Riga Diary…tv and Artistic Docs 2

I (Tue) wrote from Riga about the theme in the headline after a pitch at the Baltic Sea Forum. I made Iikka Vehkalahti comment on it and now there is a contribution from Marje Jurtshenko at Estonian Television, who was present and argued against the use of the expression “too artistic”:

I see that I have raised a hot topic! I really got pissed of talking about “too artistic for tv” – especially when I didn’t see anything that artistic in the trailer. Anyway, here is a short comment to Iikka:

I agree with many things what Iikka says about television and the way filmmakers sometimes try to hide weak stories behind the shaping but I also think that film is the combination of good story AND the visual, so if the content asks for the creative visual thinking I think we should encourage that. Tv has changed, of course, now it is mainly a fast food place but to be honest I know that there are also lot of people out there, who would like to have some gourmet dishes once in awhile. Even if those are more difficult to digest, even if it takes more money and time to prepare it.

I think that lot of the commissioning editors (not only) underestimate their audience as well. Of course if your slot has to make rating then you have to go for fast food but if people have chance to show creative docs, I think they should make effort also to support this kind of filmmaking (or thinking in general). Because if those people say that films are too creative and nobody will need those, of course soon this kind of filmmaking will disappear. And then I will better turn on the radio. Marje Jurtshenko.

Geoffrey Smith: The English Surgeon

Three persons are presented in a parallel montage. An Englishman in his garden preparing for his trip to Ukraine. Henry Marsh is the surgeon, as is the man he is to visit in Kiev, Igor Kurilets, and the patient to be operated for a brain tumour, Marian Dolishny. Between these three the drama lies. Will the two doctors succeed to do a succesful operation on the man from the provincial town, where the people help him by collecting money for his operation? But this is just the dramatic engine of this unique, touching film about an outstanding, humble and humourous English doctor, who wants to help other people. As simple as that. A film that is rich in layers and beautiful in its humanistic approach and message. And sometimes tough to watch, Marian being awake during the whole operation!

The film is also about a friendship between two men from different cultural and materialistic backgrounds. A friendship that started around the end of the USSR and the start for Ukraine to enter market economy. Igor has a private clinic, dreams about getting a hospital, and Henry transports equipment to him and works for free. When Henry arrives to Kiev, he goes directly to the clinic where people queue up to have his opinion on their brain tumours – to be operated or a lost case? It is very often the latter, and the two doctors discuss the ethical question. Should the truth be told, should all hope be taken away?

At the end of this classically built documentary that includes carefully placed music by Nick Cave & Warren Ellis, the two doctors take a trip to visit the family of a girl, who was taken by Henry to England to get an operation done that failed. What can I say but thank the director for keeping the film in a non-sensational balance full of respect for his characters and the theme of life and death.

There is a great website for the film with references to clips. And how to buy it.

http://www.theenglishsurgeon.com/

Anders Østergaard om sandfærdighed

På dokumentar-branchetræffet i Ebeltoft for et par uger siden præsenterede Anders Østergaard sin ufærdige film om videoaktivisme i det turbulente Burma. Lars Movin var udsendt reporter fra FILM, som nu udkommer elektronisk. Movins artikler kan findes på FILMupdate, se nedenfor. Her et et klip, hvor Østergaard udtaler sig tankevækkende i den stående diskussion om rekonstruktion i dokumentarfilm:

“Sandfærdighed er vigtig. Det vil sige, at vi skal give en sandfærdig gengivelse. Hvis vi opsummerer et begivenhedsforløb og bytter rundt på nogle billeder, så skal det være sandfærdigt i forhold til, hvad for nogle energier, der flyttede sig hvordan. Derfor står og falder oplevelsen af en dokumentarfilm med, om man vælger at stole på instruktørens sanddruhed, altså hans ærlighed over for stoffet, som han oplever det… “Hvis jeg skal sige noget kort om, hvad mine overvejelser er omkring, hvad jeg må rekonstruere, og hvad jeg ikke må, så er det helt simpelt dét, at jeg må ikke lave scoops.

