― Mark, Tuesday, 8 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― N., Tuesday, 8 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
The commander of the unit involved, and the man who ordered the massacre, was on Lt. Col. William Calley. He served one day in prison for his crimes, before Nixon commuted his sentence (or pardoned him, or something). He declined to be interviewed for the programme. One of the most eerie pieces of footage in the whole thing was some long range shots of him walking down some ordinary American high street.
― DV, Tuesday, 8 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
If it is, I've never heard it before.
― Sean, Tuesday, 8 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Mandee, Tuesday, 8 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 8 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Evil Neilson, Tuesday, 8 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― nickn, Wednesday, 9 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
Perhaps I should point out here that Nick wasn't referring to the documentary you mention, but the British TV coverage of the same type of event. It was held in some big shopping centre, broadcast live at various points throughout the day on channel 5 and hosted by Dale Winton.
Of course, Hands On A Hardbody might also be the name of the competition in the US, in which case forget everything I just said.
― Michael Jones, Wednesday, 9 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Peter Miller, Thursday, 10 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
BBC2 had a repeat of "Challenger - Go for Launch" a documentary about the Challenger disaster. The way it followed the countdown to the launch was chilling. Some amazing quotes: "My wife asked how my day went. I sighed and said, "Well, it was fine. We had a meeting, and we're going to launch tomorrow and kill all the astronauts, but appart from that it was okay."" Most painful fact - post-crash investigations revealed that some of the astronauts would have been conscious on descent, and all were probably alive until the moment of impact with the sea.
Then Channel 4 had "Changing Sex" on the history of transsexual surgery which, while not for the squeamish, gave a fascinating insight into the subject. I had no idea, for instance, that female=>male transexuals would be able to have sex post-op. Although interestingly, the guy who seemed to be in the most stable relationship had opted not to have phallic construction, which raised quite a few more questions I wished the programme had investigated.
Better than "Foorballers Wives" anyway.
― Andrew Williams, Wednesday, 16 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
Does Fat Club count as a documentary?
― Emma, Wednesday, 16 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― mark s, Wednesday, 16 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― N., Wednesday, 16 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Ronan, Wednesday, 16 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― chris, Wednesday, 16 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― N., Monday, 11 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― David R. (popshots75`), Wednesday, 12 February 2003 04:19 (twenty-one years ago) link
― David R. (popshots75`), Wednesday, 12 February 2003 05:10 (twenty-one years ago) link
― James Blount (James Blount), Wednesday, 12 February 2003 05:26 (twenty-one years ago) link
― I'm Passing Open Windows (Ms Laura), Wednesday, 12 February 2003 05:31 (twenty-one years ago) link
― felicity (felicity), Wednesday, 12 February 2003 05:46 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Wednesday, 12 February 2003 07:31 (twenty-one years ago) link
I'd go with Architecture Of Doom over Triumph Of The Will for the obligatory Nazi documentary, but that's just the cultural art sociologist in me.
I'd also go with East Side Story (about the Soviet-era musicals) for fave film documentary and a toss up between Theremin and Another State Of Mind for best music documentary. Shotgun Freeway for best Los Angeles documentary.
― Chris Barrus (xibalba), Wednesday, 12 February 2003 07:31 (twenty-one years ago) link
Anyhow, I loved 'Dirk Bogarde: The Name Above The Title' and 'Imagine', which is more a docu-film I suppose.
― Lara (Lara), Wednesday, 12 February 2003 09:44 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Lara (Lara), Wednesday, 12 February 2003 09:55 (twenty-one years ago) link
Ha ha. This reminds me of the opening line of my friend Jason's first philosophy essay at Trinity: 'Rene Descartes is a dead famous French philosopher.'
― Lara (Lara), Wednesday, 12 February 2003 09:57 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Wednesday, 12 February 2003 18:14 (twenty-one years ago) link
Do the Qatsi's count?
― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Wednesday, 12 February 2003 18:21 (twenty-one years ago) link
the most haunting:silverlake life: the view from here
― gygax!, Wednesday, 12 February 2003 18:30 (twenty-one years ago) link
My favorites are probably Frederick Wiseman's, or at least the two I've seen. His technique is to shoot a lot of footage, edit it, and not really add any background music or provide any explanatory context, just "let the scenes speak for themselves", so to speak. It's fairly different from, say, the Errol Morris style. "High School" is about a late 60s Philadelphia high school, and is scary and fascinating in exactly the ways you'd expect: The faculty come up with all these petty ways to show how much more powerful and important they are than the students, and it's all very sad. "Meat" is a detailed look at the meat industry, following some cows as they go from the farm (where they're fattened) to the slaughterhouse (with a very long and detailed and disgusting at times disturbingly beautiful sequence of the entire slaughtering process) to the market.
― Chris P (Chris P), Wednesday, 12 February 2003 18:47 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Oops (Oops), Wednesday, 12 February 2003 18:51 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Oops (Oops), Wednesday, 12 February 2003 18:52 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Oops (Oops), Wednesday, 12 February 2003 18:53 (twenty-one years ago) link
― piscesboy, Wednesday, 12 February 2003 19:46 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Wednesday, 12 February 2003 19:52 (twenty-one years ago) link
In fact, I'm still trying to lay my hands on a copy of it.
― bert, Wednesday, 12 February 2003 20:23 (twenty-one years ago) link
― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 12 February 2003 20:25 (twenty-one years ago) link
― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 12 February 2003 20:26 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Cozen (Cozen), Wednesday, 12 February 2003 20:29 (twenty-one years ago) link
― PJ Miller (PJ Miller), Wednesday, 12 February 2003 20:39 (twenty-one years ago) link
― bert, Wednesday, 12 February 2003 20:40 (twenty-one years ago) link
I saw some of Wisconsin Death Trip. I didn't really get into it.
― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 12 February 2003 22:07 (twenty-one years ago) link
― I'm Passing Open Windows (Ms Laura), Wednesday, 12 February 2003 22:37 (twenty-one years ago) link
― I'm Passing Open Windows (Ms Laura), Wednesday, 12 February 2003 22:39 (twenty-one years ago) link
― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 12 February 2003 22:43 (twenty-one years ago) link
Here's what it has to say:
Plot Summary forWisconsin Death Trip (1999)
Wisconsin Death Trip is an intimate, shocking and sometimes hilarious account of the disasters that befell one small town in Wisconsin during the final decade of the 19th century. The film is inspired by Michael Lesy's book of the same name which was first published in 1973. Lesy discovered a striking archive of black and white photographs in the town of Black River Falls dating from the 1890s and married a selection of these images to extracts from the town's newspaper from the same decade. The effect was surprising and disturbing. The town of Black River Falls seems gripped by some peculiar malaise and the weekly news is dominated by bizarre tales of madness, eccentricity and violence amongst the local population. Suicide and murder are commonplace. People in the town are haunted by ghosts, possessed by devils and terrorized by teenage outlaws and arsonists. Like the book, the film is constructed entirely from authentic news reports from the Black River Falls' newspaper with occasional excerpts from the records of the nearby Mendota Asylum for the Insane. The film also makes use of the haunting black and white photographs taken by the resident portrait photographer of Black River Falls at the end of the 19th century. Contemporary color documentary footage of the town today is also included at the end of each section of the film that take place over the course of four seasons.
― I'm Passing Open Windows (Ms Laura), Wednesday, 12 February 2003 23:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
just watched Collective. started with a literal sparkler, went big places. but the end was gutting. still 7 months left to watch on iplayer.
(actually, both the ones i mentioned above were up for the documentary oscar, both lost out to the octopus teacher thing)
― koogs, Sunday, 1 August 2021 19:50 (two years ago) link
(both = collective and mole agent, i didn't notice i'd also mentioned Goebbels' secretary)
― koogs, Sunday, 1 August 2021 19:51 (two years ago) link
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000kxl0/storyville-united-skates
"When America's last standing roller rinks are threatened with closure, a community of thousands battles in a racially charged environment to save an underground subculture - one that has remained undiscovered by the mainstream for generations, yet has given rise to some of the world's greatest musical talent."
― koogs, Thursday, 7 October 2021 18:38 (two years ago) link