the footage they were looking for. Berlinger remarked, "We are extremely pleased with today's results." For those that may be interested in yesterday's appeal proceedings,courthousenews.com has a detailed account.
The internet boom of the late 1990s saw many young entrepreneurs quickly amass staggering wealth. Josh Harris was at the forefront of that rush, eventually netting more than $80 million with his company JupiterResearch and later the internet television network Pseudo.com. We Live in Public portrays the peaks and valleys in the career of Harris, "the greatest Internet pioneer you've never heard of."
Harris was an eccentric visionary who used his fortune to fund human experiments. Just before the turn of the millennium, he invited 100 artists to live in an underground bunker in New York City outfitted with webcams to document their every move in a project called "Quiet: We Live in Public." This compound featured Japanese-style sleeping pods as well as a shooting range and an interrogation room in which the occupants were asked deeply personal, probing questions by a highly aggressive interviewer. Harris sought to foreshadow the fact that one day, the internet would put increased pressure on our lives by completely eradicating our privacy. Fortunately, the fire department shut down the project before anyone lost it.
He imagined a kind of Orwellian dystopia in which every second of our lives would be captured on video and put in the public domain for the world to examine. Today, many facets of our lives are on display on various websites. But the future has brought a different kind of transmission than Harris had imagined. By and large, we have control over what is published for the world to see. We are the publishing supervisors of our Facebook pages and the editors-in-chief of our YouTube channels. Perhaps Harris’ vision of an totalitarian future simply hasn’t yet materialized.
After the collapse of "Quiet: We Live in Public," Harris was clearly not satisfied with the results of his experiment. He immediately put his hypothesis to the test once again, this time putting himself under the microscope. He outfitted a New York loft with 30 motion-controlled cameras (including one in the fridge, litter box and toilet bowl) and 66 microphones and moved in with his new girlfriend, Tanya Corrin. After a “giddy” first month, the honeymoon quickly faded. Harris and Corrin became so distant to the point where they would sit in different rooms and talk to their viewers in chat rooms more than each other. Eventually this pressure cooker exploded in a very ugly way, for all the world to see. Timoner postulates:
I think that's an important lesson; the internet, as wonderful as it is, is not an intimate medium. It's just not. If you want to keep something intimate and if you want to keep something sacred, you probably shouldn't post it.
The film opens with an uninviting video of Harris saying goodbye to his dying mother. It then jumps to a history of the internet before moving on to focus on Harris and his endeavors. Some may see the film as off balance, but the documentary is successful for its perseverance if nothing else. Timoner captured footage from every unique venture of Harris’ life over the past 15 years, including his escape as an apple orchard farmer in Columbia County, NY. With 15 years worth of footage on any oddball such as Harris, one could make a compelling film. Each one of his undertakings could be the subject of an entertaining film in and of themselves, but Harris’ eccentric persona brings it all together.
One could argue that there is nothing more reprehensible than entrepreneurs profiting off of individuals under the guise of offering guaranteed salvation. Jesus Camp offers a look into a world in which greed hounds profit from a business that essentially brainwashes young, innocent children into believing that they are soldiers of the faith. Becky Fisher, who runs the camp, describes:
I can go into a playground of kids that don't know anything about Christianity, lead them to the Lord in a matter of, just no time at all, and just moments later they can be seeing visions and hearing the voice of God, because they're so open. They are so usable in Christianity.
In a most un-Kierkegaardian custom, belief in God is not a choice for the children in this community. They are indoctrinated to “just have faith” from a young age. Anyone who questions that belief is seen as a pariah, which would be as if anyone who questioned the government was dubbed unpatriotic (obviously a very dangerous proposition).
Not learning how to engage in a debate. (via Cinema de Merde)
It seems as though that is how the Evangelical community engages in politics. It is not difficult to comprehend why they are behind certain Right Wing principles, such as anti-choice, anti-stem cell research, and anti-evolution. While those positions may seem reprehensible, it’s what they believe in. Yet they accept, and even embrace, the entire Right Wing package, regardless of how unchristian it is; hawkish foreign policy, pro death penalty, and unrestricted gun rights. The reason for that lack of skepticism may be based in the fact that from a young age they are taught to just accept whatever those in power tell them.
This is particularly troubling considering Ted Haggard, the former president of the National Association of Evangelicals, who evidently used to speak with George W. Bush and his advisers on a weekly basis. Mr. Haggard comes off as a cocksure believer in Jesus Camp (refer to video below). Considering the frequency that he spoke with the former commander-in-chief, he probably had considerable influence over our nation’s policy. However, in a testament to the fact that this way of life noxiously drives repression, shortly after the release of Jesus Camp, former gay prostitute Mike Jones alleged that “Pastor Ted” paid him for sex at regular intervals over a three-year period and had also purchased and used crystal meth.
