Documentary Therapy: Families Use Cameras to Create Conversations (and Confrontations)

Posted on May 26, 2008 at 6:00 pm

Last week I saw a documentary called Bigger Stronger Faster* (The Side Effects of Being an American). The film, produced by some of the people behind Fahrenheit 9/11 and Bowling for Columbine, ties the use of steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs in sports to larger issues of American ambition to be the best and newest and American optimism about the power of innovation and technology, as indicated by the second part of the title. But for me, the film was most engaging for the scenes that put it in an emerging category of documentaries, film as family therapy. Director/co-writer Chris Bell may not think of it this way, but it seemed clear that his primary motivation behind the film was less as a cautionary tale or assessment of the American character than an opportunity — perhaps an excuse — to confront his brothers on-screen about their use of steroids.

Bell and his brothers grew up idolizing the champions of World Wrestling Entertainment and believing its superstars when they said that they achieved their bulging biceps solely through exercise and good nutrition. But revelations of steroid use by Hulk Hogan, Arnold Schwarzenegger and others made them think that they too should use steroids for both offensive and defensive reasons. Steroids would not only make them stronger; they were the only way to compete in a world where “everyone does it.” Sadly, even stronger than their dependence on steroids is Chris Bell’s brothers’ conviction that their lives can only be meaningful if they prove themselves through competition (they do not think it is cheating to use performance-enhancing substances because it is the only way to win) and through being “famous.”

The film brings in other categories of artificial performance enhancement, from Tiger Woods’ Lasik eye surgery (which gave him better than perfect vision) to a cyclist who sleeps in a high-altitude chamber to raise his blood-oxygen level. But this is really the story of the Bell family.

Chris Bell says, “Turning the camera on my own family was a lot harder than I thought it would be. I don’t think we’ll ever be the same, but I also don’t think we’ve ever been closer. This film forced us all to discuss an issue that nobody in America wants to talk honestly about. Many families struggle with issues like alcoholism, drug abuse, depression…My family’s battle just happens to be with steroids.”

Also opening soon is Surfwise, a documentary about the Paskowitz family, whose nine children lived with their parents in a 25-foot camper, home-schooled, eating only natural, low-fat food and running a surfing camp. The father, “Doc” Dorian Paskowitz who decided to drop out of society and, according to the New York Times, “dedicated himself to uncompromised, uncompromising freedom.”

According to the Washington Post,

Dorian, now 86, is portrayed in the film as a combination Lear, Mao and Baba Ram Dass, but there’s affection as well. Time, after all, heals most, if not all, wounds.

“One of the things it’s allowed us to have,” Joshua says of the film, “is some perspective. When we were raised in the camper, Dorian had these theories of how to be the perfect man, have the perfect wife, be in an environment of loving and caring and compassion for one another.” That worked swell until the sibs hit their teen years. “As soon as the individual identity started to come into play,” says Joshua, “that was against everything we were taught.”

So there were fights. Resistance. Territorial disputes. Some of which weren’t resolved until the film, which opens in Washington on Friday, was being made….

“What it gave us a chance to do was talk to each other, even if it was coarse or caustic,” Jonathan said. “It gave us a chance to pull together. Israel said, ‘I always wanted to make up and get together.’ So we’re in different fights now. But they’re not as bad as the old fights.”

How bad were they?

Jonathan: “Two huge grizzlies fighting for the same salmon fishing ground. . . .”

Salvador: “Grizzly bears trained by the gnarliest, ultimate one-eyed Yukon Jack who ever lived, who taught every one of his students to never back down.”

Other recent films that use film as a way to explore and resolve family conflicts (all about missing or largely absent fathers) include My Architect: A Son’s Journey, Tarnation, Five Wives, Three Secretaries and Me, and Tell Them Who You Are.

It is worth talking about about what kind of documentary your own family would want to make and perhaps experiment with a home video camera by doing interviews and telling family stories.

