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IRAQ IN FRAGMENTS

by James Longley

Reviewed by Adele Schmidt

 

DARWIN'S NIGHTMARE

by Hubert Sauper

Reviewed by Adele Schmidt

 

JESUS CAMP

by Heidi Ewing

and Rachel Grady

Reviewed by Erica Ginsberg

 

LOST IN LA MANCHA

by Keith Fulton & Louis Pepe Reviewed by Adele Schmidt

 

ME AND ISAAC NEWTON

by Michael Apted

Reviewed by Adele Schmidt

 

DOCUMENTARIES TO REVISIT

While every documentary should be unique, it is important for documentary filmmakers to be well-read when it comes to documentaries to see different ways that those who have come before them have dealt with the joys and challenges of non-fiction storytelling.  Until recently, it has been difficult to see documentaries on demand.  But now many documentaries are easily available through Netflix, Amazon, or the local video store.  With this in mind, we wanted to revisit a few documentaries which reflect a wide variety of styles, but all share the power of effective story structure and character development.

 

IRAQ IN FRAGMENTS by James Longley

(Reviewed by Adele Schmidt)

 

When I was watching the film Iraq in Fragments I was asking myself what is it a documentary filmmaker can learn from this film.

 

I would like to focus on three points which this film is mastering at a high level.

 

  1. Even if we are confronted with a situation of chaos, it is important to find order in the chaos and give a precise structure to the film.

  2. Access to the characters is key to tell a compelling story.

  3. The early determination of the stylistic approach (how to tell the story) helps to set the path for the whole film.

Order in the chaos

The chaotic situation of an ongoing war is not the easiest place for a filmmaker to organize production and find a structure for telling the story in a meaningful and comprehensive way. James Longley's approach to divide the film into three parts makes complete sense. Each part spotlights a different side of Iraq: The Sunni, Shiite and the Kurd perspectives.

 

The division in the film reflects the fragmentation of the social and political landscape of Iraq, a fragmentation which has deepened over the years of war and which presents one of the greatest challenges to initiate a process of reconciliation and peace. By presenting each side, the filmmaker is not trying to give a broad perspective; instead he concentrates in each part on one personal story, the story of ordinary people. The director uses no voiceover or narration to move the story along. He just holds the camera close to the characters and events we see unfolding. If we get to listen to a voice, it is the voice of each character who comments on situations and reflect about their lives.

 

In the Sunni side, we get to know Mohamed, an 11-year old boy who lives in a working class neighborhood in Baghdad and who works in a mechanic shop. The Shiite section is narrated by young cleric, Sheik Aws al-Khafaji and with him, the camera leads us into different situations with militant Shiite followers of Moktada al-Sadr in Nasiriya and Najaf. The third story is filmed in a pastoral Kurdish region, in a small village outside of Erbil. Each story is filmed with immense closeness to the characters and it is the payoff of Longley spending almost two years in Iraq to film this documentary.

 

Access to characters

Getting close to the characters allows James Longley to access the chaotic situation and through their eyes and voice we have a deeper look into war torn Iraq. It seems contradictory but the closeness opens us up a wider picture of each section.

 

Mohamed has lost his father to the regime of Saddam Hussein. His boss, owner of the mechanic shop, is like a father for him. Or at least that is what Mohamed says at the beginning. But the camera tells another story. The boss mistreats him and humiliates him on a regular basis. Mohamed cries and the boss laughs in satisfaction. In the relationship between boss and Mohamed, we observe the components of living under a dictatorship: the abuse of power and irrational violence of the oppressor and the fear, confusion and frustration of the oppressed.

 

If the first story is concentrated on the inside of the mechanic shop and the tense relationship between Mohamed and his boss, the second story happens mostly on the streets. Young men scream in a religious procession and hit themselves with chains. We are now on the fanatic side. In another moment, young men organized in their own sectarian group decide to execute their view of law and order a market turned upside down in search of vendors of alcohol. Covered with masks, they beat their victims and detain them randomly. It seems that the reality is dominated by young men. If women appear at all, we see them crossing the street in the background of the frame or kneeling before men in power, begging to free their husbands.

