Doc Corner: John Ford and the 'Midnight Cowboys'

By Glenn Charlie Dunks

“When in doubt, make a western.” – John Ford.

This quote stuck out to me in the opening of The Taking, the latest film about film from Swiss director Alexandre O. Philippe. Like ford, director John Schlesinger made a western himself after an early-career stumble. The films of John Ford and Schlesinger’s Midnight Cowboy aren’t linked too much; at least not on the surface. But with two new documentaries, they are given visual deep-dives that tie them together as logical ends of a spectrum that used images to sell America as a hard land or hard men.

Both Philippe’s The Taking and Nancy Buirski’s Desperate Souls, Dark City and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy err on the side of cinematic essays than traditional behind-the-scenes making-of documentaries. Each offer their subjects’ take on the (quote unquote) western as both of their time and in many ways timeless. I enjoyed them both.

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Doc Corner: The latest musician biographies

By Glenn Charlie Dunks

You’re a little bit damned if you do and a little bit damned if you don’t when it comes to musician bio-docs these days. They remain prolific, a cottage industry that is popular with audiences and easy choices for distributors and sales agents with a built-in audience. It makes sense that we get so many of them each year. And if you’re not inclined to watch so many of them, you may not be as burnt out on them as I appear to be. But—and I swear I’m not just being grumpy—are they actually getting worse, too? They certainly don’t seem to be getting any better, with most choosing to abandon any real directorial vision in favour of standard story beats.

Three recent examples all have strong elements, telling their subject’s life story in ways that I have no doubt will appeal to many fans, devoted or casual alike. But Love to Love You, Donna Summer; John Farnham: Finding the Voice and Fanny: The Right to Rock have all left me relatively cold despite the icons at their centre, plagued by frustrating tech choices and failing to reach the heights of the music that made their subjects famous in the first place.

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Doc Corner: 'Victim/Suspect' on Netflix

By Glenn Charlie Dunks

Nancy Schwartzman’s latest documentary wades forcefully into sensitive territory. As she had done with (the superior) Roll Red Roll in 2018, she charts stories of sexual assault and rape in places where police, the justice system, and society at large too often find ambiguity and uncertainty. An audience watching Victim/Suspect is probably not among those who do, although I suppose launching on such a platform as Netflix may help capture some viewers whose attitudes towards people like those in Schwartzman’s doc are ingrained enough to need rewiring and allow them the empathy required to understand their circumstance.

As the title implies, Victim/Suspect is about women who have reported the crime of rape and have instead become the one arrested. Whether it be due to apathy or investigative sloppiness on behalf of the police or just plain old misogyny and bias, they end up handcuffed and sent to prison. Charged with the crime of falsely reporting a rape—which, to some of the police featured within the film via videotape, appears to be more offensive than the sexual crime itself. As one officer observes, they need to be taught a lesson for the police time that they suggest has been wasted. All because they can’t find (or don’t care to find) the sufficient evidence needed to believe them.

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Doc Corner: 'Museum of the Revolution'

By Glenn Charlie Dunks

In director Srđan Keča’s Museum of the Revolution (Muzej revolucije), the titular building is never seen as it was once envisioned. A tribute to communism in an area now recognised as Serbia, plans were abandoned following the breakup of Yugoslavia. The opening frames of this sobering documentary feature silent, sepia-toned (to the point of orange) archival footage of what appear to be a groundbreaking ceremony for the renovation of Belgrade after the war full of hope and promise (however politically misguided). The museum was never completed.

We quickly learn that the remnants of it sit abandoned and derelict, a shelter from the elements for homeless peoples. Among them is Mara and her daughter, Milica, as well as an elderly woman named Vera who acts sometimes as babysitter, attempting to empart any bit of wisdom onto the girl. In what was meant to be a monument to revolution, now sits as a stark reminder of what society does with the remains of progress.

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HotDocs Corner: The Films of Christine Choy

By Glenn Charlie Dunks

We are looking at some of the movies playing Canada's beloved HotDocs festival. This week we're taking a trip through the films of Christine Choy who is the recipient of the 2023 HotDocs Outstanding Achievement Award and is screening a series of her films.

Despite all of the increased attention that has been paid to documentaries over the last decade (and believe it has been a marked improvement!), it can still be frustratingly hard to see recognition for works made before that shift took place. Particularly so when you consider pre-digital and even pre-video era, where widespread praise tends to fall around a certain canon of titles.

As ever, who gets that build the canon does so by means of access and identification. For example, it’s hardly surprising that the films of HotDocs’ Outstanding Achievement Award winner for 2023, Christine Chow, aren’t as widely known or critically recognised when they have remained so hard to find. Even her Academy Award nominee, Who Killed Vincent Chin? from 1988, has been difficult to see for decades—and it’s not the only such title by Choy or otherwise. It’s hard to imagine these works, marked with the telltale signs of a medium that still didn’t quite have the budgets or the avenues to do so, making headway into the popular zeitgeist. Unless, as was often the case with docs that became big hits, names attached were the likes of Madonna, Michael Moore or Martin Scorsese or from pioneers of the form like Wiseman or Maysles.

But now that they are making their way back through the festival scene and on digital platforms like Vimeo and Criterion Channel (no Netflix yet!), it’s about time to address them.

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