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The people behind the scenes of the documentaries and nonfiction series at this year’s Emmy Awards sat down with Gold Derby and explain several topics including the first documentary that got their attention and, in the event that they win, what would be their ideal music to play as they make their way to the stage. This was all part of Gold Derby’s Meet the Experts panel on TV Documentaries that included Leah Wolchok (“Judy Blume Forever”), Ryan White, Lucinda Axelsson (“Secrets of the Elephants”), Nikole Hannah-Jones (“The 1619 Project”) and Padma Lakshmi (“Taste the Nation with Padma Lakshmi”).

You can watch the TV documentary group panel above with the people who made these five programs. Click on each person’s name above to be taken to each exclusive interview.

See over 200 video interviews with 2023 Emmy nominees

Wolchok’s love of documentaries came from seeing two films in...

Chopra editing with daughter Sarah on her lap.I asked Joyce Chopra about the title of her recently published memoir, Lady Director, during a Zoom interview earlier this year.She laughed. “When I was doing television movies, they’d say, ‘Well, get a woman director,’ because it’s about emotion,” she told me. We then discussed the inherent awkwardness of saying “woman director”—or is it “female director”? “Man director” just sounds weird, and “male director”…well, who would ever say that? After all, isn’t it implied? Chopra’s memoir—a brisk but lively read, spanning a long life and prodigious career, published in November 2022 by City Lights Publishers—provides firsthand insight into the inherently precarious situation of being a woman in a man’s world, from a genuine, if woefully under-recognized, trailblazer of the artform. Her films explore a range of seemingly disparate subjects, but nevertheless evince a distinct,...

Issue 2 of Notebook magazine includes an original essay by Lyon, accompanied by a piece about the self-distribution of his works. The issue is currently available in select stores around the world.In September 1962, Danny Lyon, a history and philosophy student at the University of Chicago, flew to Jackson, Mississippi to photograph voter registration workers for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (Sncc). By 1963, Lyon was working as Sncc’s in-house photographer, and for the next two-plus years he would document nearly every major moment of the Southern Civil Rights Movement, including the March on Washington and historic demonstrations led by John Lewis and Martin Luther King Jr., among others. If you’ve seen a photo from this era in a newspaper, magazine, or history book, there’s a good chance it was taken by Lyon.But while the artist’s contemporaneous photos of an outlaw Chicago motorcycle gang and, later, Texas...

British-Canadian documentarian and direct cinema pioneer Terence Macartney-Filgate has died in Toronto.

The filmmaker died on July 11 from complications resulting from Parkinson’s disease. He was 97.

A long-time collaborator with the National Film Board of Canada, he wrote, directed, produced and edited more than 100 documentaries across an illustrious career that began in 1956, with a series of post-war educational films.

A key figure in the cinema vérité movement of the 1960s, Terry Filgate – as he was known to most – worked with contemporaries including Robert Drew, D.A. Pennebaker, Richard Leacock and Al Maysles under the umbrella of American collective Robert Drew Associates, which produced seminal documentaries of the era, including “X-Pilot” (1961) and “Primary” (1960).

Filgate served as principal photographer on the latter film, which chronicled then-senator John F. Kennedy’s primary campaign against Hubert Humphrey.

American work aside, he will be remembered for his remarkable filmography with the Nfb, with which he made 31 documentaries across a 40-year period.

The American Skyscraper and Louis Sullivan. Courtesy of the filmmaker.It’s rare to come across such a humble yet cogent body of work as that of Manfred Kirchheimer. His career stretches across six decades but it would be a mistake to reduce his films to mere historical records, for they can enclose enthralling stories of ordinary New Yorkers or celebrate the beauty of urban structures all while confronting head-on layered questions on class, race and identity. Throughout the years, his subjects have fluctuated from workers pushing carts through New York’s Garment District, the docking of a transatlantic ocean liner or a community of Jewish émigrés in the Manhattan neighborhood of Washington Heights. As modest as his filmography might seem, one shouldn’t oversee its substantial contribution to American documentary and independent cinema.During a recent conversation, Kirchheimer told me he had recently retired as a teacher at the...

Every week, IndieWire asks a select handful of film and TV critics two questions and publishes the results on Monday. (The answer to the second, “What is the best film in theaters right now?”, can be found at the end of this post.)

This week’s question: This past Friday saw the release of Raoul Peck’s “I Am Not Your Negro,” a documentary that speaks to our present moment through the writings and actions of the late James Baldwin. What other documentaries — recent or not — might help people better understand and / or respond to the state of the world today?

