TV favorites of past year

As is the case with many dedicated home viewers, my time for watching films is being eroded by high-quality television series, and I’m beginning to take satisfaction in deciding which “must-see” series I really don’t need to see any more of, which clears my calendar for shows I’m truly involved with.  Among the series I abandoned sooner or later were Boardwalk Empire, True Detective, Broadchurch, House of Cards, Orange is the New Black, The Americans, Fargo.  What a relief to not have to keep up!

On the other hand, there are many series I feel compelled to follow all the way, no more inclined to skip an episode than I would be to skip a chapter in a novel.  I’ll start with two I loved, which I only caught up with after their runs were over.  (For Metacritic rating, I give high and low marks for seasons, with a link to the first.  Also, my usual link to Netflix availability, and Amazon Prime when relevant.)

Borgen (NFX) is the antidote to House of Cards, offering authentic insight into the motivations and machinations of politicians and media people, plausibly-flawed characters whom it is possible to care about.  The title translates as “The Castle,” the Christiansborg Palace that houses all three branches of Danish government.  The three seasons (with fingers crossed for another, less so for a senseless American remake) follow the progress of Birgitte Nyborg, the center-left party leader who becomes the first woman PM of Denmark (the fiction preceded the reality by one year).  The mechanics of coalition-building among eight parties are continuously fascinating, and enlightening about issues in a way that American political series rarely are.  The acting is fine, funny, and true across the board, but anchored by the central performance – lovely, many-leveled, and mature -- of Sidse Babett Knudson.  Essentially this series is “The West Wing goes to Copenhagen,” and it comes back to us smarter, sexier, and more honest.  I cannot recommend any tv series more urgently than this.

For a more specialized taste, I’m equally enthusiastic about In Treatment (MC-70/85, NFX, AMZ, HBO).  When this show was running, I didn’t find the concept or its Israeli source appealing, and the format – one half-hour for each character each week – cumbersome, even with DVR or DVD.  Once HBO Go made every episode available to watch on any schedule, it was time to sample the series.  I thought maybe I’d try watching one patient through a season, just to see how I liked it.  Well, that’s definitely not the way to approach this series – it needs to be watched from start to finish, even as the roster of patients changes from season to season.  Though it would have been nice to see more of Gabriel Byrne as the troubled therapist Paul, who ties it all together, there is a sense of completion over the three seasons.  And a great line-up of characters, with just the actors to play them, starting with Paul’s therapists in turn, Dianne Wiest and (especially!) Amy Ryan.  Among the patients, Mia Wasikowska stands out, with many others from Irrfan Khan and Debra Winger to Alison Pill and Embeth Davidtz giving compelling performances.  Just two people (occasionally three or four) in a single setting, conversing intently for a half hour, and then coming back to do the same thing over again.  It makes, if you can believe me, for fascinating viewing.

The key to a successful tv series is establishing contact, but moreover a contract, with the viewer.  The best shows sustain that contract to the very end, repay the investment of time.  Next up are two that recently ended their long runs on a very fulfilling note.  I’ve made the case for Justified (MC-80/91, NFX, AMZ) several times already on this blog, but I’m going to flog it one more time as a show that managed to thread the needle of authentic surprise and fan service to the very end of its sixth and final season.  It wound up where we wanted it to, but with wit and invention all along the way.  The combination couldn’t be beat, of showrunner Graham Yost channeling Elmore Leonard in both his crime and Western modes; producer/star Timothy Olyphant handsomely embodying his character Raylan Givens, a modern-day U.S. Marshal in Harlan County, Kentucky; Walton Goggins playing his doppelganger and nemesis (they dug coal together before winding up on opposite sides of the law, but with alarmingly similar approaches); and Joelle Carter as the woman between them, with schemes of her own.  There’s a host of equally engaging characters that recur and rotate.  Admittedly, Justified’s contract with the viewer involves a lot of blood splatter, but somehow it all seems justified by the characters and their language, the humor and intelligence of their portrayal, and the twists of the story.  Start at the beginning, as the show slowly finds it method in the first season, perfects it in the second, and sustains it through the sixth.

