Fixing the Broken Documentary Branch
Michael Moore announced on Twitter that the changes have finally been implemented and the new rules for the Documentary category will fix what’s been broken. Three films were left off the doc list that were worthy – Project Nim, Buck and The Interrupters. The Interrupted aired on PBS’ Frontline last night and is streaming for free right now — from Jeff Wells’ site:
Steve Jaymes‘ The Interrupters, which aired on Frontline last night, is currentlystreaming for free. It’s also on DVD/Bluray. It’s about violence prevention under the aegis of CeaseFire, a Chicago organization, and a portrait of three “violence interrupters” — Ameena Matthews, Cobe Williams, Eddie Bocanegra — trying to protect their Chicago neighborhoods from gunfire, beatdowns, chain-whippings and other bad stuff.
Nothing against the Paradise Lost folks – I know a lot of high powered people were involved in that, and I know that many people were obsessed with that case and continue to be. For me, though, the guy’s out of jail – happy that justice was finally done, horrified that such a corrupt case could have gone so far in our “legal” system. But the last thing that needed to happen there was an Oscar nomination. The Interrupters, on the other hand, could have used the attention. Now that it’s on public television, that ensures it will be preaching to the converted. It’s great, though, that the conversation is going on anywhere. I am trying to work hard to suppress my rage. It isn’t working. The trick is not minding.
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Speaking of outrages -
Adhering to their normal custom, PBS edited The Interrupters both for length (they showed about 110 minutes of the 125 minute film) and for content (language).
Watch the livestream or DVD instead.
I’m pretty sure you could come up with an extremely solid slate of 10 documentaries that didn’t get nominated for Doc this year. Besides the three you mention, Senna, Bill Cunningham New York, Tabloid, The Arbor, Cave of Forgotten Dreams and Into the Abyss come to mind immediately. I’m sure there’s one more I can’t think of right now. Incredible year for docs.
Senna is an absolute masterpiece which didn’t make the list. It is in my top 5 of 2011 along with Melancholia, Uncle Boonmee, The Tree of Life, and Weekend. The doc changes are much needed, especially when manipulative junk like “Hell and Back Again” can make the final five.
Pedantic note – Cave of Forgotten Dreams was snubbed for 2010, not 2011. It played a secretive qualifying run (just like Undefeated and Paradise Lost 3 did) before its regular opening last spring.
I wasn’t aware that the purpose of the Academy Award Best Documentary Award was to give attention to the most deserving subject material. Thanks for letting me know.
May I be another voice in support of Senna. It’s a masterful work, gripping and moving. It’s omission from the long list was absurd. Thankfully BAFTA saw more clearly and gave it Best Documentary and Best Editing, plus a nomination for Best British Film. If you haven’t seen in it Sasha, I would highly recommend you do.
It really is a damn shame that “The Interrupters” was left out in the cold, and I will never ever understand why. How a person could watch this and not be moved or changed in some way is beyond me. Far and away, the best documentary of the year.
Not good enough for an Oscar nomination:
Roger & Me
Hoop Dreams
The Thin Blue Line
Touching the Void
Visions of Light
Farenheit 9/11
The Interrupters
The Journey (Resan)
Grizzley Man
Hearts of Darkness
Burden of Dreams
Sherman’s March: A Meditation on the Possibility of Romantic Love In the South During an Era of Nuclear Weapons Proliferation
Thank god they are fixing the system.
Yes, it’s a GRAVE injustice that The Interrupters was ignored as it is an excellent documentary and one of the best films of the year!
Not good enough for an Oscar nomination…
oh boy! can I play too?
Paris Is Burning
Waiting for Superman
Devil’s Playground
Tarnation
I.O.U.S.A.
Crumb
Wasteland(oops)The Last Waltz
Stop Making Sense
Neil Young: Heart of Gold
Gates of Heaven
Dont Look Back
Grey Gardens
Salesman
When the Levees Broke
Inside Deep Throat (I believe this is about Watergate…)
This Film Is Not Yet Rated (which barely missed getting an Oscar nomination when temperatures in Hell dropped to 33 degrees)
you might want to edit Waste Land out of your list Ryan…
thanks, tclaw
of course I meant
Gasland(fock!) … Gimme Shelter.Senna is fantastic. It`s easily one of the best films of the year. And probably the biggest reason for the pressure for change after all this years of outrageous snubs.
In 2007, the International Documentary association made a list of 25 best docs of all time. From the top 10, only 4 won the Oscar, 1 was nominated and lost… but 5 were not even nominated including the top 2: Hoop Dreams and The Thin Blue Line.
For what it’s worth, I HATED Waiting for Superman. So overrated.
(And let’s not forget that Fahrenheit 9/11 didn’t get a nomination because Michael Moore withheld it from the competition.)
This is another one of those categories where I take everything everyone says with a grain of salt. “OMG- XXXX got snubbed!!!1!” is so easy to say when you’ve only seen XXXX and only six other documentaries during the entire year…
Steve James is pretty damn great at making documentaries. I also tend to think his movies don’t hook people in the way that a lot of others do. They’re hard sells. They don’t feature slick editing techniques. They aren’t usually about topics people are in a rush to deal with. I can see why his movies get overlooked, even if they’re often great.
The Interrupters is good enough for a Best Picture nomination, let alone Best Documentary. I’m not American, so I can’t even claim a prior interest in the subject matter of The Interrupters, but I recognise terrific filmmaking and storytelling when I see it. Steve James obviously kicked the Academy’s puppy or something.
As for Senna, I suspect it’s affiliation with ESPN’s 30 for 30 series probably has something to do with it’s snub. For whatever reason, it seems like they’ve rubbed the doc establishment the wrong way (I don’t think Bill Simmons going on his podcasts and constantly shit talking about that establishment has particularly helped).
However, I would like to suggest a conflicting viewpoint on Senna. I thought it was a really well told load of crock that failed to accurately paint a portrait of the man himself, instead opting to canonize him as a saint and martyr instead of a complex human being with an extraordinary skill set. It completely ignored his troubling relationship(s) with women and sort of poo-ed the reality of how dangerous his driving style was.
This was a guy who would rant about safety but then drive in a intentionally dangerous way that often put his fellow drivers at risk. Prost, for example, is depicted in a manner that I would suggest is completely unfair. His beef with Senna was 100% legit.
So I guess the problem I have with Senna isn’t as a film but as a biographical documentary, a format that generally should skew towards capturing the most truthful and well rounded portrayal of its subject as possible. And on that level, this was about as level headed a film as Michael Jordan’s Come Fly With Me.