 

It is the setting of a little village and the landscape which makes the third story quieter. An aging Kurdish father and his son are the main characters. They express they desire for normality and peace, but again, as soon as politics gets involved, chaos breaks out. On voting-day, the Kurds get into a fight with the police.

 

All three stories give an unknown look into the life in Iraq today and each story makes clear that the human sacrifice paid in this war has huge dimensions.

 

Stylistic Approach

In this film it is clear how important it is to define a style before even setting up the camera. The close and immediate camerawork makes this film authentic and compelling. The camera is on a constant move and is followed by a fast and extremely nervous editing. James Longley is the director, photographer and co-editor of the film. It is the same hand which executes all three departments with restlessness and precision.

 

This stylistic approach is appropriate for a situation of chaos and uncertainty. In a certain way, we feel thrown into that dangerous and complex reality out of which it is difficult to make sense.

 

Conclusions about the war in Iraq will be drawn in years to come. IRAQ IN FRAGMENTS does not pretend to have conclusions, but it tells an internationally relevant story on a human scale.

 

 

 

DARWIN'S NIGHTMARE by Hubert Sauper
(Reviewed by Adele Schmidt)

In 2006, Austrian filmmaker Hubert Sauper was nominated for an Academy Award for his documentary DARWIN'S NIGHTMARE.  Though the film lost out to another European production, MARCH OF THE PENGUINS, it is worth a look back at this film as an example of a multi-layered look at globalization.  Sauper's vision is dark, his pictures are disturbing and the realities he uncovers are uncomfortable.  But, through his films, it is clear that Sauper is an highly intelligent filmmaker who has a deep understanding of the political, social and economical complexities of the realities he is filming. As I was watching this film, I was grateful for it, because so many western films dealing with Africa are made by filmmakers who do not take the time to to get involved with the situation and do not spend enough time the with characters to gain their trust. The results are superficial films where the filmmaker is speaking for the people and over-relying on narration to explain everything which is not delivered from the film itself.

Sauper's approach is different. I still remember scenes of his 1998 documentary KISANGANI DIARY: FAR FROM RWANDA, in which he follows Hutu refugees after an attack against their camp in what was then Zaire (now The Democratic Republic of Congo). There is always a strong commitment of Sauper to his topic and his characters and that is what makes his films so remarkable. In DARWIN'S NIGHTMARE, Saupert transports us to Tanzania, to the small town of Mwanza on the shores of Africa's biggest lake Victoria.  We learn that the town sees a lot of business because of the massive exports of a fish called the Nile Perch.  This species of fish was not known in that lake before the 1960s when it was introduced to the lake.  A predatory species, the fish multiplied, but also caused the extinction of other species to the point that the lake could be considered a mono culture.

And here starts the complexity of the problem: We are at a lake which is ecologically out of balance waiting for a disaster.  The export of the fish is seemingly good for the development of Mwanza because it gives jobs to tousands of people who work in a processing plant.  Two airplanes come every day from Russia to this little town to load in 500 tons of frozen, packaged fish fillets and fly them back to the restaurants and dining rooms of Europe.  The daily cargo could feed the little town for a long time, but the villagers don't get to see the fish fillets because after the fish has gone through he modern processing plant, they cannot afford the fish. The only thing the locals get to see and eat are the leftovers of the factory: the carcass head of the fish. Thousands of these rotting fish heads are piled up on a beach nearby Mwanza. As the camera pans across all these fish heads and the people who carry them away in buckets, one can just say that all this is not fair. That we are one more time before an example of crude exploitation by Northern countries, in this case Europe, towards the South. The fact that the film was shot during a time when Tanzania was hard hit by famine makes this situation even more unbearable.

