Cinéma Vérité/Direct Cinema filmmaker Allan King at MoMA

The Museum of Modern Art in New York is putting on a brief retrospective of direct cinema pioneer Allan King. The show will include his early work such celebrated work as Warrendale (1966), A Married Couple (1969), Come on Children (1973), and Skid Row (1956), which was one of the first films to use direct address as a central narrative device.

Warrendale won the Prix d'art et d'essai at Cannes in 1967, shared a BAFTA Best Foreign Film Award with Antonioni's Blow-Up, and a New York Critics Award with Bunuel's Belle Du Jour - and Jean Renoir called him "a great artist". Just think about that for a moment.

Jean Renoir.

His recent films Dying at Grace (2003), Memory for Max, Claire, Ida and Company (2005) and Empz 4 Life (2006) are also part of the retrospective.

The show was put on in part with the support of Telefilm and the Canadian Consulate General in New York.

The exhibition runs from May 9-31, 2007.

MoMa Film Exhibitions, 2007: Allan King.


Image from Allan King's film Warrendale, 1966.

[Edit: I found this quote on wiki:

Il faut le dire, tout ce que nous avons fait en France dans le domaine du cinéma-vérité vient de l'ONF (Canada)." Trans. "It must be said, all that we have done in France in the area of cinéma-vérité comes from Canada" - Jean Rouch

When was the last time Canadians were influential in cinema? Maybe it's time we start doing that again]

Gore Awards Manufactured Landscapes for Greatness

Toronto director, Jennifer Baichwal has received an honour for her beautifully horrific documentary, Manufactured Landscapes, which was presented to her by ex vice president, and world savior Al Gore.

The award was presented at the Nashville Film Festival on Saturday.

Yep, we still make The Best Documentaries In The World™ and thank God, otherwise we'd really be in trouble, but the question remains: when are we going to start making Kick Ass Fiction Films™?

Via the CBC

Truth or Fiction

Hot Docs, the Toronto based documentary film festival is going to screen a film which questions Micheal Moore's film making practices. The film is called "Manufacturing Dissent".

Here is an article written by one of the film makers, Debbie Melnyk...

http://www.nysun.com/article/52715

And here is another article discussing the film controversy...

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/entertainment/view/271037/1/.html

Just Google for more info if you feel inclined.

Now, none of this background information regarding Mr's Moore's film strategies is new, and, ultimatelty, I have no desire to comment on his work in particular. What interests me is the concept of the documentary film as truth or fact.

Is Mr Moore violating the audiences trust by manipulating the events in his film? Are his film still documentaries?

Are Mr Moore's films less true and/or less documentaries in light of accusations of manipulation?

They are "less true" on the level of plot, perhaps. By that I mean, what happened did not happen in the order in which it's presented. This level of manipulation is a fairly common place narrative device. (So is omission, I should add.) But what about the story his films tell? Is he lying by excluding his interview with Roger Smith in Roger and Me?

I don't think so. The film was not about interviewing Roger Smith. It never claims to be about interviewing Roger Smith (interviewing Mr Smith is a narrative device, no more). None of his films are specifically about the individuals involved. Moore chooses his subject because they represent a point of view in the larger arguments his film engage.

Micheal Moore's film's are rhetorical, in the classical sense of Rhetoric.

I'd argue he has never claimed to be telling the truth, but is in fact trying to convince the audience to believe what he thinks is true. In the realms of rhetoric, "truth" and "belief" have no relation, nor should they in the real world. I'd also argue that what distinguishes a documentary from a fiction film is that documentaries are rhetorical. So, even though he "lies" to the audience (or omits) about specifics, his films are still documentaries by the simple fact that they are rhetorical.

No documentary is "True". They shouldn't even try to be. They just have to be convincing.

More on this later, in my first Books on Film post.

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Hey, why not forget about all the worlds problems for 73 minutes, and just hate Toronto.

New film on hating Toronto to premier at Hot Docs documentary festival.

“People in Toronto are soulless, one-eyed corporate zombies,” Joey Keithley, of the Vancouver punk band D.O.A., says in the film, “Let's All Hate Toronto.”

On a good day, I only loathe Toronto, but hey, at least we're not soulless, one-eyed greasy-hippie zombies like people in Vancouver. The rain alone is enough to throw yourself in front of a biofuel converted Hummer.

Via The Globe and Mail.