The Despair of Hagiography

I just finished watching The Powerbroker, a biography of the Urban League President and civil rights activist. Whitney Young.  But the whole enterprise left me only sighing.

The Powerbroker trailer

As you can see from the trailer above, this is a film with a strong and simple  message-- Whitney Young was a genius and a prophet , part of  a triumvirate of  leaders -- Thurgood Marshall ,Martin Luther Kind and Young-- that together led the civil rights movement.

The film works very hard to portray Young as a misunderstood hero.  While the film may be right about Young's reputation, what I was missing in tn this film , as in all first-rate biographies, was a sense of the man himself -- his inner life, his deepest emtions, his mistakes as well as his triumphs, his personal life, and his inner demons.

I don't know enough about Young's story to argue with the content of this film, but I do know from my work on many biographical films, that all accomplished  men and women will seem more heroic if you delve into  their inner struggles and their weaknesses, portraying what what they triumphed over in their own lives to achieve what they did .  There is precious little of that in this film.

I do really do understand the need to make the first film about important leaders simple heroic tales, but I keep waiting for  the next effort that will be  deeper and more realistic. Whitney Young , who to all appearances was a man who prided himself in his realism,  deserved  a better film.

That said, the film is well made, and you'll  learn the basics of Young's  biography, but the film's  approach to the story filled me with the sighs of despair.

Watch the Powerbroker

Celebrating Sugar Man

Searching for Sugar Man trailer

I was immensely pleased to see Searching for Sugar Man pick up the Oscar for best documentary feature.  It certainly is the best doc I've seen in some time .

I first saw the film on a video link several months ago and was deeply moved by the story of singer- songwriter Sixto Rodriguez, who after cutting two strong albums in the early 70's, neither of which sold in the U.S., lived a life of obscurity, raising his family in Detroit and working blue collar jobs demolishing  and rehabing houses in the city.  Late in his life, in the late 90's, he would discover that unknown to him, he had been a superstar in South Africa all this time , since the early 70's  when his album, Cold Fact,  first appeared  there and seized the imagination of young  Afrikaners  protesting Apartheid.  "It was a soundtrack of our lives" says one fan. " He was more popular than Elvis", says another.

But because of his  obscurity, no one in South Africa knew anything about him and rumors circulated that he had killed himself onstage during a performance . Eventually in the mid 90;s a couple of his South African  fans  set out to track down the story of how Rodriguez died.   That detective story sets th film on a trail that is full of great surprises and revelations, that I will try not to spoil for you.

It is also a great story of redemption, of an obscure life that gets its reward inn the end, and the story of a wise and humble man, who as a friend says of him late in the film:  "He took all that torment, all that agony , all that confusion and pain, and transformed it into something beautiful."

And the film of this overpowering  story is so well made, so well structured, so stunningly shot and directed, so searching for the deeper meaning of the story , that you come away grateful to the filmmakers for being so damn good at their work.

Searching for Sugar Man is a truly great film and I urge everyone to screen it soon  for is rich rewards.

Here is the theatrical schedule.   Also is available for download on iTunes.

After you;ve screened the film , here are some links about how it was made .
60 Minutes story
Interview with producer Simon Chinn
An account by director Malik Bendjelloul
NY Times feature
Rodriguez website


See this film!

A Rave for The Gatekeepers

This is our first guest post, from long-time FRONTLINE producer Steve Talbot,  who I worked with  closely on several films, including the very entertainingThe Long March of Newt Gingrich .  
.

Steve  recently  emailed his friends after screening The Gatekeepers in San Francisco.

Link to the The Gatekeepers trailer


Friends,

Go see The Gatekeepers, if you have a chance. Best serious docu in a movie theater in a long time.

Six former heads of the Israeli secret service/intell agency Shin Bet.

Incredible access, and the discussion of politics, morality and war is  intelligent,  bracing, disturbing and very dark. Reminiscent of "The Fog of War."

For those of you in San Francisco, it just opened at the Embarcadero.