Richard Brody (@tnyfrontrow), The New Yorker

“The state of the world today” is too big a matter for any one documentary, because there’s no one state of things, there’s an overwhelming diversity of experiences — and the history of movies is as much the history of the ones that it doesn’t show.

To celebrate The Criterion Collection’s 2016 releases — and there’s a lot to celebrate — Arik Devens, David Blakeslee, Keith Enright, Scott Nye, and Trevor Berrett gather to talk about the past year in Criterion, including their favorite three Criterion releases of 2016.

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Episode Notes Arik’s List

– Favorite Cover: A Brighter Summer Day

– Favorite Packaging: Trilogia de Guillermo del Toro

– Favorite Releases:

3) Fantastic Planet

2) Wim Wenders: The Road Trilogy

1) Night and Fog

David’s List

– Favorite Cover: Lady Snowblood

– Favorite Packaging: Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

– Favorite Releases:

3) The Executioner/Death by Hanging

2) Chimes at Midnight

1) The Emigrants/The New Land

Keith’s List

– Favorite Cover: Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams

– Favorite Packaging: Valley and Beyond the Valley

– Favorite Releases:

3) Valley of the Dolls and Beyond the Valley

2) One-Eyed Jacks

1) The Kennedy Films of...

The “direct cinema” and “cinéma vérité” movement pioneered by non-fiction filmmakers like Robert Drew and the Maysles was in part fueled by advances in camera technology. Similar to how the digital technology has forever altered our current documentary landscape, in the 1950’s and 1960’s, the big advancement was faster film stock (which needed less light for exposure) and portable 16mm cameras with a crystal sync — which allowed sound to be recorded independently and later synchronized in post-production. That gave tremendous freedom to filmmakers to follow subjects and capture everyday life.

Read More: How the Footage of Bernie Sanders Being Arrested in 1963 Was Discovered By Kartemquin Films

The intimacy and fluidity of these films that spawned from the new equipment inspired three aspiring documentarians from University of Chicago: Stan Karter, Jerry Temaner, and Gordon Quinn, who founded Kartemquin Films (the company’s name came from a combination of letters...

Aaron is joined by Keith Enright for a discussion of politics, new and old, through the lens of The War Room (1993), the behind-the scenes 1992 Clinton campaign documentary. We go into depth about the backroom politics and how those are what defines the campaign, but are usually far from the public eye. We contrast the politics of today and yesterday by looking the current affairs and Robert Drew’s Primary.

About the film:

The 1992 presidential election was a triumph not only for Bill Clinton but also for the new breed of strategists who guided him to the White House—and changed the face of politics in the process. For this thrilling, behind-closed-doors account of that campaign, renowned cinema verité filmmakers Chris Hegedus and D. A. Pennebaker captured the brainstorming and bull sessions of Clinton’s crack team of consultants—especially James Carville and George Stephanopoulos, who became media stars in their...

David’s Quick Take for the tl;dr Media Consumer:

Though it’s far from sadistic or brutal, Salesman is designed to stir up a viewer’s discomfort, even to the point of outrage, with an end goal of rousing our empathy. The merciless exposure of a quartet of traveling door-to-door Bible peddlers (though they’re explicitly told to avoid thinking of themselves in such terms) strikes us as quite funny at first but gradually wears us down to a state of mournful pity as we tap into the grim desperation that pushes them forward to each new sales call, each awkward encounter with a reluctant prospect. In the early going, we’re struck by the refreshingly honest and fairly astonishing footage as we take in this unrehearsed, unscripted record of high pressure tactics used by representatives of the Mid-American Bible Company. We get a rare opportunity to view the...

In this episode of CriterionCast Chronicles, Ryan is joined by David Blakeslee, Scott Nye, Aaron West, and Mark Hurne to discuss the Criterion Collection releases for April 2016.

Links The April 2016 Criterion Collection line-up The Newsstand – Episode 52 Only Angels Have Wings Only Angels Have Wings (1939) The Art of Francesco Francavilla Amazon.com: Only Angels Have Wings Blu-ray.com: Only Angels Have Wings Barcelona Barcelona (1994) Pierre Le-Tan Amazon.com: Barcelona Blu-ray.com: Barcelona A Whit Stillman Trilogy A Whit Stillman Trilogy: Metropolitan, Barcelona, The Last Days of Disco Amazon.com: A Whit Stillman Trilogy The Kennedy Films of Robert Drew and Associates The Kennedy Films of Robert Drew & Associates () F Ron Miller Design Blu-ray.com: The Kennedy Films of Robert Drew and Associates Amazon.com: The Kennedy Films of Robert Drew & Associates Phoenix Phoenix (2014) Nessim Higson Amazon.com: Phoenix Phoenix Blu-ray Brief Encounter Brief Encounter (1945) Brief Encounter on iTunes David Lean Directs Noël Coward Essential Art House,...

