By Glenn Dunks
As a lover of non-fiction, you would probably assume that I naturally gravitate towards documentary series. That’s not always the case, though. In fact, as they gain more popularity, I often find myself struggling with them. Expanded running times make big omissions more frustrating, and just as elsewhere, some shows don't know when to stop. On top of that, Netflix has narrowed its house style to such a degree that it has become something of a private joke when the streaming service sends one of those “we’ve added a series we think you may like” emails.
In terms of 2020 Emmy contenders for the Nonfiction Series Emmy, we have already looked at several: I hated Netflix’s Tiger King, wavered on Hulu’s Hillary, and while I liked PBS’ Asian Americans a lot, I don’t think it made the eligibility deadline. Hopefully next year! Elsewhere, I gave up on the likes of The Trials of Gabriel Fernandez and How to Fix a Drug Scandal pretty early. However, there are bright spots among some of the other contenders: Ken Burns' Country Music and Jason Hehir's The Last Dance...
It probably shouldn’t at all surprise you that my favourite is indeed Ken Burns’ Country Music, of which I have been ploughing through this week (and as my home city goes back into COVID lockdown, will likely finish in a day or two, it is 16-hours long after all). Burns, like Frederick Wiseman over in feature documentaries, has a style that is so clearly his own, and yet refined and deceptively simple with a very old-fashioned way of telling stories. It's a form that has remained virtually unchanged since his Oscar-nominated debut Brooklyn Bridge in 1981 (back then a remarkably brisk 58 minutes). There's a reason his name has been given to filmmaking techniques!
Early episodes of Country Music are made almost entirely out of archival photography, talking heads and historical anecdotes as narrated by Burns staple Peter Coyote (an Emmy winner for his narration of Burns’ The Roosevelts: An Intimate History) in one of his final roles. As the historic narrative runs concurrent with the advent of television, performance video and home movies, too, begins to appear. The lack of pomp and flash is refreshing, especially given the long runtime. Country Music doesn’t lend itself to bingeing given how dense each of its eight episodes are with history, but that doesn’t mean the series isn’t often a thrilling adventure through the ups and downs of this uniquely American musical genre. If Burns' work feels like oatmeal to you before then his latest isn't going to change that, but the sheer scale of this deep dive was yet another wonder.
Burns’ last series, Vietnam War curiously didn’t receive a nomination in the series category, but was recognised for writing, directing and sound mixing/editing. Still, as a five-time winner (most recently for The National Parks: America’s Best Idea, my personal favourite of his works), it’s hard to bet against him.
Whatever I may prefer, the frontrunner is arguably ESPN’s The Last Dance, another impressive series that would be far from an embarrassing choice for the Emmys to reward. This is a series that is built around the rhythms and beats of basketball, making wonderful use—although perhaps not as much as I would have wished—of incredible footage taken through the year that the Chicago Bulls went for their sixth championship in seven years. It’s remarkable how thrilling these parts are, my personal agnosticism towards the sport more or less taking a backseat to admiration for the sheer skill on display by Michael Jordan, Dennis Rodman, Scottie Pippen and others. It's extraordinary how good this footage looks.
Where it stumbles somewhat is when it drifts off the court. The series is as much a tribute to Jordan as it is to the Bulls more broadly, something that director Jason Hehir never quite resolves over its ten episodes. It’s an issue that rears its head when other people’s narratives are introduced and then dropped like a foul ball Jordan's shoes are a multi-episode arc. I’m not surprised that some involved with the team have expressed disappointment. It’s one thing to live in a shadow, but it’s another thing altogether to be asked to participate in expanding that shadow two decades later.
Still, the collective experience that came out of watching The Last Dance weekly throughout those early weeks of isolation (it smartly streamed week to week on Netflix internationally) highlights the series and the form’s strengths in ways that replicate the temporarily lost thrill of attending a live sporting match. Misgivings aside, its power as entertainment is virtually unparalleled among the contenders.
Among the other contenders, I watched a sampling of the Discovery Channel’s Serengeti. Directed by John Downer and narrated by Lupita Nyong’o, it’s a beautifully filmed series with an unfortunate habit of anthropomorphizing its animal subjects. Lupita, however, proves a natural to this role, one I would much rather see (well, hear) her in if Hollywood isn’t going to give her lead roles on the regular. Certainly more so than CGI creations.
The last of this trip through the Emmy’s qualification list for documentary or nonfiction series is Netflix’s Trial By Media, which tells a different story each episode of a crime that took the press by storm. Produced by George Clooney and Grant Heslov, there is an unmistakable style to the series; it’s really gunning for those Emmy and opening credit Emmy nominations.
But while it can at times feel a bit like a gussied up Dateline special, it does highlight some unfortunate truths about the way certain crimes are sensationalized and broadcast to the world, how unfair the judicial process often is for anybody who isn’t straight and white, and how, like in episode one’s telling of the murder of Scott Amedure, the media often propagates a vicious, violent cycle.
My Emmy predictions? The Last Dance, Hillary, Tiger King, Country Music and the perennial American Masters. While I have admitted to something of a distaste for Netflix doc-series (in general), I was quite fond of Don’t F**k With Cats and it would make a good substitute for that silly tiger show. It's also probably worth taking Apple+’s Visible: Out in Television seriously, although I’m not sure what sort of impact that streamer’s content will have with voters.