But Saupert does not want us to focus too much on the fish. For him, the fish business is a by-product of the bigger story which he wants to unfold to the public. There is a rumor that the transport airplanes don't just depart with fish, but also bring weapons and munitions to conflicts in other African countries. The story was on the news and a local journalist claims to have evidence. Of course, we never see weapons unload from the planes in Mwanza. People asked on the streets are convinced that the planes are empty when they come. Though Sauper asks the Russian pilots again and again, they won't tell and simply lower their heads in silence.  But once the thought is introduced by the film, we can not get rid of it.  Tanzania is bordered by countries with a very recent history of war: Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Rwanda and it is not much further a plane ride to other hotspots.  As one of the pilots cynically says, "The children of Europe receive grapes for Christmas, the children of Angola receive guns."  You would have to be naive to believe that airplanes come empty from Russia just to load fish. What a lost opportunity that would be for the international weapon smuggling networks!  As we watch the locals of Mwanza tilt their heads to see another airplane crossing above them in the sky, we draw our own conclusions.

It is this lack of proof which some may find troubling, especially those who are accustomed to seeing journalistic-style documentaries where proof is so key to storytelling.   But Sauper makes clear in the film that he has his own point of view and that he is not hesitating to impose his own truth. It is now up to the viewer if he or she wants to share that view.  I can say that my colleague, Erica Ginsberg, has had challenges with the film for this reason and also because she believes that the film is ultimately so dark and hopeless that it leaves the audience with little reaction but to feel despair and maybe give up eating Nile Perch.

Indeed you could argue that Sauper focuses too much on the dark side, on the side of African despair. Through his eyes it seems that the village of Mwanza is populated by a collection of glue-sniffing kids living on the streets, prostitutes plying their trade to the Russian pilots and occasionally to the migrant workers, families reduced to half of their size because of the effects of AIDS, and the assorted foreigners involved in the processing and export of the fish.   He takes us inside the lives of these characters.  We meet them in close conversations and engage with them because the filmmaker captures them as they laugh, sing, and share their dreams. The camera is always very close to the subjects.  Sauper has obviously spent a lot of time with them to get them to feel comfortable opening up, as though in a conversation.  The moments breathe.  When we hear a prostitute sing a song “Tanzania, Tanzania” with a big smile on her face, we understand how proud she is of her country in spite of its dire circumstances.  She says she dreams of getting a better education. A street kid aspires to become an engineer. These dreams are authentic and valuable but we are already so drawn into the hopelessness of their lives, that we know full well these dreams cannot be fulfilled.  Not in the world Sauper portrays. 

And here Sauper leaves us alone with a situation which seems not to have a solution.  Yes, the dark side is a truth in Africa but it is far from the only one. It is hard to believe that there are not other normal people in this town with a positive take on the situation. People for example who work in the factory and have benefited from the fish business, even if it is on the sacrifice of the lake. People who are working their way out the circle of poverty because they have a job and they now can improve their living condition and send their kids to school.  But Sauper does not enter that terrain.

Maybe Sauper thought by bringing in more diverse voices, the message of the film would be in jeopardy, but here he is mistaken. Bringing in positive voices would have made the situation more complete and would have given the people from Tanzania respect.  Now we just feel miserable for them. 

DARWIN’S NIGHTMARE feels like a “film noir.” It is not an activist film which presents a problem and suggests a solution.  Instead it helps shed light on a place that few of us would have the likelihood to visit and yet which is impacted by our actions or lack of action.

 

JESUS CAMP by Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady

(Reviewed by Erica Ginsberg)

 

At Docs in Progress workshops, one of the questions we ask every presenting filmmaker is “why did you make the film?”  It is important that documentarians think about what their intentions are with a documentary.  Especially when treating a controversial subject, it is essential for the filmmaker to know his or her own point of view even if he or she has no intention of being a character in the film.

 

In the 2006 film JESUS CAMP, filmmakers Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady enter a world quite unlike the one they know firsthand.  With both filmmakers hailing from “Blue States” (New York by way of Detroit and Washington DC respectively) and neither actively religious, they chose to enter the world of the Evangelical Christian movement and explore the relationship between religion and politics and the national debate over values. 

