Nov 25
One of the best pictures of 2011 is Werner Herzog’s chilling documentary Into the Abyss. The film follows two men convicted of a triple homicide in Conroe, Texas. It deals with the issue of capital punishment, but the main focus is to tell the story of the two men and the crime in startlingly humane fashion.
What is the role of journalism in a democracy? How effective is so-called citizen journalism? And how much should journalism cost if it is, indeed, a public service? With Page One: Inside the New York Times, the aforementioned questions are addressed in varying degrees by director Andrew Rossi. The film offers unprecedented access to the New York Times newsroom, unveiling a cast of real-life characters that are intriguing and irritating.
Charles H. Ferguson’s Inside Job is a righteously acerbic, challenging, informative documentary about the financial crisis of 2007-2010. It won the 2011 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature and is a taut piece of work. While it is filled with the usual array of talking heads, Ferguson’s documentary relents on the Michael Moore humanism and fills itself instead with cold, hard facts.
Sarcastic anthems and arrogant theology flow from the mouths of the members of Westboro Baptist Church. Led by Fred Phelps, this group of crazies is the well-known subject of a little-known 2007 documentary film entitled Fall from Grace. Directed by K. Ryan Jones, Fall from Grace is a difficult motion picture in that it captures so much hate on camera. Even more disturbingly, it captures that hate as it makes its way through the unformed minds of children.
Based in Topeka, Kansas, the Westboro Baptist Church is in the habit of picketing funerals and generally raising hell when something raises their eyebrows. Because they adhere to a strict Calvinist interpretation of scripture, their eyebrows are raised rather often. There are around 70 or so members of the organization, most of which are part of the extended and extensive Phelps family.
Some documentaries are overcooked showcases of sleek editing techniques and computer graphics, while others are rather slim in stature. Blind Spot: Hitler’s Secretary is an unfussy motion picture that consists entirely of about 90 minutes of interviews with Traudl Junge. To overlook the barebones testimony of Junge, Adolf Hitler’s youngest personal secretary, would be a mistake.
There are some who may find the hour and a half to be lacking in bells and whistles, but there’s much more going on here than meets the immediate eye. In our day and age of attention deficits, real or imagined, it is often hard to convince people that they really ought to listen to what Junge has to say when she’s not saying it over an explosive musical score or in 3D.