Related Tags:

 

Commentary Documentary For Your Netflix Queue Understanding Media and Pop Culture

The Pixar Story: tonight at 10 on STARZ

Posted on April 22, 2008 at 8:00 am

The most successful movie studio in Hollywood history is Pixar, which created the first computer-animated feature film, Toy Story. Every one of their films has not only made money, but every one has made over $100 million. What is even more stunning is that every one of them has been based on original material. Unlike the Disney animated classics, they never relied on familiar stories and characters with a pre-sold audience. But every one of their movies has provided audiences with stories filled with heart and insight and characters that immediately felt like old friends. Like Disney, which now owns the Pixar studio, it pioneered stunning technology in animation and filled its movies with extraordinary images but always remembered that the most important part of the movie is its story.
For the first time, a documentary goes behind the scenes at Pixar, featuring exclusive interviews with John Lasseter, Ed Catmull, Steve Jobs (of Apple), George Lucas (“Star Wars” and “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” former Disney CEO Michael Eisner, current Disney CEO Bob Iger, Brad Bird of The Incredibles and Ratatouille, and voice talents Tom Hanks, and Tim Allen (Toy Story) and Billy Crystal (Monsters, Inc.). Made by Leslie Iwerks, the Oscar-nominated granddaughter of animation pioneer Ub Iwerks, Pixar’s history is placed in the context of animation as an art form.

(more…)

Related Tags:

 

Documentary Genre , Themes, and Features Movie Mom’s Top Picks for Families

Young@Heart

Posted on April 18, 2008 at 8:00 am

B+
Lowest Recommended Age: Middle School
MPAA Rating: Rated PG for some mild language and thematic elements.
Profanity: Some mild language
Alcohol/ Drugs: Drug references
Violence/ Scariness: Sad deaths, loss, illness
Diversity Issues: A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters: April 21, 2008

In School of Rock Jack Black taught a classroom of 10-year-olds that rock and roll music is always about one thing: Sticking it to The Man. A new documentary about a chorus of performers in their 80’s and 90’s shows that no one has more reason to stick it to The Man than people who are most defiantly not going gently into that good night.

This is not your grandfather’s choir. Instead of singing songs from their youth like “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” or “Sentimental Journey” these old folks tap their orthopedic shoes, tug along an oxygen tank, and slam into the music of their great-grandchildren’s generation. They’ve gone straight from 78’s to iPods, literally without skipping a beat.
It sounds cute. Old people are settled, conservative. They are The Man, aren’t they? There is something deliciously incongruous about very old people singing the songs of very young people.

But it is not cute. Their set list is not soft or easy. No Billy Joel, Neil Diamond, or Beach Boys, no gentle harmonies or catchy melodies. This is raw and angry. They sing hard rock (Jimi Hendrix’s “Purple Haze”), punk rock (The Ramones’ “I Want to Be Sedated”), and blues (“I Feel Good” by James Brown). This is real rock and roll, written to be shocking, provocative, subversive. It is stirring, and deeply moving, finally transcendent. Music videos for songs like Sonic Youth’s “Schizophrenia” and the Talking Heads’ “Road to Nowhere” have a surreal, dream-like quality, good-humored but poignant as they add moments of fantasy and release. The Man they are sticking it to is loss of all kinds.

The movie takes us from the first rehearsals to a sold-out performance in the chorus’ home town of Northampton, Massachusetts. Continually frazzled but continually optimistic choir director Bob Cilman makes no concessions, artistically or generationally. This is not occupational therapy; it is art and it is show business. He insists on a top-quality professional production.

Cilman presents the chorus with Allen Toussaint’s tongue-twistingly syncopated “Yes We Can Can,” which has the word “can” 71 times. Form equals content and the medium becomes the message as they struggle to master the intricacies of the song.

Director Stephen Walker’s interviews occasionally seem intrusive, even condescending, but perhaps he, like Cilman, gets a little flustered at the inability to maintain any sense of control over the feisty singers. Early in the film, 92-year-old soloist Eileen Hall flirts with Walker – probably just to keep him off-base, at which she is entirely successful. Hall’s elegant British diction makes the opening lines of the Clash song, “Should I Stay or Should I Go” sound as though she is asking whether we want cream or sugar. But then the song turns into a goose-bump-inducing negotiation with life and death.

Two members who have been very ill, Fred Knittle and Bob Salvini, return for a duet, the Coldplay song, “Fix You.” But Salvini dies before the show. The chorus gets the news as they sit on a bus, about to leave for a performance at a local prison. No one knows better than they do that the show can and must go on.

They stand in the prison yard singing Bob Dylan’s “Forever Young,” voices quavering perhaps just slightly more than usual as they remember their friend. The prisoners are transfixed. Then, at the concert that concludes the film, “Fix You” is performed as a solo by Knittle, his oxygen tank beside him. He sings “when you lose something you can’t replace…I will try to fix you…lights will guide you home” and it is impossible not to feel that these performers understand those words better than the young men who wrote them. And when they nail “Yes We Can Can” it becomes an anthem of defiance, survival, and, yes, sticking it to The Man.

