Documentaries on Directors?

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by MortSahlFan, Jul 18, 2020.

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  1. MortSahlFan

    MortSahlFan Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    US
    If you have a link, please paste it (we could have more conversation if more have seen them)...

    This is on YouTube in full... Antonioni isn't a favorite of mine, I do like some of his movies, but he is an interesting guy.
     
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  2. MortSahlFan

    MortSahlFan Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
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    Vittorio D - 10/10
    I just saw a perfect example of how a documentary should be... And it's a documentary on my very favorite director - Vittorio De Sica. I was watching this with pride as if I were his son. I've searched for one in the past, but somehow I ran into this while browsing Amazon Prime, which I know many have, and should check out. I never heard De Sica speaking English, so there are limitations on knowing everything you can about the man, but his movies speak on his poetic yet realistic humanity.... I liked how it divided into segment... You had "The Director", "The Actor", "The Man", "The Gambler", "The Father", etc.

    You don't see any young "flavor of the month" directors or actors, not because they don't know him, but because whoever produced it made sure he got the best of the best..

    Featured in this documentary
    -Clint Eastwood
    -Woody Allen
    -Sophia Loren
    -Federic Fellini
    -Ken Loach
    -Mike Leigh
    -Shirley MacLaine
    -Ettore Scola (great Italian director)
    -Mario Monicello
    -Paul Mazursky (who told De Sica that he was stealing "Umberto D" to make (my favorite movie), "Harry and Tonto"
    -Dino DeLaurentis (great producer)
    and many others, including his family and friends.
    [​IMG]
     
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  3. RexKramer

    RexKramer Senior Member

    Location:
    Outside of Philly
    Here's Side By Side" - a documentary produced and hosted by Keanu Reeves. While it's more about the proliferation of digital tools taking over from film, and the pros and cons of each, there's no shortage of modern directors in the film: Scorsese, Lucas, Lynch, Cameron, Fincher, and Christopher Nolan, among others.

     
  4. Ghostworld

    Ghostworld Senior Member

    Location:
    US
    "Hearts of Darkness" the Coppola documentary about making Apocalypse.
     
  5. shug4476

    shug4476 Nullius In Verba

    Location:
    London
    Stanley Kubrick's Boxes, directed by Jon Ronson.

    It is an absolutely fascinating insight into Kubrick's working methods. He was (in my view) one of the true geniuses of the 20th century. It is also quite a hard documentary to find as Ronson is very protective of IP.
     
  6. MortSahlFan

    MortSahlFan Forum Resident Thread Starter

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    US
    That's a very good one, but who is IP?
     
  7. shug4476

    shug4476 Nullius In Verba

    Location:
    London
    Sorry - my inner lawyer speaking. IP = intellectual property.
     
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  8. MortSahlFan

    MortSahlFan Forum Resident Thread Starter

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    The Life and Times of Ken Loach
     
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  9. kamchatka

    kamchatka Forum Resident

    Location:
    north america
    "One day in the life of Andrei Arsenevich." Documentary/film essay on the greatest filmmaker of all time (Tarkovsky), directed by another giant of film and modern art (Chris Marker).

     
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  10. MortSahlFan

    MortSahlFan Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    US
    Thanks, I've heard of this, and will check this out. Speaking of Chris Marker, I loved "Joli Mai" and any of those documentaries where the director himself goes around the street asking social questions ala Louis Malle (Place de la Republique) and Pasolini with "Meetings"
     
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  11. Denim Chicken

    Denim Chicken Dayman, fighter of the Nightman

    Location:
    Bakersfield, CA
    This is a great one on Stanley.

     
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  12. Dillydipper

    Dillydipper Space-Age luddite

    Location:
    Central PA
    Too bad there isn't a coherent television series about these masters, the level of what Eagle did with the Classic Albums series.

    And you would think, as many channels as there are that focus on the film industry, as opposed to the music industry...there would be. :shrug:

    And it's not as if there isn't the available archival footage, what with every major studio preparing independently-greenlit docs and shorts to promote movies in production, most of which perhaps never sees the light of day.