The first round of previews of this summer's movies is out. Also in today's roundup: Roger Ebert and Martin Scorsese on Cannes, plus articles on William Shakespeare, Lars von Trier, Robert Drew, Ivan Passer and the influence of Charles Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd on the Soviet avant-garde. We also have news of new work from Terrence Malick and Hong Sang-soo and there's a Roberto Rossellini retrospective on in Austin. Plus Omer Fast in New York and Ben Rivers in Knoxville—and more. » - David Hudson...

The first round of previews of this summer's movies is out. Also in today's roundup: Roger Ebert and Martin Scorsese on Cannes, plus articles on William Shakespeare, Lars von Trier, Robert Drew, Ivan Passer and the influence of Charles Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd on the Soviet avant-garde. We also have news of new work from Terrence Malick and Hong Sang-soo and there's a Roberto Rossellini retrospective on in Austin. Plus Omer Fast in New York and Ben Rivers in Knoxville—and more. » - David Hudson...

In today's roundup, we track the fates of the blogs leaving the Indiewire network. Plus: The late Jenny Diski on Frank Capra, Adrian Martin on Margot Nash, Olaf Möller on Lav Diaz's A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery, Michael Koresky on Christian Petzold's Phoenix, Thom Powers on documentaries by Robert Drew, Richard Leacock, D.A. Pennebaker and Albert Maysles, Richard Brody on Christian Braad Thomsen's Fassbinder: To Love Without Demands and Ada Ushpiz's Vita Activa: The Spirit of Hannah Arendt, Jonathan Rosenbaum on Otto Preminger, plus news from Cannes and Venice—and more. » - David Hudson...

In today's roundup, we track the fates of the blogs leaving the Indiewire network. Plus: The late Jenny Diski on Frank Capra, Adrian Martin on Margot Nash, Olaf Möller on Lav Diaz's A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery, Michael Koresky on Christian Petzold's Phoenix, Thom Powers on documentaries by Robert Drew, Richard Leacock, D.A. Pennebaker and Albert Maysles, Richard Brody on Christian Braad Thomsen's Fassbinder: To Love Without Demands and Ada Ushpiz's Vita Activa: The Spirit of Hannah Arendt, Jonathan Rosenbaum on Otto Preminger, plus news from Cannes and Venice—and more. » - David Hudson...

In this episode of Off The Shelf, Ryan and Brian take a look at the new DVD and Blu-ray releases for Tuesday, April 26th, 2016. They also discuss the new streaming service: FilmStruck.

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Follow-Up Ryan buys a Blu-ray from Australia! News FilmStruck Alien Day Labyrinth 4k Criterion Collection: July Line-up Kino Lorber: Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother, Road House, The Enemy Below, Caboblanco, Star Crystal, Man on Fire, The Earth Dies Screaming, and Chosen Survivors Scorpion Releasing: Force Five, Haunting of Morella Image Entertainment: The Commitments Twilight Time May 2016 Pre-orders: Garden of Evil, Cat Balou, Eureka, I Could Go On Singing, and Appasionata Links to Amazon 4/19 Barcelona Betrayed Cary Grant: The Vault Collection Dangerous Men Dead Pigeon on Beethoven Street Doris Day and Rock Hudson Romantic Comedy Collection Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: The Story of the National Lampoon Fatal Beauty The File of the Golden Goose...

Robert Drew‘s name is attached to a team of filmmakers who made revolutionary changes to documentary in the early 1960s. But today he’s probably the least-appreciated member of Drew Associates and the Direct Cinema movement after Albert Maysles, D.A. Pennebaker, and Ricky Leacock. Part of that is because he never became as well-known a solo director as his colleagues. He didn’t go on to make more revered classics like the Maysles Brothers’ Salesman and Grey Gardens or Pennebaker’s Don’t Look Back and The War Room, and he didn’t have the kind of film history-spanning career and influence that Leacock’s legacy entails. That’s why Criterion’s new set “The Kennedy Films of Robert Drew & Associates” is so important. Not that it totally isolates Drew from the others — he barely gets to stand out alone even in the new bonus-feature documentary Robert Drew in His Own Words — but it at least...

