Documentary

  • BBC – Human, All Too Human: Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Sartre (1999)

    Documentary1991-2000BBCPhilosophyPhilosophy on ScreenUnited Kingdom

    BBC documentaries on 3 existentialist philosophers – Neitzsche, Heidegger and Satre. The rip quality is not great, but highly watchable and the standard of the documentaries is top notch featuring a number of highly respected academics plus Will Self.Read More »

  • Sophie Fiennes – Pervert’s Guide to Ideology (2012)

    2011-2020DocumentaryPhilosophy on ScreenSlavoj ZizekSophie FiennesUSA

    Short Synopsis
    The makers of THE PERVERT’S GUIDE TO CINEMA return with THE PERVERT’S GUIDE TO IDEOLOGY. Philosopher Slavoj Zizek and filmmaker Sophie Fiennes use their interpretation of moving pictures to present a compelling cinematic journey into the heart of ideology – the dreams that shape our collective beliefs and practices.Read More »

  • Stanley Kubrick – Day of the Fight (1951)

    1951-1960DocumentaryShort FilmStanley KubrickUSA

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    Based on Kubrick’s pictorial for Look Magazine (January 18, 1949) entitled “Prizefighter,” “Day Of The Fight” tells of a day in the life of a middleweight Irish boxer named Walter Cartier, particularly the day of his bout with black middleweight Bobby James. This 16-minute short opens with a short (about 4 minutes) study of boxing’s history, narrated by veteran newscaster Douglas Edwards in a no-nonsense, noir tone of voice. After this, we follow Walter (and his twin brother Vincent) through his day as he prepares for his 10:00 P.M. bout. After eating breakfast, going to early mass and eating lunch, he starts arranging his things for the fight at 4:00 P.M. By 8:00, he is waiting in his dressing room, where he undergoes a mental transformation, turning into the fighting machine the crowd clamors for. At 10:00, he faces James, and soon, he comes out victorious in a short match which was filmed live on April 17th, 1950.Read More »

  • Harun Farocki – Parallel 2 – 4 (2014)

    2011-2020DocumentaryExperimentalGermanyHarun Farocki

    The four‐part cycle Parallel deals with the image genre of computer animation. The series focuses on the construction, visual landscape and inherent rules of computer-animated worlds.

    Quote:
    Cinema’s onscreen worlds have always borne an indexical bond to the real, thanks to film’s ability to register traces of physical reality and preserve them as enduring images. What happens when computer-generated video game images—images possessing no such indexical bond—usurp film as the predominant medium of visual worldmaking? How does one’s relation to onscreen heroes shift when we no longer identify with real bodies, but with affectless avatars scarcely possessing a face?Read More »

  • Trinh T. Minh-ha – Reassemblage (1983)

    1981-1990DocumentaryEthnographic CinemaExperimentalTrinh T. Minh-haUSA

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    From Allmovie:

    Director Trinh T. Minh-ha’s first film is an ethnographic portrait of rural Senegalese women, but its provocative editing and self-conscious narration question the very activities of ethnography and documentary filmmaking; Minh-ha inverts and critiques authoritative Western representations of the “other.'” ~ Sarah Welsh, All Movie Guide

    INTERVIEW WITH TRINH MINH-HA

    Interviewer Interviewed: A Discussion with Trinh T. Mihn-ha

    by Tina Spangler
    Emerson College

    BORN IN VIETNAM, Trinh T. Minh-ha is a writer, composer and filmmaker She has been making films for better than ten years and may be best known for her first film Reassemblage, made in 1982. However her most recent film Surname Viet, Given Name Nam (1989), which examines “identity and culture through the struggle of Vietnamese women” has received much attention, including winning the Blue Ribbon Award at the American Film and Video festival Trinh T. Minh-ha is a professor of Woman Studies and Film at the University of California, Berkely and was recently a Visiting Professor at Harvard University.Read More »

  • Kirby Dick – This Film Is Not Yet Rated (2006)

    2001-2010DocumentaryKirby DickQueer Cinema(s)USA

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    Synopisis from RopeofSilicon.com

    IFC Original Documentary This Film Is Not Yet Rated, the breakthrough film from Oscar-nominated director Kirby Dick (Twist of Faith) is an unprecedented investigation into the MPAA film ratings system and its profound impact on American culture.Read More »

  • Ulrich Seidl – Im Keller AKA In the Basement (2014)

    2011-2020AustriaDocumentaryUlrich Seidl

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    Quote:
    In the Basement (Im Keller) is a 2014 Austrian documentary film directed by Ulrich Seidl about people and their obsessions, and what they do in their basements in their free time. It was part of the Out of Competition section at the 71st Venice International Film Festival.

    Corpulent sex slaves, tuba-playing Nazi obsessives, reborn doll fantasists — just a regular stroll through the neighborhood, then, for patented guru of the grotesque Ulrich Seidl, who makes an intriguing return to documentary filmmaking with “In the Basement.” Grabby and grubby in equal measure, this meticulously composed trawl through the contents of several middle-class Austrians’ cellars (a space, according to Seidl, that his countrymen traditionally give over to their most personal hobbies) yields more than a few startling discoveries.Read More »

  • Jean-Luc Godard & Jean-Pierre Gorin – Letter to Jane: An Investigation About a Still (1972)

    Documentary1971-1980FranceJean-Luc GodardJean-Pierre GorinPolitics

    Letter to Jane is a 1972 French postscript film to Tout Va Bien directed by Jean-Luc Godard and Jean-Pierre Gorin and made under the auspices of the Dziga Vertov Group. Narrated in a back-and-forth style by both Godard and Gorin, the film serves as a 52-minute cinematic essay that deconstructs a single news photograph of Jane Fonda in Vietnam. This was Godard and Gorin’s final collaboration.Read More »

  • Emile de Antonio – Mr. Hoover and I (1989)

    1981-1990DocumentaryEmile de AntonioUSA

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    Description:
    Turning the camera on himself and his 10,000-page FBI file, radical documentary filmmaker Emile de Antonio skewers the legacy of FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover while offering up a fascinating self-portrait in his final film. A lengthy conversation with the composer John Cage, a discussion with a college crowd about McCarthyism and numerous witty observations by de Antonio himself also contribute to this discursive yet sharply observed documentary.Read More »

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