documentaries, now!
let's talk about documentaries
i’ve gone through several phases during this COVID-19 lockdown. i went through a big action kick, a month where i watched almost exclusively Matt Damon films, and a weird stretch where i watched movies that were made before 1980.
one thing that has remained a little bit of a constant in my lockdown time has been the humble documentary. growing up, i was one of those kids who didn’t have cable so i watched a lot of PBS and one thing PBS loves is a documentary (NOVA, American Experience, Nature, etc…)
that must have stuck with me because to this day, i’m still am a huge fan of the documentary. i watch them almost weekly and there have been several that i’ve got to watch over this seemingly neverending lockdown that i think are worth your time.
a couple things to note before we get to this list
one thing that’s tricky about documentaries is that people (myself included) are quick to assume that they’re all objective. that they value fairness and balanced views of whatever subject they’re covering. i think if you’re someone who’s reading this newsletter regularly, this might be something you already know. but i also think it’s something that’s hard to shake when you go into a documentary. they’re often framed as bastions of truth and that’s a dangerous mindset to take into a documentary. they all have a point of view that they’re presenting and want you to see. that’s not a bad thing, but it’s an important thing.
there are a couple of streaming services where a few of these docs live that i’m going to reference that are a little less common than your everyday streamers. they are the: The PBS Documentaries Channel add-on to Amazon Prime. it’s only $3.99 a month and it has a HUGE library. the other is The Criterion Channel, a pretty unique streaming service that i’m going to dedicate an entire newsletter to soon. What’s cool is that a lot of the stuff on The Criterion Channel is also on HBO Max and i’ll note when it is.
okay, enough housekeeping. here are some docs to watch.
Title: Ken Burns’ Baseball
Released: 1994
Where to watch: PBS Documentaries
any documentary list would be incomplete without Kenny Beats. he’s a lot of people’s first foray into documentaries and in the 90’s he was everywhere. dads everywhere love him, especially The Civil War doc he did.
speaking of, Baseball is the first documentary i remember my dad pointedly showing me. i was about 8 years old when PBS did their annual re-airing of the series. i grew up playing baseball, playing on traveling teams, and in tournaments. baseball continues to be my favorite sport to this day.
Ken Burns’ Baseball is an exhaustive history of america’s pastime. and i mean EXHAUSTIVE. it’s 18.5 hours long. originally divided into 9 innings (now 10) the series traces the game from its inception (literally) to the modern game. if you like the game and have the dedication, Ken Burns’ Baseball is a super rewarding watch. i understand that it’s not for a casual afternoon of movie watching, but it’s really well made and i rewatch it annually.
Title: Harlan County USA
Released: 1976
Where To Watch: Criterion Channel / HBO MAX
Harlan County USA documents a 13-month coal miner’s strike in a small corner of Kentucky in, well, Harlan County.
the film does a great job of documenting the miner’s conflict with the mine owners and their (sometimes violent) interactions with strike busters, local police, and company thugs. that said, to me, the real stars are the women in the film, who watch their husbands and sons try to simply make their working conditions and lives safer and end up facing an even bigger threat.
the film won the Academy Award for Best Documentary in 1976 and it’s easy to see why. the soundtrack is also one of the best in a documentary i’ve ever heard. with the state of worker’s rights in the country currently, this doc is as relevant as ever
Title: Monterey Pop
Released: 1968
Where To Watch: Criterion Collection / HBO MAX
before Woodstock, there was Monterey. this one is very, very simple. it’s simply a recording of the Monterey Pop Festival’s different performances throughout the entirety of the festival. there are no talking heads, no commentary. just really good performances from artists who were on the top of their game. there’s an extended cut on the Criterion Channel that’s longer. highlights include performances from Janis Joplin, Otis Redding, and Jimmi Hendrix, and his famous guitar burning Wild Thing set.