Related Tags:

 

Documentary Movies -- format Musical

Interview with Ilana Trachtman, director of “Praying with Lior”

Posted on March 22, 2008 at 8:00 am

Ilana Trachtman found the subject of her documentary, “Praying with Lior,” at Rosh Hashanah services. Lior has Down syndrome. His devotion to prayer has inspired the members of his close and loving Jewish community in Philadelphia. But the movie is not just about him. It is the story of a family.
Trachtman was a successful director of television programs . Her work was meaningful and satisfying and she was not looking for an independent film project.
What happened?
I prayed with Lior, that’s what happened to me. I was feeling estranged from prayer and went to a Rosh Hashanah retreat. The morning service was very long. I was counting the pages, thinking of what we would eat when services were over. It was literally like hearing a call. Behind me there was this off-key but consistently engaged and enthusiastic voice. I was really compelled because I had never seen anyone like Lior in services before. I grew up in a huge synagogue that never had anyone like Lior. Lior_postfront-1.jpgThe struggle I had with prayer, this person with half my IQ seemed so natural. I was filled with curiousity and envy. This was in the fall. His bar mitzvah was in May. I needed to get started quickly.

How did you get the permission of the family?

I expected I would have to do a lot of explaining, but when I started talking, Lior’s father said, “We’ve always wanted to do a documentary about the bar mitzvah.” That same spirit of generosity pervaded the entire experience. It was one miraculous moment after another on every level, a very b’shert (destined) experience all the way along.

(more…)

Related Tags:

 

Documentary Interview Spiritual films

Special offer for Public Libraries on Films of Frederick Wiseman

Posted on March 9, 2008 at 6:10 pm

Pioneering documentarian Frederick Wiseman is one of the key developers of what is sometimes called “observational” or “direct” cinema. These days, our concept of documentaries is often shaped by Michael Moore or Al Gore, unabashedly advocacy movies that are more like op-ed pieces than journalism. But Wiseman’s interest in institutions of all kinds, from mental hospitals to high schools, from high end department stores to welfare offices, from making decisions with and about patients at the end of life to the efforts of people with disabilities to achieve independence, from people on welfare to state legislators, from missile-makers to high-fashion models, all are displayed in forthright documentaries that tell their stories without narration.
While there is no such thing as complete objectivity in any story-telling and Wiseman himself is the first to admit that he shapes his stories with his choice of structure, the order and the positioning of the cuts, his movies have a kind of directness and intimacy that lets us experience what he shows us in our own way, without relying on anyone telling us what to think about what we are seeing. He does not interact with his subjects. He lets them tell their own stories, not by speaking to us directly but by becoming so comfortable with his camera that they let us see them as they are.
Wiseman’s films have sometimes been controversial. His first documentary, “Titticut Follies,” is a searing expose of a Massachusetts mental hospital. It was banned from release and restricted in its showing to anyone but educators and students by a court order on the grounds that it violated the patients’ rights to privacy, despite the fact that Wiseman had received permission from all of the people portrayed in the film or else their legal guardian. The film’s unblinking portrayal of the abusive and neglectful treatment of the patients may have been the reason for the ruling. In 1992, it was allowed to be shown on PBS.
The films are available on DVD at a modest price for individuals. For a limited time, Wiseman’s films are available to public libraries at a discount.
Enter code “PUBLIB15” at checkout to receive 15% off orders of 5 films or more
Enter code “PUBLIB20” at checkout to receive 20% off orders of 15 films or more

Related Tags:

 

Documentary
THE MOVIE MOM® is a registered trademark of Nell Minow. Use of the mark without express consent from Nell Minow constitutes trademark infringement and unfair competition in violation of federal and state laws. All material © Nell Minow 1995-2024, all rights reserved, and no use or republication is permitted without explicit permission. This site hosts Nell Minow’s Movie Mom® archive, with material that originally appeared on Yahoo! Movies, Beliefnet, and other sources. Much of her new material can be found at Rogerebert.com, Huffington Post, and WheretoWatch. Her books include The Movie Mom’s Guide to Family Movies and 101 Must-See Movie Moments, and she can be heard each week on radio stations across the country.

Website Designed by Max LaZebnik