(And here is a link to screenings in other cities. )


A Very accurate review in the NY Times...
http://movies.nytimes.com/2012/11/26/movies/the-gatekeepers-documentary-by-israeli-director-dror-moreh.html?_r=0#previews

Here's a clip we are featuring on The I Files...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLYAjLgpKMQ&list=PLDurT10mnRdC0gVhnDEI28jgIug3lx0dj&index=3

Best, 
Steve

P.S. Doing a screening tonight of Marian Marzynski's upcoming
Frontline, "Never Forget to Lie," at the Victoria Theater
in San Francisco, 8pm. If you are in town, please join us. 


Link to Frontline preview of "Never Forget to Lie"



Thanks, Steve for the review.

And please post your comments below.

A War Story from the Cutting Room

As I've been wrapping up my career at Frontline I've been reviewing some of the major work I did there over the last 25 years .  Thursday night at a  lovely event Frontline threw in my honor, I told the story about one of those films that I thought I'd also share here.

The film was a two hour epic on the Rwanda genocide called Ghosts of Rwanda. Working with producer/director Greg Barker and his very talented editor, Paul Carlin, we spent two weeks in a London edit room fine-cutting the film. 

The first third of the film, about the run-up to the start of the genocide . was working great, crackling with tension and a sense of impending sense of doom. then when the killing started to take place in early April 1994, the film suddenly fell flat, drained of its tension. 

I knew from my work on the two previousRwanda films with the BBC, that the solution lay in bringing a new tension into the film with the story of how the west refused to help the Rwandans as the slaughter continued. 

Greg Barker had been reluctant to use the BBC material, as it had been shot quite differently  than Greg's footage.  But patiently we found ways to integrate that older footage into Greg's narrative, and magically, the back half of the film came to life. 

Until, that is , we arrived at the climactic scene in which BBC correspondent Fergal Keane discovers the horrors of the church in Narabuyhe, littered with hundreds  of decomposing bodies. But the scene, which we had lifted from another film, with Fergal's original narration, just sat there ---- it did not deliver the big emotional  punch the film needed at this point. So I turned to Greg and said, "we have to interview Fergal” . But Fergal it turned out  was in South Africa! And so we waited two whole days for his return as he clock ticked down to our deadline. 

When Fergal did finally arrive, he gave a powerful interview, expiating his own sense of guilt for not having dome more to help the Rwandans and telling us the story of finding 13-year-old Valentina, an emaciated and scarred survivor of the massacre whose fingers of been chopped off by Hutu machetes.

So on the very last day of cutting, we edited Fergal's new interview into the film and magically, once again, the big climactic sequence sprang back to life.

You can see that sequence here starting at 8:54 into this Youtube clip.

All in all, it was a spectacular creative process to which we all contributed,  and which I will always treasure.  It was  the culmination of everything I'd learned about filmmaking at Frontline.

'Greg's Ghosts of Rwanda would go on to win a bushel of awards, including a duPont-Columbia,  a Banff Television,  a Sidney Hillman and a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism award.

Unfortunately , due to a contract dispute with our co-producing partners , the BBC , Frontline is unable to stream the entire 2-hour film, but there are several excerpts from the film , totaling about 40 minutes on the Frontline website, which will give you a sense of its  craft and power  . 

Here's the link: 

Ghosts of Rwanda excerpts  

You can also stream a complete version of the film by piecing together a series of 8 (I-VIII) Youtube clips, with the heading : "Rwanda genocide documentary".  Here's a link to part I of the youtube series.  

Or if you prefer a more comfortable screening of the film,  it's available on DVD at  Shop PBS. Ghosts of Rwanda DVD

If you haven't ever seen this film, I highly commend it to  you.  It's one of the most powerful docs I've ever seen.

Structural lessons from Downton abbey

I was reminded of the powerful effect of the form of the interlocking narrative while watching the final episode of Downton  Abbey  last night, which separated the household , sending the upstairs family on a holiday in Scotland  while leaving the downstairs staff to their own dramas back at Downton.



Another instructive note from the Downton episode, watch the way the scenes get shorter after the initial longer chapters as the drama unfolds.

Link to episode 7

It is a form that Fronline in its documentary work has a employed many times over the years, no where more effectively than in our series of Presidential candidate biographies ,  The Choice

This form for doing the biographies was invented by the first producer  of the Choice in a1988 , Sherry Jones, and it proved so effective , that we've stuck with the form ever since.

