[Frameworks] Looking to build a list of 'Experimental Documentaries' on video

[Beebe, Roger]

RE: An American Family, it's true that it was long unavailable, but it was released on DVD in 2011, so now it needs not simply be the stuff of legend:

http://www.shoppbs.org/product/index.jsp?productId=11645510

...
R.

On Jan 11, 2014, at 12:16 PM, Andy Ditzler wrote:

Jean Rouch should definitely be mentioned, especially Les Maitres Fous, Jaguar, and Chronicle of a Summer - as he influenced Godard and the French New Wave. The unavailability of his films in the U.S. has eased in recent months due to institutional DVD copies being made available through Icarus.

Much ethnographic film from various eras would apply: The Ax Fight (self-reflexivity) and To Live With Herds (observational cinema landmark) come to mind, as does Mead and Bateson's groundbreaking work like Trance and Dance in Bali. Also Robert Gardner's Forest of Bliss and Lucien Taylor's and Verena Paravel's recent Leviathan (for ideas of "sensory ethnography").

Shirley Clarke's Portrait of Jason, for ideas of changing representation of black and LGBT cultures and figures in documentary. Of course, Black Audio Film Collective's Handsworth Songs and everything by Marlon Riggs.

Further away from experimental here, but an argument could be made for This Is Spinal Tap as a pivotal work of "fake documentary," with influence far beyond comedy/fiction.

Definitively unavailable, and completely pivotal: An American Family.


Andy Ditzler
www.filmlove.org<http://www.filmlove.org/>
www.johnq.org<http://www.johnq.org/>
Graduate Institute of the Liberal Arts, Emory University


On Thu, Jan 2, 2014 at 6:19 PM, David Tetzlaff <djtet53 at gmail.com<mailto:djtet53 at gmail.com>> wrote:
I'm looking to help a friend do research on the history of documentary, and I'd like to introduce him to some of the more experimental side of the form. For his purposes, the work needs to available on video: he needs to see stuff, not just read about it, and he needs to be able to pull decent quality clips for presentation. So I'm not looking for more purely experimental films that have some actuality footage, but something more readily recognizable under a (very) broad rubric of 'documentary'.

Something like "Sonic Outlaws' or "Odds of Recovery" would be pretty central examples. About as far down the experimental scale I'd want to get would be such films as "Window Water Baby Moving" or "Sink or Swim." (Thus, for example, "Thigh Line Lyre Triangular" is too 'far out' for this purpose.) I'd also welcome suggestions for essay-form docs beyond Marker (which I've already got). Another example of such might be Mulvey's 'Frida Kahlo / Tina Modotti"

With those loose guidelines, feel free to recommend away without worrying too much about the 'fit'. I can/will edit the recs I pass on...

TIA!
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