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Posts tagged ‘documentary film’
February 17, 2016  |  Film
Doc Fortnight 2016: Actions of the Past, Shockwaves in the Present
INAATE/SE/ [it shines a certain way. to a certain place./it flies. falls./]. 2016. USA. Directed by Adam Khalil and Zack Khalil. Courtesy of the filmmakers

INAATE/SE/ [it shines a certain way. to a certain place./it flies. falls./]. 2016. USA. Directed by Adam Khalil and Zack Khalil. Courtesy of the filmmakers

As we celebrate the 15th installment of Doc Fortnight (February 19–29), it is fitting that we find ourselves looking to the past to illuminate the present, uncovering old stories with new lessons.

October 29, 2015  |  Film
MoMA Presents: Jacqui and David Morris’s McCullin
Don McCullin. Turkish woman mourning the death of her husband, Cyprus, 1964. 1964. Image courtesy Don McCullin and the filmmakers

Don McCullin. Turkish woman mourning the death of her husband, Cyprus, 1964. 1964. Image courtesy Don McCullin and the filmmakers

“War is partly madness, mostly insanity, and the rest of it’s schizophrenia. You do ask yourself, ‘Why am I here? What is my purpose? What’s this got to do with photography?’ And it goes on and on, the questioning. You’re trying to stay alive, you’re trying to take pictures, you’re trying to justify your presence there.

February 11, 2015  |  Film
Documentary Fortnight 2015: Everyday Hauntings
Around the World in 50 Concerts. 2014. Netherlands. Directed by Heddy Honigmann. Courtesy of Cobos Films

Around the World in 50 Concerts. 2014. Netherlands. Directed by Heddy Honigmann. Courtesy of Cobos Films

The selections in this year’s Documentary Fortnight: MoMA’s International Festival of Nonfiction Film and Media (February 13 through 27) cast an intriguing look at life using a range of storytelling approaches—poetic, hybrid, observational, and dramatic. Many of these films, which center, at their core, on stories of human resourcefulness, are haunted by the concerns of our age: environmental disasters, wars, austere immigration and economic policies, urban and rural overdevelopment, and the repetition and ellipses of history.

July 17, 2012  |  An Auteurist History of Film
Arne Sucksdorff’s The Great Adventure

The Great Adventure. 1953. Sweden. Directed by Arne Sucksdorff


These notes accompany the screenings of Arne Sucksdorff’s The Great Adventure (along with a pair of short films) on July 18, 19, and 20.

And now for something completely different! Over the past several weeks we have looked at films that seem to be definitive statements of the worldview of major artists

March 9, 2010  |  An Auteurist History of Film
The Documentary Expands
Grass: A Nation’s Battle for Life. 1925. USA. Directed by Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack

Grass: A Nation’s Battle for Life. 1925. USA. Directed by Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack

These notes accompany The Documentary Expands, which screens on March 10, 11, and 12 in Theater 3.

Calling Merian C. Cooper (1893–1973) and Ernest B. Schoedsack (1893–1979) auteurs may seem like fudging a little bit, but I don’t think it is. Yet the doubt creeps in on two levels. First, while film is undeniably a collaborative medium, the auteur theory argues that there is a singular dominant creator. The bond between these guys, however, seems so seamless in their films as to be almost unique. The other reason for hedging is that they first made their collaborative mark in documentary film, a form that presupposes that the director cannot mold his material as freely as can the maker of narrative films. (It has become obvious in subsequent decades that even the most “pure” cinéma vérité is subject to manipulation at the hands of masters like Jean Rouch or Fred Wiseman.) And it is, of course, true that immediately after Grass, Cooper and Schoedsack began to move away from authentic actuality.