Category Archives: Documentary

Newly available on DVD this week: ORNETTE: MADE IN AMERICA

Shirley Clarke’s freeform profile of a modern jazz master debuted at Toronto in 1985. Rarely seen for years, the documentary was restored by the UCLA Film & Television Archive, screened at Berlin in 2012, and was re-released theatrically that same year. In addition to the release of the restored version on DVD, the film comes to Blu-ray for the first time ever.

In what ended up as the pioneering director’s final film, Clarke set out to capture the freewheeling sense of her subject, jazz musician Ornette Coleman, without exactly crafting either a traditional biography or concert film. Elements of both appear, but they’re joined by eclectic flights of fancy, from re-enactments to video game effects, strobelike editing to bizarre lunar animations. Grounding the film is “Skies of America,” the avant-garde score Coleman composed for the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra – in addition to footage of the performance on a day honoring native son Coleman in 1983, it plays in the background throughout Clarke’s unusually constructed, non-linear project, which attempts to convey a sense of Coleman’s humble beginnings; his relationship with his son, also a member of his band; his creative process; and his varied inspirations and influences. Frankly, it’s a tall order – despite its at times refreshing resistance to conventions, the film feels messy rather than strongly connected to Coleman’s work or approach, with the special video effects looking especially dated. Despite this, interviews with the soft-spoken Coleman – and for music lovers, his performance footage – make Clarke’s film a worthwhile, if uneven, watch.

Coming to VOD via iTunes today, Tuesday, November 11: PEOPLE’S PARK

Libbie D Cohn and JP Sniadecki’s single-take tour through a Chinese park debuted at Locarno in 2012. Its fest circuit has included Vancouver, Beijing Independent, Doclisboa, Viennale, Punto de Vista, Cinéma du Réel, New Directors/New Films, It’s All True, Edinburgh, Margaret Mead, RIDM, and the Whitney Biennial, among others. After its iTunes exclusive release, the film will be released on other major VOD platforms next Tuesday, November 18.

A project of Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab, Cohn and Sniadecki’s film aims to bring an immersive aspect to traditional models of ethnographic documentary. In this case, the method employed is a continuous take which lasts for the entirety of the film’s 75 minute running time, absent the brief end credits. Shot in Chengdu, the capital of China’s Sichuan province, the film presents the various goings-on within the bustling titular public space, bookended by the spectacle of public dancing. Along their measured, circuitous path through the park, Cohn and Sniadecki – the former shooting while seated in a wheelchair pushed by the latter, creating their own low-cost dolly, and in the process approximating a child’s perspective, perhaps intentionally, so as to engender a sense of exploration and wonderment – capture the anonymous masses enjoying their State-sanctioned leisure time, pouring drinks at picnic tables, rowing boats in the lake, buying shish kabobs, sitting for a chat, or, more often, acknowledging the presence of the filmmakers, whether by averting their gaze, flashing a quick peace sign, or simply looking back quizzically. As a result, the sense of immersion is constantly questioned, the camera a brief disruption to the everyday activities it attempts to document. Calling attention to itself, the film underscores its status as an experiment more than a genuine experience of immersion, which seems to be its point. Now, whether the film needed over an hour to establish that is the bigger question – it makes for a diverting virtual tour for a short jaunt, but isn’t quite commanding enough to prevent the mind from wandering away from the park and into other terrain.

Coming to DVD today, Tuesday, November 11: WALKING THE CAMINO: SIX WAYS TO SANTIAGO

Lydia Smith’s look at the famous Spanish pilgrimage premiered at Ashland last year. It went on to Newport Beach, Galway, American Doc, Heartland, and Hollywood, among others, followed by a limited theatrical release this Summer.

I previously wrote about the doc here.