 

That values debate forms a narrative device in the film.  We open to the scenery of middle America (highways, fast food joints, gas stations, and motel signs reading “God Bless USA).  A car radio blares the news that Sandra Day O’Connor has just announced her resignation from the Supreme Court.  Talk radio goes wild with speculation about whom President Bush will nominate as her replacement and how much impact Christians can have on the nomination process.  The camera takes us inside a radio station where extreme close-ups of the technical equipment underscore how media – especially talk radio – plays an integral part of that values debate.  However, this radio host, Mike Papantonio, provides a dissenting voice to what we heard on the car radios.  He is openly critical of what he calls the “religious right” because he believes they are entangling politics and religion.  “What kind of lesson is that for our children?” Papantonio asks.  Less than four minutes into the film, the main conflict of the film is established, even though we have not yet met any of the main characters.

 

This war of words acts as a backdrop for the main story, which looks at how the next generation of Evangelical Christians is being raised in their faith.  Children with camouflage warpaint and carrying stick swords dance at the front of a church, speak in tongues (in keeping with their Pentecostal beliefs), and talk of being soldiers in the Army of God.  They are led by an unlikely general, Becky Fischer.  A children’s minister who challenges kids to be the part of this movement, Fischer has a down-to-earth style and disarming sense of humor which engages the viewer as much as it does the children to whom she preaches.  In one scene she compares, almost enviously, her children’s ministry to that of radical Islamic madrassas.  In another, she is teasing her hair in front of a mirror, betraying the more routine concerns of a middle-aged woman.

 

In fact, it is the juxtaposition of the humanity – and indeed the mundanity – of the characters with the idiosyncrasies of their religious beliefs that really gives depth to the film.  On the surface, we are in the landscape of Anywhere Suburbia.  But there is always a twist.  A mom helps her children with their homework; they read from creationist textbooks which are central to their home-schooling.  Children play videogames and read stories, but they are all Christian-themed; their homes are free of Pokemon and Harry Potter, both of which are seen as anti-Christian endorsements of witchcraft. 

 

As the film progresses, we gain a deeper understanding of the characters, even if we do not share their beliefs.  In addition to Fischer, the film focuses on three children.  Levi has aspirations to be a preacher at a mega-church, seeing himself as part of a key generation to bring Jesus back to America.  Rachael takes pride in her efforts to evangelize non-believers, whether it’s her next-door neighbor or a stranger at the bowling alley.  Tory loves to dance, though she prefers Christian heavy metal to Britney Spears because she says it is for God and not for the flesh.  The film masterfully reveals each of the kids through a combination of observational footage and interviews done in the mise-en-scene of the characters, often while they are engaged in their everyday activities. 

 

While the first act of the film introduces us to the values debate and the main characters, the second act takes those characters and us to the Families on Fire Summer Camp, run in North Dakota by Becky Fischer.  Again, we see the contrast of the normal rites of passage of a children’s summer camp with the deeper reasons why these children are there.  In one scene, a group of boys stays up late for the familiar ritual of telling ghost stories, only to have the party broken up by one of the parental chaperones who reminds them that such stories are not honoring God.  In the daytime, the kids have some time to be kids: play on swings, skip stones in the lake, laugh with friends in the cafeteria, or go exploring in a nearby cave.  But they spend good portions of their days participating in the intense fervor of sermons that focus on washing away their sins of hypocrisy or breaking the reins of secularism over government.  Fischer and the other pastors challenge the kids about whether they are ready to be a part of the Army of God.

 

This brings us to the third act which shows how the children are becoming part of this movement to use their religious values to influence politics.  Whether it is blessing a cardboard cutout of President Bush or going on a field trip to Washington DC to protest against abortion in front of the Supreme Court, the children are ready to fight for what they perceive to be “one nation under God.”   Levi even pays a visit to one of the largest megachurches in the country, the New Life Church in Colorado Springs which was at the time led by Pastor Ted Haggard (filmed before the sex scandal which forced him to resign).  Haggard makes an appearance in the film and drives home the message that it is churches like his which have the power to influence the national political agenda.  As he says in the film, “If the Evangelicals vote, they determine the election.” 

 

JESUS CAMP met with praise and controversy when it was released in 2006.  Some felt that it treated the topic in a sinister manner through its reliance on a spooky-sounding score and editing of sound bites that emphasize militancy and political activism espoused at the camp.  Pastor Haggard spoke out against the film as not representing the full spectrum of evangelical Christians and encouraged members of his church to stay away from the film when it previewed in Colorado Springs.  Although Becky Fischer has indicated on her Kids in Ministry website that the film is not a totally accurate representation of her ministry (especially the theatrical trailer which she felt portrayed her ministry as “cult-like”), she also believes the success of the film has given her a unique opportunity to convey her mission.  She and several of the kids have attended various film festival screenings with the filmmakers and her ministry’s website contains many comments from viewers who felt the film actually encouraged them to become more fervent in their faith and eager to attend the camp.  Similarly on the film’s MySpace page, the comments reflect a diversity of opinion – from those who have been inspired by the film to others who have found it deeply disturbing.

 

In my own opinion, if a film can take a controversial issue and be equally upsetting to both sides of a debate, then it is as close to balanced as it can ever be.  But the one truth about non-fiction work, it is that it can never be truly balanced.  Even John Grierson’s definition of documentary – “the creative treatment of actuality” – indicates that there is no way to portray truth, but only to creatively interpret it.  Selecting the characters, deciding when to turn the camera on and off and where to focus its attention, choosing clips and contextual information and the order of how they are edited, and deciding on the music and where to place it in the film all reflect a point of view.  

 

Even the presence of the filmmakers can impact the reality they document.  While this was certainly noticeable in JESUS CAMP in the Ted Haggard sequence where the film includes shots of him teasing the cameraman, there is another sequence which many viewers may not even realize was impacted by the filmmakers.  At one point, Becky Fischer calls in to Mike Papantonio’s radio show for a debate on whether her ministry is indoctrinating children in its religious and political beliefs.  This is a key scene in the film because it returns us to the film’s major theme of the values debate by actually including a direct debate over values.  However, according to the directors’ commentary on the DVD, Fischer’s call-in came about as a result of the filmmakers’ intervention, not as a chance happening in an unfolding documentary reality.  While the call-in itself was not scripted, this sequence does present an ethical issue to the documentary filmmaker.  What is his or her role in impacting a storyline in order to craft a more dramatic narrative arc?

 

I should add here that it was a controversial decision for Docs in Progress to feature this film among our reviews because my colleague, Adele Schmidt, and I have very divergent views on this film.  We both agree that there is merit to seeing the film because it covers an issue about which almost every viewer may have a strong opinion.  Additionally, it is a case study of how to tell a big-issue story through the more accessible lens of a character-driven narrative.  However, we disagree vehemently on the issue of the film’s point of view.  Every directorial decision ultimately reflects the point of view of the filmmaker(s).  Filmmakers should never shy away from having a point of view, even when trying to present as balanced a story as possible.  In my view, this film seems to have helped Ewing and Grady – and, by extension, viewers who come from similar secular backgrounds – to step outside of their own environment and discover more about people with whom they may never agree, but who they can now better understand.  In Adele’s view, the filmmakers bent over too far backwards to please their subjects and betrayed their own point of view in the process.  She does not equate discovering a reality with having a point of view.

 

We’ll leave it to you to see the film for yourself and decide.  We’ve re-posted this review in our blog and invite you to add your own comments to the discussion.

 

© April 2007, Docs In Progress
These articles may not be reprinted without permission.

 

LOST IN LA MANCHA by Keith Fulton & Louis Pepe

(Reviewed by Adele Schmidt)

Filmmaking can be a very torturing process.  Nowhere can this be seen more easily than in documentaries about the making of a film.  Some documentaries have provided deep insights into how difficult it is to get a script onto a screen. Just remember the insightful documentary BURDEN OF DREAMS by Les Blank who follows German filmmaker Werner Herzog into the Peruvian jungle where he was filming Fitzcarraldo.  As the documentary unfolds, Herzog encounters enormous problems during the shooting in the Amazons. Even after three years of stop-and-go, Fitzcarraldo was completed and Werner Herzog's dream fulfilled. But what happens if the fight to realize a dream ends in a fiasco?  How does this affect the “Making Of” story?

 

Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe, the makers of  the documentary Lost in la Mancha, lead us through that worst case scenario by documenting the making of the movie The man who killed Don Quixote, an ambitious film adaptation of Don Quixote by charismatic filmmaker Terry Gilliam.  Sure, this documentary was planned with a different outcome, the “happy ending” of a finished film, but the reality unfolded itself in a different way and filmmakers Fulton and Pepe had no choice than adapt to that change.  The film production of The man who killed Don Quixote failed after only one week on location.   The documentary which intended to document the making of a $32 million movie turned into a film about the downfall of a production.  Out of that production experience came not a feature film, but a documentary which every filmmaker should see to learn how to handle a story which goes off course from the one you expected -- and perhaps even find a more interesting story in the process.

 

In spite of the fact that Fulton and Pepe had just six days of shooting on location, they managed to document the passion which stands behind Terry Gilliam’s creation. At the same time, the documentary is constantly reminding us of one crude reality which waves behind every mayor film production: That next to talent, enormous management skills are needed to complete a movie and sometimes luck is not on your side.

 

The passion of filmmaking

 

Terry Gilliam is known for his eccentric futuristic fantasy films, such as Brazil and 12 Monkeys. This time, Gilliam is not projecting his imaginations into future but into the past, into the mindset of Spanish novelist Miguel de Cervantes who wrote Don Quixote in 1605. The plot is well known: An old man who has read so many stories about knights believes in a confused state that he himself is a knight and sets out with his horse to fight injustice. In one of his most famous adventures, he fights against windmills, believing that they are giants.

 

Unfortunately we never get to see the unfolding of the fight against windmills before the camera. The only thing we get to see from that scene is the casting of the three giants. Gilliam selects three big and comical looking Spanish men and does some camera rehearsals with them. What we see through the camera lens in that rehearsal makes us want to see more. Fulton and Pepe make it clear throughout their documentary that quite an outstanding film is on the way.

 

A look at the storyboard alone, illustrated in animated drawings, helps us to understand that. These drawings, a mix of surreal cartoons traced with extraordinary detail, are an art work unto themselves. Fulton and Pepe choose to start their documentary with these drawings to set up the high stylistic level of Gilliam’s film. These animations also give us a hint on how complicated this production will be, with huge set constructions and extravagant costumes. Gilliam, the fantasy auteur, envisions a film where magic dissolves into reality, where giants appear, and where gigantic handmade marionettes dance on enormous strings.

 

Most of all, we see an enthusiastic director who is in love with his project. The camera follows Gilliam as he interacts with his crew in preproduction. He macro-manages the overall look of the film, giving instructions to the set designer and at the same time micromanages details when we see him in discussion about Don Quixote’s armor. We get to know other crew members as they are all working full speed in each department to be ready for the first day of shooting.

 

Fulton and Pepe made important choices in editing in order to create the drama. By giving us from the start a good taste of the high production value of The man who killed Don Quixote, we fall in love with the project.  We want to see the film happen.  We want Gilliam to succeed with his dream.

 

Fighting the odds

 

The documentation of the downfall condenses weeks of pre-production and les than a week of production into 90 minutes.  It points out the risk factors which can make any film production fall apart, especially one which aspires to Hollywood production values without being produced by Hollywood.

 

We are told from the beginning that the real cost of this film is $80 million. Gilliam was not able to convince any Hollywood studio to produce the film. He raises half of the money from European investors and sets out to Spain to shoot the film for $32 million.  Filming at a less than an ideal budget is a scenario familiar to most documentary filmmakers.  Gilliam faces similar tradeoffs and compromises that many low-budget doc-makers face.

 

Filming under budget means a director has less time or no time for rehearsal. Less rehearsal means more time on the set to get the acting and dialogue right.  Selecting French actor Jean Rochefort to play Don Quixote makes sense for the European investors who need a hook to get the film into French cinemas, but Rochefort speaks shaky English. We are told that he started to learn English just to perform his part. All this contributes to problems on the set from the start.

 

Filming under budget also means crew and actors get paid less.  Less payment means less commitment. Johnny Depp, who will play Sancho Panza, makes clear from the beginning that he has an extremely tight timeframe for the shoot between other film commitments and cannot extend under any circumstances.

 

Further, filming under budget means that the shooting schedule is extremely tight and must be executed as planned.  There is no room for unexpected events, accidents or emergencies.

 

Fulton and Pepe select the crucial moments in the six days of shooting to document the challenges facing the production. We see Don Quixote riding his horse in a desert landscape. We soon learn that this landscape is located next to a NATO airbase, something one would think could have been identified during the location scout.  On almost every take, a NATO fighter jet speeds through the sky, drowning out dialogue. The film crew spends most of the day on the rocks waiting for silence.

 

The next day, clouds make their appearance in the sky and turn into a severe thunderstorm with such a heavy rain fall that the crew has little time to hide in cars and secure the equipment under plastic sheets. The equipment gets flooded anyway and the next two days are used to restore it. Back on the set after four days of unsuccessful shooting, Jean Rochefort screams in pain as he unmounts his horse. It turns out that he has prostrate problems.  He flies out to Paris to consult his doctor. Gilliam still hopes that the production can resume to shoot scenes where Rochefort is not needed, but soon learns that Rochefort is under doctor’s orders not to get back on a horse.  Without their star, the insurance and the investors close the production down. 

 

As we see the puppets get packed back into their boxes, we ask ourselves if everything can be blamed just on unforeseen forces that brought the production down.  That is the argument Gilliam uses to convince the insurance company who has to come up with the lost money.   But we have to wonder whether his unrealistic planning was also a major factor in the equation.  Is it possible to act like a Hollywood director without having Hollywood behind you?

 

Fulton and Pepe do not get into details here because they have found a new story for their documentary.  Just as Gilliam’s heart breaks over the loss of his dream, so too does the heart of the audience who had invested our hopes in the film being completed.  What started out as a “Making Of” documentary found a new life as an “Unmaking of” documentary.  A man dreams the impossible dream and finds invisible forces – many of his own making – block his way.  Only the man is not Don Quixote, but Terry Gilliam.

 

When all is said and done, Lost in LA Mancha has two lessons for documentary filmmakers:

 

Pay attention to what is within your control.  Plan carefully to make your production a success.  A low budget is not an excuse for poor common sense.

 

Pay attention to what is outside of your control.  The story you want to tell may not be the one which wants to be told.  As you document what unfolds, go with the flow and you may find a new, even more powerful story.

 © January 2007, Docs On Progress
These articles may not be reprinted without permission.

 

ME AND ISAAC NEWTON by Michael Apted

(Reviewed by Adele Schmidt)

At our Docs in Progress workshops, we often talk about character development as an essential part of documentary storytelling. At the same time, we encourage filmmakers to create works which are visually attractive.  ME & ISAAC NEWTON , by renowned British filmmaker Michael Apted, is a good example of how these two goals do not need to be mutually exclusive. The film profiles seven remarkable scientists: chemist Gertrude Elion, theoretical physicist Michio Kaku, computer scientist Maja Mataric, environmental physicist Ashok Gadgil, cognitive scientist Steven Pinker, professor of cancer medicine Karol Sikora and primatologist Patricia Wright.

When the film was first released in 2000, Apted was asked in an interview why he selected these scientists in particular.  He said he had initially interviewed many more, but decided to select these seven because they are the best in their respective fields and were able to transmit their highly complex ideas and theories into understandable sentences.  This is very important because sometimes the top experts or someone who has an interesting life story may not be at their best on camera.  Casting is essential. 

