docs

I'm a big movie fan like everyone else, I have a movie collection that's pretty extensive, and love to collect them. I used to go to the movies as a kid by myself and watch the same film over and over again like I still do today. I appreciate the creators involved, the hard work, the massive effort it must take to bring a feature from concept to completion. I think it's the great connection that we have with the rest of the world, our ability to be the best in creating the most exciting, relevant films today.

But a third of my movie collection are documentaries. I'm a huge fan of the docs. For me it's the only real "reality" in the reality genre. The reality TV today is pretty much the most opposite of it. Some documentary films today are still very informative and do a pretty good job telling you the story it set out to tell you, but there still are alot of fancy edits, graphics and narrations. That's fine but if I can suggest to you a couple of my favorite films, documentary features that take a subject and chronologically record events over a long period of time, I think you will see the pure definition of documentation through film.


My first recommendation is Stevie.
Steve James, creator of the sprawling "Hoop Dreams", was a "big brother" to troubled kid Stevie Fielding when Fielding was a boy. Steve James sets out to see what actually happened to that boy he knew. Recording the events over a period of 4 years of his adulthood.


There is Country Boys from filmmaker David Sutherland. Filmed over 3 years, it records the stories of two boys through the ages of 15 to 18, trying to make it through in the Appalachian hills of Kentucky. And the entire 24 part series is available on line! here at pbs.org.

This type of material may not be for everyone, but if you got the time and the notion to see a story of real people that takes it's time telling itself, I think you may enjoy these two films.