Jeg må ikke lave noget, der overstråler det autentiske materiale. Jeg må ikke lave noget, der ville have gået verden rundt, hvis det havde været autentisk. Men jeg må godt filme de indre linjer, de små historier, som for så vidt ikke er scoops, men er vigtige brikker for at få min fortælling til at fungere. Man kan helt kort sige, at jeg rekonstruerer de indre linjer, mens de ydre linjer er autentiske. Dét er nogenlunde skellet.”

Burma VJ bliver produceret af Magic Hour Films og forventes at få premiere i efteråret 2008.

http://www.filmupdate.dk/?p=1450

Albert Maysles Interview

Take 5 minutes break and go to the website of British newspaper Guardian and watch an interview with good old observational documentary hero Albert Maysles, this mild man who is a true believer of the classical approach to reality. This is what it is called:

“The eye of the cameraman should be the eye of the poet”: an interview with Albert Maysles. Daniel Tapper talks love and propaganda with documentary maker Albert Maysles

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/video/2008/aug/06/albert.maysles

Riga Diary… tv and Artistic Docs

Iikka Vehkalahti, YLE Finland had this comment to Riga Diary 5:

“Dear Tue. I have to admit, that we (YLE TV 2 Documentaries) have a slogan: ” don´t look at tv, look at TV 2 Documentaries”. It´s implement is actually the fact, that the nature of the television has changed. In the minds and in the decisionmaking. Because of several reasons of course. Starting from the competition of viewers, the slot programming, the new entertainment programmes, the nature of societies and cultural atmosphere etc.. etc.. etc..

The fact is that for a demanding, complex, creative, different documentary film there is not very much of space in television. And commisioning editors, they know that. But another thing is of course if they have given up, if they don´t fight for the best films with all possible tools starting from festival awards and ending at the marketing tools from YouTube to blogs and like art museums, the circle of friends.

Ok, we can say, that  in mainstream television art fight is doomed, that only special channels like.. documentary channels… but.. at the same time I have to copy my own words that I planned to write into Steps by Steps book, but left out (because it can be misunderstood). Good to read also I think: TO BE IN BETWEEN

Too often directors consider themselves more fascinating, than the stories they tell. And that means they place themselves between the audience and the story – usually in the name of Art. And sure it’s great if the director really is an artist and is able to create new dimensions and interpretations of a story.

But if the director is just trying to make a weak story more interesting by decorating it – the only audience that’ll be satisfied are the lousy juries at little tinhorn film festivals.”

James Marsh: Man on Wire

It is more than 30 years ago. I remember it vaguely. I remember that he did it. The tightrope walking between the the twin towers in New York in 1974. But I did not remember the story behind it. That I do now after having watched this brilliant documentary film about French Philippe Petit and his team, that made the walking – no it was, as said in the film, the dancing on the tightrope. A dance that was illegal, planned like a bank robbery, a dance that lasted only 45 minutes and was documented in photos taken by one of the most fascinating (there are several) side characters in the film, Jean-Louis Blondeau.

Photos from the performance, yes, that is what they had for the film, and of course some archive material from the building of the World Trade Centre, and from previous performances in Paris and in Sydney, and of course also some great archive from the training that proceeded the coup, as it was called. But otherwise the filmmaker – as the red thread of the narrative – builds up a suspense story in a montage that is combined with the characterisation of Petit as a true ”mauvais garcon”, a street joggler and magician, who is not able to or does not want to answer the question: Why?

It is a playful and beautifully constructed film that will for sure come to a cinema near you. Or a festival. And for sure also on a tv screen. It has this enormously precise definition of the genre it works within. Clips can be found on the sites below.

http://www.manonwire.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vztE8eeYFE

http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/452047/Man-on-Wire/overview

Jørgen Leth: Traberg 2

Jeg tror den kommer i overmorgen! En af mine yndlingsfilm, måske afgjort min favorit, Jørgen Leths Traberg er på vej. DVD-boksen, hvor den er sammen med to andre Lethfilm, har været forsinket. Min boghandler har et par gange ringet til forlaget, som kun kan sige, at der er problemer, en anden gang er de allesammen til frokost. Det er afslappet som Haiti, helt rent i stilen. Jeg venter et par dage mere. Læser lige igen i Leths bog Traberg. Den er med et af hans egne faste udtryk generøs.