I found Mad Men (MC-77/92, NFX) to have many ups and downs from episode to episode, but also to have sustained itself and maintained interest to the satisfying end of its split seventh season.  Again the characters, both in the writing and the acting, became familiar and important while still surprising to the viewer.  It had all the pleasures of a soap opera, at a high level of finish, with a believable sense of period in both style and action.  Unlike my three previous recommendations, I’m pretty sure you’ve already formed your own opinion of this show, but if not and you’re reading this, then you should give it a try.

Back to the lesser known and still in progress, I’m a dedicated follower of Rectify (MC-82/92, NFX, SUND), which just completed a third season that compels me to mount my soapbox.  It’s certainly my favorite among series currently running, of which few viewers are aware.  C’mon, people, get with it!  Part of the problem is how hard the show is to describe.  There’s a rape and murder deep in the backstory, and a crime waiting to be solved, but that’s not what the series is about – it’s about family and faith, community and connection, freedom and bondage, guilt and redemption, the light and the dark, beauty and sorrow.  A melancholy melodrama, slow and mournful in its telling, though marked by wit and poetry, it’s the story of a man, played by Aden Young, who has spent more than half his life on death row, for the murder of his teenage girlfriend, before being cleared by DNA evidence.  Like Rip Van Winkle, he confronts a world he barely recognizes, in small-town Georgia.  There are fine performances by men as well, but three actresses stand out, Abigail Spencer as his dedicated sister, J. Smith-Cameron as his puzzled but sympathetic mother, and Adelaide Clemons as the stepsister-in-law with whom he forms a deep bond.  It’s a moody minimalist masterpiece, and deserves your time and attention.  I’ve bought in, made a long-term investment in Rectify, and been well-rewarded, eager for more.

I’m also counting on more of Wolf Hall (MC-86, NFX, PBS), so author Hilary Mantel and the BBC better get to work.  The story of Henry VIII and his troublesome marital arrangements has been told many times, but this version is unique in viewing the proceedings through the watchful eyes of Thomas Cromwell, usually taken to be one of the villains of the piece, but here embodied with great sympathy by Mark Rylance, marvelously observant and subtle in reaction.  Damian Lewis convinces as the great but flawed king, and Claire Foy’s imperious Anne Boleyn is an eye-opening contrast to her wonderfully meek “Little Dorrit.”  Complicated and slow-paced, this version eschews swordplay and bodice-ripping, for more complicated games of political and erotic power.  Digital cameras that allow shooting by candlelight in actual locations convey the presence, and the radical difference, of the past, in ways that rival Mike Leigh’s Mr. Turner. 

The recurrence of many of the same actors highlights both the parallels and the divergences between Wolf Hall and Game of Thrones (MC-80/94, NFX, HBO), one the real deal and the other a guilty pleasure.  This too is a series you’ve probably already made up your mind about.  Not generally a fan of the sword & sorcery genre – in book, game, or cinema -- I was won over by the committed presentation of this series, which does maintain its contract with the viewer, in its range of characters, spectacle, surprise, and wit.  I like to watch, but I don’t take it seriously, all appreciation granted with ironic “quotes” around it.  I do expect to follow the story into further seasons, but it will never rank with my very favorites.

Having lost some of its luster as the ne plus ultra of quality TV, HBO packages their best shows together, scheduling GoT in tandem with Veep (MC-72/90, NFX, HBO) and Silicon Valley (MC-84/86, NFX, HBO), each of which came into its own in the recent season.  Both shows are topical, true, and funny, with excellent ensemble acting.  Julia Louis-Dreyfus is now Prez, not Veep, in the fourth season, and the show stepped up in rank as well.  And tech start-up Pied Piper, led by the deliciously nerdy Thomas Middleditch (I had to look up the actor’s name, he’s so fully at one with his character), has had its ups and downs, breakthroughs and flops, over two seasons, and in the process illuminated many aspects of its eponymous culture.

But for me, the HBO highlight of this year was Olive Kitteredge (MC-89, NFX, HBO).  The title character is played by Frances McDormand, and I hardly need to say more – she is superb.  But with its source in Elizabeth Strout’s Pulitzer-award novel, and direction by Lisa Chodolenko, a lot of women can take credit for this beautiful rendition of a woman’s story, a flinty character in a well-portrayed Maine community, who emerges as sympathetic and funny, without ever losing her rough edge.  Richard Jenkins is also affecting as her sweet and accommodating pharmacist husband; Zoe Katz as his dim but endearing assistant; and even Bill Murray as a fellow grump with whom Olive makes a late-life connection.  Lots of subsidiary town characters appear, as in Strout’s series of stories, over the four hour-long episodes.  I liked this series so much, I was led to read the book, which proved very good and not at all spoiled by seeing the tv show first, but rather enhanced.  I liked that book so much, I went on to read Strout’s Abide with Me, for her delicate understanding of ordinary people and everyday life. 

