Docs On DVD: "Fambul Tok" "Maxwell Street Blues" "Out Late" "Pearl Jam Twenty" "The People vs. George Lucas" "The Art of Filmmaking"
This week's new documentary DVD releases include a few films, old and new, that celebrate musicians or filmmakers and then a doc that heavily criticizes a single movie director for merely being a disappointment. Also in the group are a film about gay and transgendered people finally being able to comfortably be themselves and a film that has people forgiving those who killed their loved ones. Especially the latter puts the George Lucas haters into perspective. Maybe "Star Wars" nerds need to have a fambul tok? Here are your five major new releases plus a box set of five docs out on DVD today:
Sara Terry's powerful film about the difficult social aftermath of the Sierra Leone civil war joins other recent films like "The Redemption of General Butt Naked," "Enemies of the People" and "War Don Don" in considering the possibility for forgiveness, redemption and healing following the worst of local circumstances. Can we absolve both friends and enemies for their confused and coerced crimes during time of war and genocide? See this documentary, which was produced by Rory Kennedy ("Street Fight"; "Bobby Fischer Against the World") for stories of friendships, families and communities torn by violence imposed by greater evils, and how they might be reconciled through the tradition of fambul tok, or "family talk."
Winner of Best Documentary at the 2011 Fort Myers Film Festival. Winner of the Human Spirit Award and an Honorable Mention for the Best Documentary category at the 2011 Nashville Film Festival. Named one of the Best of the Fest at the 2011 Global Social Change Film Festival.
T his newly restored 1981 film by directors Linda Williams and Raul Zaritsky documents the Maxwell Street blues scene of Chicago and features performances by Jim Brewer, John Henry David, Coot Venson, Floyd Jones, Carrie Robinson and Blind Arvella Gray. The clip below of Gray is credited as being from a series titled "Image Union" but might also be in this doc since it's also credited to Williams, Zaritsky and "Hoop Dreams" cameraman Jim Morrissette.
Winner of a jury citation at the 1981 Festival dei Popoli.
Beatrice Alda and Jennifer Brooke's film introduces us to five main subjects, both men and women, who finally came out as gay or had a sex change in their 50s, 60s or 70s and explores "what ultimately led these dynamic individuals to make the liberating choice to live openly and honestly amongst their family, friends and community…perhaps for the first time in their lives."
Winner of Best Documentary at Spain's Cinehomo fest and at the Long Island Film Expo.
Since David Lynch asks at the start of the trailer below, I’ll say I not only recall the general time when I really started getting into music — as in no longer listening to silly stuff like The Monkees and soundtracks rather than albums — was 20 years ago, when I was a freshman in high school. And, oh what a coincidence, it included buying Pearl Jam’s Ten. Now two decades later, Cameron Crowe, who directed members of the band (as Citizen Dick) in “Singles,” delivers a definitive music doc long in the making.
First runner-up for the Cadillac People's Choice Award for documentary at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival.
Also available on Blu-ray.
"The People vs. George Lucas"
Was "Star Wars" the most important thing in your life until the prequels came and killed everything you believed in? Even if you're not that extreme, you might want to check out Alexandre O. Philippe's documentary on the disturbance in the force of fandom ever since "The Phantom Menace" met the disappointment of audiences in 1999. Features interviews with still-loyal fans, haters and celebs like Neil Gaiman, mixed with fan films based on the "Star Wars" and "Indiana Jones" movies.
"The Art of Filmmaking" Box Set
In this collection from First Run Features, you get five craft-specific documentaries about, yes, the art of filmmaking. There's the anecdote-heavy film "Tales from the Script," which is directed by Peter Hanson (who appears in "The People vs. George Lucas") and features interviews with such writers as John Carpenter, Paul Schrader and Shane Black and will probably scare any hopefuls into any other occupation but screenwriting.
There's the AFI-cooperated interactive four-hour film "Directors: Life Behind the Camera," which features everyone from Robert Altman to George Lucas to Martin Scorsese to David Zucker.
There's Carl-Gustav Nykvist's "Light Keeps Me Company," about his cinematographer father, Sven Nykvist, which features interviews with Woody Allen, Ingmar Bergman, Vittorio Storaro and many others.
There's "Lavender Limelight: Lesbians in Film," which focuses on lesbian filmmakers Cheryl Dunye, Su Friedrich, Jennie Livingston, Heather MacDonald, Maria Maggenti, Monika Treut, and Rose Troche.
And most important, perhaps, to doc fans is Pepita Ferrari's "Capturing Reality: The Art of Documentary," which features interviews with the following nonfiction filmmakers, among many others: Nick Broomfield, Patricio Guzman, Werner Herzog, Kim Longinotto, Albert Maysles, Laura Poitras, Errol Morris, Kevin Macdonald, Jessica Yu, Barry Stevens, Scott Hicks, Hubert Sauper and Jean-Xavier de Lestrade.