Det er som om, det er alle, ja, alle notaterne i lommebogen til filmen, som er trykt og udgivet. Så modigt og fuldt af tillid. Jeg husker for mange år siden han i filmmuseets sal ude på Christianshavn viste nogle af Henning Camres fornemt sort/hvide, kræsne, på én gang distante og empatiske optagelser til Notater om kærligheden, den unge kvinde, som gør sig i stand før, hun skal mødes med sin elsker. Jeg tror, det var de originale optagelser. Før klip. Det var også modigt, tillidsfuldt, generøst.

Et par citater fra bogen: “Traberg. Det afgørende er at tage ud til eksotisk location og filme en cigaret i et askebæger. Sådan skal det være.” “Jeg betragter hende. Jeg bruger hende. Jeg kærtegner hendes krop. Jeg indsnuser hendes duft. Jeg hører hendes ord, hendes lyde. Jeg elsker hende sagligt og detaljeret. (Første tekst til Traberg, siger Camilla).”

Sidste: Min søde boghandler ringer til mig. Hun har nu fået fat i forlaget. Jørgen Leth: “Fiktioner”, som DVD-boksen hedder, er gået på lager og bliver nu distribueret. Hun kan have en til mig fredag eller mandag.. De laver andet end spise frokost på det forlag!

Jørgen Leth: Traberg, en tekst, 1990. Jørgen Leth: Fiktioner, DVD-boks 4, i den samlede udgivelse med Traberg, Udenrigskorrespondenten og Sct. Hansaftenspil.

http://www.filmupdate.dk/?p=1345 

British Documentary History Online

Need to brush up your documentary film history? If so, the BFI (British Film Institute) can help you. I have just spent a little hour in company with two brilliant British actors, Derek Jacobi and Malcolm McDowell, who have introduced me to the GPO Unit film tradition way back in the 30’es with John Grierson as the mastermind – and to the 50’es and the so called Free Cinema with Lindsay Anderson as the main player, who after his contribution to the documentary history picked McDowell to be his favourite actor in films like ”If” and ”O Lucky Man”. This interactive online elementary documentary course that you can reach and use for free is introduced like this:

”The General Post Office may seem an unlikely source for some of the most creative British filmmaking of the 1930s, but with a talent roster including W.H. Auden, Benjamin Britten, Alberto Cavalcanti, Humphrey Jennings, Len Lye, Norman McLaren and J.B. Priestley, that’s exactly what it was. Here, Sir Derek Jacobi presents an extensively illustrated interactive guide to the history of the GPO Film Unit, with clips ranging from well-known classics like Night Mail (1936) to rarer but equally sparkling gems.”

”Fifty years ago, a programme of short documentary films changed British cinema for ever. In the third BFI series developed in partnership with BT,  Malcolm McDowell introduces an interactive history of Free Cinema, the pivotal but under-recognised film movement of the late 1950s.”  Some of these films can be watched on the FourDocs website, see below.

Photo: Lindsay Anderson and Malcolm McDowell on the set of 1973’s O Lucky Man!

http://www.screenonline.org.uk/index.html

http://www.channel4.com/fourdocs/archive/

Carlo Lo Giudice: Padre Nostro

Scratch me! Hug me! Don’t act stupid! The father is 90 and the son around 50. They live together, they sleep in the same bed. They caress each other in the bed. The son constantly scratches the father´s back and sometimes it goes the other way around. The son gives the father a bath, shaves his face, brings him along to work – the son runs a gallery – shouts and laughs at him. The old man seems sometimes to be a bit confused, the doctor says you are dement, the son tells him laughing after he has been to hospital for check. The film has its funny moments in depicting these every day situations. I´m the boss, no I´m the boss. Stop this ”you can, you can not”, the father argues.

An observation it is, made with respect and love for the two of them, for me never felt as a peep show, but as a demonstration of strong emotional bonds  between the two Italians. And bravo for the closing scene where they go to harvest olives with the old man sitting in the car watching… Pure beauty!

Italy/Portugal, 2008, 40 mins.

www.faux.pt