[You’ll find a lot more shows reviewed, and some strongly recommended, if you click through.]   

Further documendations

Now I have more than half a year of documentaries to write up, so let’s get crackin’ --

I never was a fan of Roger Ebert, always considered it a coincidence when we had the same opinion of a movie, but the film adaptation of Ebert’s memoir Life Itself (MC-87, NFX) certainly enhances my esteem.  In a nice bit of payback, Steve James’ documentary returns the favor Ebert did him by championing Hoop Dreams.  This film champions Ebert in turn, but in an authentic way, rather than as a celebrity puff piece.  One talking-head comment stands out in defining the tone of the whole, “Roger was a nice guy … but he wasn’t that nice.”  Rather he was one of those driven souls who knew as a kid what he wanted to do with his life, and did it relentlessly, literally to his deathbed.  So we find out about the neighborhood paper he wrote and distributed in grade school, editorship of the Daily Illini, temporary job on the Chicago Sun-Times, until a chance assignment as film critic overturned his plan to get a PhD in English; later, his highly competitive love/hate relationship with Gene Siskel on succeeding iterations of their dueling movie critic show on TV; then his mentorship of generations of critics and filmmakers, his late marriage to a black woman, and finally a candid view of his confrontation with disease and death.  It feels very much like a man in full, and one to earn my respect and admiration.  In the end, Roger and I share the bedrock principle that film is a “machine that generates empathy.”

Go figure!  Hollywood loves to honor itself, so it’s amazing that Life Itself was not even Oscar-nominated, but less amazing that Best Documentary went to Citizenfour (MC-88, NFX).  I came late to this film, so it struck me as old news, rather than a stunning revelation.  As a portrait of Edward Snowden, I found the film impressive and mind-changing, but as an exposé of NSA surveillance, I felt Laura Poitras sacrificed substance for atmospherics, trying for a real-life chiller thriller, instead of a convincing argument.  I would definitely like to see Snowden put in Errol Morris’s Interrotron, so I could look into his eyes and see his soul (as Bush purportedly did to Putin -- yeah, Georgie, and were your eyeballs scorched?).  This film certainly made me more sympathetic to Snowden, more approving of his motives.  Maybe it was good to be spared dodgy Presidential apologists, but I could have done with more viewpoints expressed and more expert commentary, fewer portentously prolonged mood shots. And less focus on celebrity journalists whose investigatory motives I don’t take on faith, like Glenn Greenwald and Jeremy Scahill (of Dirty Wars).  Worth seeing, this documentary did not engage me nearly as much as many others.

For example, Last Days in Vietnam (MC-86, NFX), which far exceeded my expectations, and was a more worthy nominee.  From Rory Kennedy, I expected perhaps a celebrity-directed, talking-heads retrospective.  What I got was a riveting you-are-there action-thriller with heart.  You don’t just look at the famous photos, such as the one of people climbing up a ladder dangling from a helicopter above the US Embassy in Saigon.  You learn who those people were, where they were coming from, where they were headed, including helicopter pilots and the ones left on the ground.  It’s astounding how cameras seemed to be everywhere, recording this hinge of history, to build a propulsive visual narrative, as well as the later perspective of survivors, without any apologists or pontificators.  This film is persuasively real and deeply felt – essential viewing for anyone who lived through that era, and edifying for anyone younger.  This is what it’s like to lose a war.

In many ways, including Oscar-nomination, Virunga (MC-95, NFX) is the same.  This war is for Congo’s Virunga National Park, one of the last habitats of the mountain gorilla, of whom perhaps 800 survive.  Orlando von Einsiedel’s documentary is a powerful work of advocacy, told with the narrative drive of the war film that it is.  With the help of astonishing footage, shot surreptitiously or on the fly, without any narration beyond a few printed captions, and no talking heads other than those caught in heat of the action, the film paints a clear picture of the depredations of a British oil company that wants to undermine the park, literally, and supports rebel forces to overturn the standing order.  The park has a force of armed rangers, hoping to combat poaching, but overwhelmed by finding themselves on the front lines of a civil war.  The gorillas, and other wildlife, are camera-friendly bystanders to the human conflict, but their reactions to the violence are telling, as are those of each of their human relatives.  One of the most poignant characters is a native caretaker for some orphaned gorillas; also fascinating are the Belgian commandant of the park rangers, and the young female French journalist, whom the equally intrepid cameraman follows into the warzone.  Not easy to watch, but well worth seeing.