    How have they not found a way to source all this stuff, and turn it into program content...?
     
  13. RexKramer

    RexKramer Senior Member

    Location:
    Outside of Philly
    Here's one on William Wellman, made in the mid '90s. I thought TCM did a bunch of these, but looking through their IMDB page most were on actors.

     
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  14. MortSahlFan

    MortSahlFan Forum Resident Thread Starter

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    A forgotten director.. Thanks for the link! I think his best is "The Ox-Bow Incident" - first really psychological western I remember watching.
     
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  15. stepeanut

    stepeanut The gloves are off

    He also made The Public Enemy, with James Cagney. A classic pre-Code gangster flick.
     
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  16. MortSahlFan

    MortSahlFan Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
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    Probably my 2nd favorite - Luchino Visconti
     
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  17. CraigBic

    CraigBic Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Zealand
    Noah Baumbach's documentary DePalma was pretty good, I remember there being a good documentary about Woody Allen back in 2012 though I think there may be a few Woody Allen Documentaries. And Spielberg that came out in 2017 that was good.
     
  18. stepeanut

    stepeanut The gloves are off

    You’re thinking of this documentary by Robert B. Weide, from 2011:

    Woody Allen: A Documentary Blu-ray Release Date September 24, 2012

    The only other Woody Allen documentary that is essential viewing for fans is Barbara Kopple’s Wild Man Blues, which isn’t so much a career overview as a character study, shot during his 1996 European jazz band tour.
     
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  19. Strummergas

    Strummergas Senior Member

    Location:
    Queens, NY
    Not really a documentary, but Turner Classic Movies did a 10 part podcast on Peter Bogdanovich a few months ago that is supposed to be excellent. I've yet to check it out, but I will one of these days. Here's the link for the first part:

     
  20. CraigBic

    CraigBic Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Zealand
    It used to be on Apple's movie store but it seems to have disappeared, Actually recently someone on youtube did a feature-length documentary which makes the case for Woody's innocence which is pretty good and seems to be pretty thorough with the facts. It's quite obviously a no-budget youtube video and the quality sometimes shows it, especially with some of that youtube humor sprinkled around but it's still pretty good.
     
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  21. MortSahlFan

    MortSahlFan Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    US
    I just finished this.. I've seen a handful of movies of his, but never knew about him (just his name).. Interesting guy. Wish they would have featured more of him, and maybe less of his movies (especially if you haven't seen them yet).
     
  22. polchik

    polchik Forum Resident

    your comment was a really great 'trailer' for me lol .... i've had the film on disc forever but have yet to find myself ... in the mood ... to watch it (i have a massive backlog of choices to choose from). now i'm excited!
     
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  23. MortSahlFan

    MortSahlFan Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    US
    Thank you! Please reply with your review :)
     
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  24. bostonscoots

    bostonscoots Forum Resident

    Location:
    Boston, MA
    A couple of recent directors docs I enjoyed and recommend are:

    Milius: "Maverick" is a word that's thrown around too easily, but if anyone is worthy of the title it's John Milius. The doc looks at his body of work, but also his status as a true Hollywood iconoclast - conservative, gun-loving, cigar-smoking he-man filmmaker who's also a much loved friend and collaborator of Coppola, Spielberg and Lucas.

    Friedkin Uncut: William Friedkin's a really good show - at 83 years old, he's not yet out of F's to give and clearly relishes the opportunity to retell a few familiar anecdotes. The doc itself is probably too timid - it doesn't push back against Friedkin for some of his more notorious methods to motivate actors or challenge his more pompous statements (I wasn't looking for a fight or for the filmmakers to contradict Friedkin, only that he explain himself more) - but it's hard to fault the director for wanting a nice fresh coat of paint on his legacy...and throw a few parting shots while he's at it.
     
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  25. MortSahlFan

    MortSahlFan Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    US
    Although I'm not a fan of Milius' movies, I did like the documentary, and I like anyone who goes against conformity, no matter what it is.

    I always seem to like Friedkin interviews; I hope to see it one day on YouTube.
     
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