Skepticism is a vital mechanism for developing a healthy intellect. There’s no telling what kind of effect this indoctrination will have on these children. It certainly isn’t helping them to value, let alone develop, any sense of critical thought. It’s bad enough that these children are subject to such blatant brainwashing, but the fact that they are also mainly homeschooled should be downright criminal.
The filmmakers offer a dissenting voice in the form of Mike Papantonio, a talkshow host on the Air America radio network. However, his perspective is not even necessary. The Evangelical protagonists featured in the film come across in a negative light by virtue of their own words, despite the fact that the filmmakers claim that Jesus Camp does not have any agenda.
Becky Fischer doesn’t even let these kids read about that evil pagan warlock Harry Potter! I hope they at least think for themselves on that front.
The NY Times reports that Joe Berliner was granted a stay to the subpoenia issued on May 6 that would have forced the filmmaker to turn over more than 600 hours of unused footage from his film Crude to the Chevron corporation.
Crude documents a lawsuit against Chevron on behalf of the Ecuadorian people, who claim that the oil giant polluted their country's water. Chevron is seeking access to the footage that didn’t make the final cut of the film because they believe it may help them as they try to have the lawsuit dismissed.
In an interview with the Times, Maura Wogan, Mr. Berlinger’s counsel, said that if her client had not been granted this stay, “he would have been forced to turn over this material before the appeal was heard – he would have, in effect, lost his right to an appeal.”
A trial date has not yet been set for the expedited appeal, but one is expected by mid-July.
This is essentially the story of Thierry Guetta, an ebullient Frenchman with a penchant for videography whose life completely changed when he serendipitously discovered his cousin, Invader, creating colorful tile mosaics of vintage video game characters meant for illicit installation on the streets of Paris. This opened the door to a world that Guetta would entrench himself in for the next decade.
Guetta forced his way deep into the street art subculture, and captured mesmerizing footage of street artist icons Shepard Fairey (who gained mainstream attention thanks to his Barack Obama “HOPE” portrait) and British artist Banksy (who has remained an enigma despite the fact that his oeuvre has fetched a fortune and captured the imagination of people across the world). Guetta proved to be an invaluable asset to the community, acting not only as a videographer to document the illicit installations, but also as an assistant, chauffeur, navigator, and lookout.
Midway through the film, the focus changes onto Guetta himself, who takes on the moniker Mr. Brainwash and masterminds an art show of his own under Banksy’s commission. While many docs change their focus midway through, they often lose their sense of balance as a result. Exit Through the Gift Shop manages to shift it’s spotlight in a way that harmonizes the film as a whole – evoking questions about the meaning, value, and commercialization of art in general.
Mr. Brainwash prepares for his exhibition, titled “Life is Beautiful,” with the mindset of quantity over quality. Much of his work was produced by mindlessly spray painting canvases or scanning and photoshoping existing images, all executed by an army of minions. Some of his pieces so closely resemble the work of his inspirations that Mr. B comes across as a copycat creator. Yet, with some clever marketing, he defied the odds. He made the cover of LA Weekly in June of 2008, had over 7,000 people attend his “Life is Beautiful” show on its opening night, and in the end, he netted nearly a million dollars in sales.
Banksy clearly gave rise to Mr. Brainwash. While Guetta claims he put everything he had into the exhibition (he even refinanced his mortgage) it seems likely that Banksy put some of his own capital into the project, ensuring that Mr. B could afford the smoke and mirrors to dupe the Los Angeles scene. Once could argue that Banksy has such an adept understanding of the art world that he knew he would be able to ensure that Mr. Brainwash would be a success, and therefore essentially scripted the end of this documentary by playing on the credulous nature of art connoisseurs.
“I can’t believe you morons actually buy this shit” via WebUrbanist
Banksy himself has shown contempt with commercialization in the past, including the above piece which he published to his website shortly after some of his own pieces were auctioned by Sotheby’s in Feb 2007. So it’s not unimaginable that he would direct a film that denigrates the idea of making money off of street art. From The NY Times:
Asked whether a film that takes shots at the commercialization of street art would devalue his own work, Banksy wrote: “It seemed fitting that a film questioning the art world was paid for with proceeds directly from the art world. Maybe it should have been called ‘Don’t Bite the Hand that Feeds You.’ ”
There is widespread speculation regarding the validity and scope of the film being a hoax. Perhaps most intriguing is the theory of blogger Rebecca Cannon, who postulated that:
If Guetta is a hoax, there also exists the possibility that these artworks are actually produced by Banksy himself, in a style deliberately intended to suggest inferior artistic skill. Should the hoax ever be proven, and Banksy’s hand revealed to be the creator of the works, a further hoax on the art world may unfold in which Banksy is found to have tricked collectors into passing-up the opportunity to purchase his works for so little, rather than having paid too much for Guetta’s.
Considering the fact that Banksy has kept his identity unknown for years, it is unlikely that the full truth regarding this film will ever be unmasked. In the end, it’s inconsequential. Hoax or not, Exit Through the Gift Shop is, it’s a thoroughly entertaining film.
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