The Overnighters (MC-89, NFX) deserves its accolades, but not without a certain reservation on my part.  Though telegraphed in the opening scene, this story contains such a dramatic reversal that it almost becomes a voyeuristic invasion of privacy.  We can’t stop looking, however, and maybe it was the same for the filmmaker Jesse Moss, working by himself in verité style.  What we start with is a story of economic dislocation, with the Great Recession driving hoards of jobless men to Williston ND, where a fracking oil boom promises immediate work.  The work proves elusive, however, and a place to stay nearly impossible to find.  So a kindly pastor opens his church, and its parking lot, to overnight stays by homeless men.  He meets opposition from his parishioners and town officials, not to mention the stresses he puts on his family.  Genuinely striving to be “his brother’s keeper,” his motives turn out to be mixed.  The film delivers on the sucker punch feinted at in the beginning – its intimacy shocking and disturbing.  Looking into issues of compassion and community, the story turns into a personal agony.  It works, but feels a bit queasy in intent, like a bait and switch.  Yet still admirable, if that makes any sense.  

Another affecting portrayal of hard times and frail hopes, Rich Hill (MC-75, NFX), winner of top prize at Sundance last year, follows three teenage boys growing up over a year and a half, in the ironically-named town of Rich Hill, MO.  This could have been miserablist poverty porn, but co-directors and cousins Tracy Droz Tragos and Andrew Droz Palermo leaven the tragedy with homegrown affection for small-town mid-America.  The three boys, however, are in dire straits, exemplars of so many pathologies of poverty, as well as distinctive personalities in separate stories, which never meet, but do add up.  In a tradition going back to Jacob Riis, this is “how the other half lives.”

By chance I happened to watch in succession two contrasting documentaries about American writers born in 1933.  Regarding Susan Sontag (MC-79, NFX, HBO) brings a lot of visual pizzazz, to the point of intrusiveness, to the story of the most photographed woman of letters ever, even before she partnered with Annie Leibovitz.  I wouldn’t call it debunking, but it’s certainly not uncritical.  Philip Roth: Unmasked (MC-65, NFX, PBS) is straight talking-heads, and rather misnamed.  The Philip Roth Version would be more accurate, but it is certainly interesting enough to hear that version from the man himself and his friends.  However different, I would recommend either film to anyone with a real interest in its subject.

I’d go a good deal further with Dorothea Lange: Grab a Hunk of Lightning (NFX, PBS).  I’d recommend to anyone with eye and heart.  There’s a lot more to Lange than her iconic Depression-era photograph Migrant Mother, and this film covers her whole life with great intimacy, lovingly directed and narrated by her granddaughter, Dyanna Taylor.  Of particular note are interviews with Lange as she was putting together a career retrospective of her photographs shortly before her death in 1965.  This appeared on the PBS series “American Masters” and can be watched in it entirety here.

Two other films about photographers were Oscar-nominated.  I’ve already raved about Finding Vivian Mayer here, and I’m just slightly more reserved about Salt of the Earth (MC-83, NFX), which celebrates the work of Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado.  Directed by his son Juliano, with the collaboration of Wim Wenders, it follows his career from the time he transitioned from being an economist at the World Bank to recording, in lustrous black & white images of haunted beauty, the effects of underdevelopment and forced migration on desperate populations, from gold mining in Brazil to genocide in Africa.  Working closely with his wife, he’s put together a number of massive books, as he’s gone from a hippie type, with long blond locks and beard, to more the look of a Buddhist monk, sculpted head shaved except for bushy white eyebrows.  Having had his fill of human misery in various war zones, he eventually turned to nature photography, and the massive project of re-foresting his family’s plantation in Brazil.  He seems a very admirable character, but Wenders lays on the admiration a bit thick.  Otherwise this is must-see imagery.