The great trick in implementing this form, assuming you have  two compelling narratives, is where you link the stories, and how you can structure each chapter in the film to conclude successfully AND provide a leaping off point for the second narrative .  Check out how producer/director Michael Kirk solved these problems in The  Choice  2012.

Link to The Choice 2012

Another classic doc  in this form is American Experience's Two Days in October based on the David Maraniss book, They Marched into Sunlight. 

Two Days in October website

Hey, Boo: Harper Lee and To Kill a Mockingbird

Hey Boo trailer

This is an unadulterated mash note for one of my favorite documentumentaries of recent years.

I stumbled  across this film on Netflix last year and was transfixed by it .  It is based  on great reporting by producer Mary Murphy, a former 60 Minutes senior producer, who got as close to Harper Lee as anyone has yet . (the film features an interview with her older sister, Alice. ) and that reporting earned her a deep understanding of the novel  and  its impact on American culture, particularly in the South.

The film is a wonderful mix of film clips, readings from the book, interviews with actress Mary badha who  played Scout, and revealing interviews with the famous and regular  citizens who were deply affected by  the book.

Highlights among these interviews include an account by  a classmate of Mary Badham, who recounts her identification  with Tom  Robinson in the film , and how disturbing it was to find herself  a young southern girl crying for a black man .  Also charming is Oprah Winfrey's  account of taking Harper Lee to lunch in NY to convince the author to finally do an interview, only to soon realize how impossible her task was.

It's a film full of such  moments that always keeps  the book itself in sharp focus, no small feat when there is such a well made film to always tempt a producer to fall back on .

I could go on and on detailing the film's virtues, including its wonderful intellectual climax about Boo Radley , but I wrote this mostly to encourage you to watch it.

The film originally aired on American Masters on PBS.   No longer streaming at PBS.org, but it is still streaming on NETFLIX

And check out producer Mary Murphy's website:

Mary Murphy's website

Enjoy.

The problem with Silicon Valley

American Experiece:  Silicon Valley
Directed by Randall MacLowry




I must admit  I almost gave up on this film in its first act , which is an overly methodical telling of the story of Shockley Labs and its increasingly erratic chief executive that led the rebellion of  8 young scientists who suddenly left the company to form a new one, launching  the entrepreneurial ethos of Silicon Valley.

Once  the men leave in act 2,  the energy of the film picks up considerably and it becomes a riveting tale.

The problem of the dutiful first act is a common one to big documentary stories, one I confronted in my years at Frontline many times.

I suspect the key to solving this problem in Silicon Valley, would have been , in retrospect, to have dramatically shortened the first act by as much as half, to give it more forward propulsion and not risk losing your audience before you get to the meat of your story . (television audiences can be very fickle if they are not pulled into the film early on.)

But despite the problems with the first act , I'm glad I stuck with it for the rich rewards of the rest of the film.

The entire film is available for screening here.

Troubadours director Morgan Neville

I've always said excellent films don't happen by accident. They require a  confluence of forces coming together at same time.  The directing of Troubadours was well thought out by filmmaker Neville as he describes in this interview:

In this case, the two principal characters' reunion left them deeply reflective on this era and they were by well matched with a filmmaker who deeply understood  Los Angeles and that combination created the magic of this film.

It will be interesting to discover as I screen more films by Neville if this film represents his default directing style or if he does indeed alter his style to march the subject matter .  He is obviously a talented man who seems to be in process of mastering the art of the music documentary. It was a great pleasure to stumble across this film and discover a new filmmaker previously unknown to me.

Doc Watch begins

This is a new blog commenting on the documentary film scene by Michael Sullivan , the long-time executive producer for special projects at the PBS series FRONTLINE 

Latest Screening: 

Troubadours , directed by Morgan Neville

Caught this recently  on my iPad on the  PBS app. Originally aired on American Masters in March 2011. Rarely have I seen a documentary film where the style of filmmaking matched so precisely the subject matter--the singer-songwriter scene in Los Angeles in the early 1970's .  Helped by intimate scenes of music making and very informal interviews, this  confluence of intimate filmmaking about Intimate music casts quite a spell.  Here' s the trailer: