Krug

"Bowling for Columbine" Named Top All Time Doc while Moore, Morris and
the Maysles Take Multiple Positions in Top 20

(indieWIRE: 12.16.02) -- Michael Moore's scathing look at America's violent
gun culture, "Bowling for Columbine" has been named the top doc of all time
by the International Documentary Association (IDA). The Los Angeles-based
organization released its top twenty favorite non-fiction films late last week ahead of events celebrating its 20th anniversary with presentations of the Career Achievement award to Ken Burns ("Frank Lloyd Wright") and the Pioneer Award to French filmmaker Agnes Varda ("The Gleaners and I").
Films in the list covered an array of topics with Michael Moore also capturing the number three spot for "Roger & Me" (1989), an investigation of General Motors downsizing and its effects on Flynt, Michigan. Errol Morris' probe of the 1976 murder of a Dallas policeman, "The Thin Blue Line" (1988) was named second best doc while Steve James' story of two inner city high schoolers' pursuit of professional basketball glory, "Hoop Dreams" (1994) came in at number four. Albert and David Maysles' 1969 film "Salesman" about employees selling ornate Bibles door-to-door rounded out the top five. The brother directing team also captured the number nine position for their look at the eccentric first cousins of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in "Grey Gardens" (1975) and the number 12 spot for "Gimme Shelter" on the infamous Rolling Stones concert at Altamont Speedway in Northern California. Errol Morris also secured a second mention in the list with "Fast, Cheap and Out of Control" (1997) in the 14th place for the film on four obsessive men that each create eccentric worlds of their dreams involving animals.

Topics spotlighting local issues also made the list including Barbara Kopple's 1976 look at the struggle of Kentucky coal mining families in "Harlan County, USA" came in at number eight. And, Frederick Wiseman's chronicle of life inside a Massachusetts institution for the mentally ill, "Titicut Follies" took the number 15 spot.

"The common denominator is that all of these films provide an intimate behind-the-scenes look at the human condition," said IDA executive director Sandra Ruch in a prepared statement. "Each of them grabs and holds your interest. They make you think about things you might not have ever considered before. This was a very difficult decision for our members. It is a little like asking them to vote for their favorite child." The IDA began as an informal meeting of a dozen filmmakers in Los Angeles in 1982. Today, the organization has 2,700 members in 50 countries today. [Brian Brooks]

The complete top 20 list follows:

1. "Bowling for Columbine," Michael Moore; 2. "The Thin Blue Line," Errol
Morris; 3. "Roger & Me," Michael Moore; 4. "Hoop Dreams," Steve James;
5. "Salesman," Albert and David Maysles; 6. "Nanook of the North," Robert
Flaherty; 7. "Night and Fog," Alain Resnais; 8. "Harlan County, USA," Barbara Kopple; 9. "Grey Gardens," Albert and David Maysles;

10. "The Civil War," Ken Burns; 11. "Crumb," Terry Zwigoff; 12. "Gimme Shelter," Albert and David Maysles; 13. "7 Up," Michael Apted; 14. "Fast, Cheap and Out of Control," Errol Morris; 15. "Titicut Follies," Frederick Wiseman; 16. "When We Were Kings," Leon Gast; 17. "American Movie: The Making of Northwestern, Chris Smith; 18. "Shoah," Claude Lanzmann; 19. "The Man with a Movie Camera," Dziga Vertov; 20. "Sherman's March," Ross McElwee

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looks like all docs had to be in English huh?

sundog

"Night and Fog" is French.

marty888

Most glaring ommission (to me) is COMMON THREADS !

Krug

sundog

Having only seen less than half of the films cited, I can't really offer much criticism. I would like to see Morris' "Gates of Heaven" on the list, as well as Luis Buñuel's stunning doc "Land Without Bread" from 1933.

djmont

No "Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse"?

That's an excellent doc...and one some people have actually seen.

I must confess: I don't get Michael Moore. He seems like an ass -- and not very intelligent. He has a few funny bits and occasional irony, but I think he's vastly overrated.

FalconH10

4 words to these losers...


This is Spinal Tap

Pants

I've seen most of those and I'll say a few things:

1. Bowling for Columbine is NOT the best doc of all time, (are they joking!!!) it isn't even the best doc of the year.

2. They have the Maysles all mixed up. Their best film is Gimme Shelter, followed by Salesman and Grey Gardens

3. Nanook of the North should be #1 and there should be more ethnographic film on the list (Grass anyone?)

Groucho

sherm42

Wasn't Nanook of the North proven to be mostly artificial? That most of what is shown was setup in advance by Nanook and the director. Wasn't it revealed that Nanook did not in fact normally even live as depicted in the film?

Norm de Plume

Bowling for Columbine #1 of all time? That's absurd. It's very good, but others are better. I've seen 16 of those listed above, and the only ones I'd put in my top-20 are Hoop Dreams, Roger & Me, B.F.C., and maybe The Man With the Movie Camera for being groundbreaking.

Salesman is good, not great. The same goes for Titicut Follies, Thin Blue Line, Night and Fog, Harlan County USA, Crumb, and 7-Up Series. I'm ashamed to say I haven't seen Shoah yet.

Where are?: Best Boy (1979), Scared Straight (1978), Streetwise, Hearts of Darkness, Life Without Death, Dear America, Common Threads, The Times of Harvey Milk, The Killing of America, Lessons in Darkness, Gizmo, High School (1968), Warrendale, Koyaanisqatsi, A Married Couple (1969), Shackleton's Voyage of Endurance, Hearts and Minds, The Sorrow and the Pity, The Good Fight (1983), etc., etc., etc.

Burnt Alive

No Paradise Lost?

Looks like the IDA loves Michael Moore.

Tyler_Durden

Or Pennebaker's Monterey Pop? Or Herzog's My Best Fiend?

How about Lost In La Mancha? (Oh, I give up, I haven't seen it yet. WHEN WILL THEY RELEASE IT ON DVD?!?)

wendersfan

Moore has one really remarkable talent - he's excellent at making those people who agree with him feel really smug and superior.

Pants

When? After it's theatrical release.

I also vote for The Sorrow and the Pitty, how can they leave that out?

As I understand it, Nanook was a little more "down with" the 20th century than the film lets on. He lived in what we would call a conventional house and he even owned a snowmobile. But what the film depicts is very real. Nanook harpoons walrus, catches fish, walks the ice, drives a dog sled, rows a canoe, and builds an igloo exactly as he had learned from his ancestors who had done it for centuries. If anything, knowing that parts of the film are "staged" (and I use that term with hesitance, because it's not like the filmmaker "made up" how an enuit lives, he simply got one to demonstrate the way it "was") only adds and coments on the unique nature of documentary film. The elsusive "truth" that filmmakers attempt to capture. The fine line between reality and the imposition of the filmmaker. It is fascinating in and of itself that by the time technology had evolved so that the enuit lifestyle could be captured on film, the filmmakers arive to discover that their way of life was already so shaped by technology that they no longer relied on doing things the "old fashioned way".