Here’s another batch of documentaries that are worth a look, one that I found satisfying in every respect, and a handful of others for which the strength of my recommendation is dependent on your interest in the subject, rather than any advance in the art of documentary.
Every Little Step (2009, MC-76) works on so many levels: as presentation and enactment of a 2005 Broadway revival of the hit musical, A Chorus Line, and memorial of the original production; as real-life recapitulation of every backstage drama from 42nd Street on; as putting the viewer in the position of an American Idol-like judge to appraise just what makes for singing and dancing talent; as swift and engaging storytelling with all the winnowing-down excitement of competitive contests like Spellbound. Trust me, really -- make a point of seeing Adam Del Dio’s documentary, even if like me you are not familiar with the original show beyond a vague awareness of its long-running popularity – available from Netflix on dvd or for instant play.
The Oath (2010, MC-72), an intimate film made by Laura Poitras, probably has the broadest and most urgent interest among the rest of this list. The oath in question is of allegiance to Osama bin Laden, and the subjects are two brothers-in-law who were his former bodyguard and driver. The former is Abu Jandal, who is now a voluble cab driver in Yemen, renouncing the 9/11 attacks but still proselytizing for his own brand of jihad. The latter is Salim Hamdan -- of Hamdan vs. Rumsfeld – and Abu Jandal feels guilty for getting his unpolitical relative into Guantanamo. So Hamdan remains an absence in the film, even when the Supreme Court releases him, but Jandal’s nonstop self-contradiction, much of it as he drives his taxi around Sanaa, offers a fascinating window into the jihadi mindset. Two heroes that emerge are Hamdan’s U.S. military lawyers, who certainly put the system in the best light, despite the abuse dictated from Cheney and Bush. I saw this as part of the generally-excellent “P.O.V.” series on PBS, but it is available from Netflix both as dvd and streaming video, as is the next film, which might have been on the other good documentary series on PBS, “Independent Lens.”
In this era of WikiLeaks, The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers (2008, MC-75) assumes more than historical interest. I started watching without particular commitment to the subject, but was never tempted to tune out. Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith take a very sympathetic look at Ellsberg, who earned the title epithet directly from Henry Kissinger, but they do a good job of recalling the Nixonian era and what seemed to be at stake at the time, and what still seems at stake today, in the continual contest between government secrecy and the public’s right to know. I don’t think Assange is anywhere near as well-motivated as Ellsberg, so I was a bit surprised to see the elder whistleblower endorse the younger on the Colbert Report. Nonetheless he’s an old-time counterculture hero who still commands respect.
Though The Promise (2010) is mainly an HBO promo for the dvd/cd release of outtakes from Bruce Springsteen’s classic album, Darkness on the Edge of Town, the documentary does offer an intriguing glimpse of the Boss in session during the mid-70s. Fans like me will not want to miss it, but if you are not into the Bard of New Jersey, you will find little here to linger over.
One of the better entries in ESPN’s intermittently excellent “30 for 30” anniversary series is The Best That Never Was (2010, no dvd yet). Jonathan Hock’s documentary about Marcus Dupree is a real-life Friday Night Lights story about the fate of perhaps the greatest high school football running back ever. The highlight is the jaw-dropping footage of him regularly ripping off 80-yard touchdown runs, with a grace and fleetness of foot that seems truly heroic. No wonder he generated such a recruiting war among major colleges, and no wonder the Philadelphia, Mississippi hero had such trouble making the transition to Oklahoma and then the NFL. From his position as a middle-aged truck driver in his old hometown, he looks back philosophically on the phenom that he was, and the stardom he was destined for and derailed from.
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