Title: Paris Is Burning
Released: 1990
Where To Watch: Criterion Channel, rent wherever
filmed across 7 years, Paris Is Burning is a cultural look at the 1980s through the lens of Harlem’s drag ball scene. the effect that this scene and its Black and Latino trailblazers have on today’s culture and vernacular cannot be understated. there’s so much about ballroom culture that’s reflected today and getting to see its inception and the people who kept that culture strong in the face of RAMPANT homophobia, transphobia, and the AIDS crisis is truly inspiring stuff.
Title: OJ: Made In America
Released: 2016
Where To Watch: ESPN+, rent wherever
after the hype of The Last Dance last summer, i revisited OJ: Made In America and boy am i glad that i did. this may be one of the most compelling documentaries made in the last 10-15 years. through a series of interviews the doc inspects the life of OJ Simpson, his rise to fame through football at USC and in the NFL, the murders of Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman, and the relationships between race, celebrity, and the police.
what this doc does that is so smart is running the story alongside the story of LA and the growing racial tension that punctuates Simpson’s life throughout his time there. the context and 30,000-foot perspective make for great parallel tracks and an insanely watchable narrative.
Title: They Shall Not Grow Old
Released: 2018
Where To Watch: not streaming anywhere, unfortunately, rent wherever
the “war” documentary is tried and true territory ( Ken Burns has made a documentary on almost every historical military event) but They Shall Not Grow Old is a totally different animal.
directed by Peter Jackson, They Shall Not Grow old tells the story of WWI through the words of the soldiers who were actually there. Jackson used almost exclusively unseen footage from both the BBC and The Imperial War Museum. the voiceovers are provided by both interviews from the IWM and voice actors reading diary entries from men on the front line.
the film is colorized and made using modern film technology, which is a really impactful choice. it’s easy to detach from how brutal WWI was because all the footage is in black and white, with that weird speed that film from the early 1900s has. by bringing the war into a modern lens, it feels much more immediate.
Title: One Child Nation
Released: 2019
Where To Watch: Amazon Prime
directed by Nanfu Wang, One Child Nation takes a look at the fallout of China’s “one-child” policy that was in place from 1979 all the way up until 2015. Wang is herself a child born under this policy and she makes a film that is both a piercing look at a tough chapter in her homeland’s history and an accessible look at Chinese culture and the context surrounding the policy.
Title: American Factory
Released: 2019
Where To Watch: Netflix
American Factory is the story of Fuyao, a Chinese company that purchases a former GM assembly factory outside post-industrial heyday Dayton, Ohio.
the film is a very deft and delicate portrait of a town in turmoil. at first, there is optimism as the company hires 2000 American employees that slowly gives way to frustration as cultures clash and the impact of the loss of the once-great GM plant has on those who are now working in its skeleton.
this is another Oscar-winning doc that i somehow missed until this year. super late on it but well worth the watch.
Title: Boys State
Released: 2020
Where To Watch: Apple TV+ exclusively as far as I can tell
Boys State is not only a movie but an experience that i’m very familiar with. Boys State was something that my friends did, something that i was once invited to do.
if you’re unfamiliar, both boys/girls state is held by the American Legion in every state of the union. they’re usually held during the summer on a college campus and explain the machinations of government through simulated elections for positions throughout the summer
Boys State follows this exercise in the state of Texas in the summer of 2019 and focuses on a group of young men who partake in this exercise. it’s both a fascinating and terrifying look at both the current state of American politics and what the young men in this film think the future of politics can be. the characters are so compelling and it’s easy to find yourself actually caught up in the group’s election.
Title: Time
Released: 2020
Where To Watch: Amazon Prime
the less said about this movie the better, imo. i watched it on a whim and it completely blew me away. it follows the story of a woman named Sibil Fox Richardson as she fights to free her husband who is serving a 60-year prison sentence. the film blends original footage with home videos that Fox takes during her husband’s incarceration. the result is incredibly powerful