It may sound strange to “cast” for nonfiction work, but it is important to find the right character who will represent the film and who often carries a certain message the filmmaker wants to share with a wider audience. The better the character expresses him/her self in words and actions, the more the film benefits from it. This is especially important for films like ME & ISAAC NEWTON where the director decides not to include the additional voice of a narrator. The film is carried by the interviews with the scientists and by the outstanding footage Apted captures by visiting them in their homes, their workplaces and other surroundings.  With each scientist, Apted introduces us to an unexpected new world.

The film is divided in four chapters, introduced by titles: Beginnings, Work, Eureka , and the Future. Each character speaks to each chapter with his or her own experience. In Beginnings we learn, for example, that theoretical physicist Michio Kaku constructed an atom smasher in his mom's garage when he was a teenager.  Computer scientist Maja Mataric shares with us her teenage experiences immigrating to the United States from former Yugoslavia . Back then, her biggest preoccupation was how to get rid of her foreign accent in order to appear like all the other girls in her classroom.

The development of Mataric during the film is very engaging.  In the Beginnings section, we see her pregnant while working on a computer program to instruct robots in a laboratory at MIT. In the final section, The Future, she pushes her newborn baby in a stroller, followed step by step by a couple of little robots. 

In Beginnings, we also learn that Patricia Wright never thought of becoming a scientist until, one day she stood in front of a pet store and decided to buy a monkey. Wright was so intrigued by the behavior of the monkey that she started to get involved into the research about the species.

In the Work section, we see the scientists at work.  These scenes function on two levels.  They provide visual breath to what could otherwise be a very abstract or talking-head film.  But they also continue to establish and develop the characters by showing them in the environment of their life's work.  Steven Pinker reflects on the question of what kind of "software" the brain brings with it in babies.  Patricia Wright takes us to Madagascar where she is establishing a lemur preserve. With Ashok Gadgil, we travel to India where he is inventing a process to purify water in villages where children are dying from diarrhea because of infected water. The endless struggle to find a cure for cancer occupies Karol Sikora. We see him in the laboratory and interacting with patients. The urgency of the research becomes particularly clear as we see him in a consulting session with parents and their young son who is diagnosed with cancer.

ME & ISAAC NEWTON's division into chronological chapters follows a relatively linear approach.  While this may make some more ambitious documentarians yawn, it is important to see films which do this effectively.  In the case of this story, the linear approach makes sense because it is difficult enough to make an audience interested in following seven characters, let alone to make us follow their stories out of sync or one at a time.

What the film manages to do is to tell this story without resorting to by-the-book b-roll.  The images Apted selects to cover the interviews go beyond simple or literal illustrations of what we hear.  They work as metaphors which represent deeper meanings of the situations. When we see Patricia Wright dancing with the villagers in Madagascar , we understand that she has accomplished more than just protecting lemurs. When we see 81-year old Nobel Prize Laureate Gertrude Elion traveling around the world sharing her expertise with college students, we understand the value of passing on life experience to the next generation.  We get to know each scientist as a remarkable person full of compassion and dedication for his/her work.  The film succeeds not because it is about science and scientists, but because it is about the human beings behind those scientists.

The film is also recommended for filmmakers because ultimately it is about how to cope with the ups and downs of the creative process.  We understand the scientists' work is a constant process with all the success, challenges, and limitations.  When asked how they overcome the moments when it seems you have reached a dead end, the answers allow the viewer to identify easily with the characters.  Sometimes the “click” happens overnight, after weeks of analyzing a problem from every possible angle.  Sometimes it takes a special ritual to help break through.  In fact, the film’s title comes from this sequence; when theoretical physicist Michio Kaku gets stuck, he goes ice skating.  The camera captures him figure skating in deep concentration while we hear the words: “It’s just me and Isaac Newton skating on the ice”.

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