OSCAR SUNDAY

First off, a big thanks to all the new subscribers. Welcome.

Sunday is the Oscars. AKA, The 98th Academy Awards as presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Full disclosures: I’m not a member, have never attended, and never been nominated.

I did once have a meeting in the building to pitch a producer who was the Academy President at the time!

Many of us, especially even filmmakers, look down on the Oscars. The whole “Best” thing is off-putting. Then there are the PR campaigns. All the fluff. The schwag. So Hollywood.

But…

The Oscars do offer value in marketing and awareness for documentaries.

Brief moments of recognition for nominees and the genre overall is worthwhile.

The speeches, eh.

There are very few opportunities such as the Oscars to reach millions of viewers (who aren’t in the kitchen making popcorn) and to have titles of the nominated documentaries on-screen, along with ten or so seconds of footage.

Think of the impact that Inconvenient Truth had when it won in 2006. Huge.

The following year Taxi to the Dark Side by my friend Alex Gibney won. In its own crafty way it sneaks up on the horror of U.S. torture after 9-11 and the War in Afghanistan by starting with one guy — a taxi driver in Kabul.

Man on Wire, Inside Job, Citizenfour, Summer of Soul, Navalny, 20 Days in Mariupol — all previous winning feature documentaries that I believe are hugely creative, important, and meaningful

The films in this category, unlike dramatic, have long-term significance. Even if they don’t reach as many viewers.

Where you can screen them and links to the trailers:

The Alabama Solution
HBO
Trailer

Mr Nobody Against Putin
Rent on Amazon or Apple TV
Trailer 

The Perfect Neighbor
Netflix
Trailer

Cutting Through Rocks
Not current available to stream
Trailer

Come See Me in the Good Light
Apple TV
Trailer

I do want to comment about The Alabama Solution and The Perfect Neighbor.

The Alabama Solution takes place inside the prison system in Alabama and is told from the perspective of those who are incarcerated.

The filmmakers initially went to Easterling Correctional Facility to film a religious revival meeting. And as it happens so often with unscripted non-fiction films, they wound up making an entirely different film.

Inmates dared to approach the filmmakers while they were there and suggest that they instead document the situation inside.

What I find remarkable about this film is the way in which the footage, recorded by the inmates on contraband phones, is so well woven together to tell the story so effectively.

Material in the film that was shot over a six-year period is often grueling to watch.

The inmates took major risks recording incidents of brutality and suffering that, if caught in the act, might have meant solitary confinement and/or time added to their sentences.

They took even more of a personal gamble by turning the material over to the filmmakers — again risking retribution from prison authorities — but also trusting them to do the right thing with the evidence.

It takes a bit of time to adjust to the quality of the footage and the audio. After all, it was shot under adverse conditions by non-professionals. Cel phone cameras at the time were much more limited in their capabilities than they are now, when I film in 4k on my I-phone.

The Perfect Neighbor shares some traits with The Alabama Solution by relying on personal cel phone footage, which is importantly supplemented by police body cam video and a crucial jailhouse interview.

Though it may seem like it is, Director Geeta Gandbhir said her film is in not in fact a true crime documentary.

"This is a story that happened to my family, and I made it to mitigate grief.”

 I did not know this before seeing it.

Clearly her personal proximity to the participants, place, and story gives the film an added element of passion and intensity.

Anthony Kaufman, who started as a features editor at IndieWire.com and continues to write and teach film, reported that The Perfect Neighbor had 42 million views in its first few weeks of release — one of the most watched feature documentaries on Netflix ever.

Kaufman went on to suggest that “Netflix may have learned a valuable lesson in its late-stage capitalist phase: Quality is important.”

Indeed. Let's hope so.

Because over the last couple of years Netflix has centered its documentary slate on celebrity bio-pics, sports, and music. Even true crime has taken the back seat. Trust me. I know. I pitched Netflix my Tom and Erika Girardi film, twice. And they passed.

Of course the Academy does not always reward quality. Hardly. Especially when it comes to dramatic feature films.

However, with documentaries the record is pretty good. Those which get nominated are usually serious and urgent.

Well, there was March of the Penguins. But that was fun to see with the kids.

If you’re new to Documentary Notebook, you can catch up with previous newsletters on the website: https://documentary-notebook.ghost.io/a-documentary-notebook/