Dailies is a round-up of essential film writing, news bits, videos, and other highlights from across the Internet. If you’d like to submit a piece for consideration, get in touch with us in the comments below or on Twitter at @TheFilmStage.

The Criterion Collection has unveiled its July 2016 line-up (click covers for more details):

Speaking of Criterion, Joachim Trier visits the closet:

The New Yorker‘s Richard Brody on when the Maysles filmed the Beatles:

The birthplace of the modern American documentary is Wisconsin, where Robert Drew brought a crew in early 1960 to film the campaigns of John F. Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey in that state’s Democratic Presidential primary. Albert Maysles was the cinematographer of its most iconic sequence, a long hand-held tracking shot following Kennedy from backstage to a lectern. There, Maysles caught Kennedy in the magic moment—the transformation from private to public, from casual manner to stage manner.

Take a look at the roots of American campaign image consciousness, and the then-new techniques of cinéma vérité to bring a new 'reality' for film documentaries. Four groundbreaking films cover the Kennedy-Humphrey presidential primary, and put us in the Oval Office for a showdown against Alabama governor George Wallace. The Kennedy Films of Robert Drew & Associates Blu-ray Primary, Adventures on the New Frontier, Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment, Faces of November The Criterion Collection 808 1960 -1964 / B&W / 1:33 flat full frame / 53, 52, 53, 12 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date April 26, 2016 / 39.95 Starring John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, Jacqueline Kennedy, Robert Drew, Hubert H. Humphrey, McGeorge Bundy, John Kenneth Galbraith, Richard Goodwin, Albert Gore Sr., Eunice Kennedy Shriver, Pierre Salinger, Haile Selassie, John Steinbeck, George Wallace, Vivian Malone, Burke Marshall, Nicholas Katzenbach, John Dore, Jack Greenberg; Lyndon Johnson, John Kennedy Jr., Caroline Kennedy, Peter Lawford. Cinematography Richard Leacock, Albert Maysles, D.A. Pennebaker,...

“The President’S Reality Show”

By Raymond Benson

Robert Drew was a pioneer who changed the way we think about the documentary film. As first a writer/editor at Life Magazine in the 1950s, and then the head of a unit that produced short documentaries for Time Inc., Drew knew how to tell a story visually. When he formed his own company, Robert Drew & Associates, he was the guiding force for other talented (and later, more well-known) filmmakers such as D. A. Pennebaker (Don’t Look Back, Monterey Pop), Albert and David Maysles (Gimme Shelter), and Richard Leacock, among others. Together they invented a novel way to present a documentary film, something historians coined “direct cinema.”

Documentaries had previously been scripted, usually shot to order, and more often than not, were textbook dull. Drew and his colleagues developed the you-are-there style of following subjects around as they did their business,...

This month on the Newsstand, Ryan is joined by Aaron West, Mark Hurne and David Blakeslee to discuss the April 2016 Criterion Collection line-up, update a few theories on the wacky New Year’s drawing, as well as discuss the latest in Criterion rumors, news, packaging, and more.

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Shownotes Topics Wacky New Year’s Drawing Follow-up The April 2016 Criterion Collection Line-up Teases: Kurosawa’s Dreams, Mike Leigh’s High Hopes, Antoine Doinel Phantom Pages: King Hu, some names related to Tampopo Chimes at Midnight poster Artificial Eye announces Tarkovsky titles. Maybe an end to the Andrei Rublev drum? Arrow splits up Fassbinder set, releasing The Marriage of Maria Braun. Janus Films’ new homepage Dragon Inn, A Touch of Zen, The Story of Last Chrysanthemums on Janus new page. Ettore Scola passes away at 84. Episode Links Help Send...

As AFI Docs opens in Washington, DC, the Post's Ann Hornaday sketches a brief history of the American documentary, from the cinéma vérité of the 60s (Robert Drew, Richard Leacock, D.A. Pennebaker, Albert Maysles) through the personal essays of the 80s (Ross McElwee and Michael Moore) to the day "Errol Morris revolutionized the industry by introducing reenactments and stylized cinematic flourishes in the true-crime thriller The Thin Blue Line. (Actually, he reintroduced reenactment, if you consider the work of Robert Flaherty in 1922’s Nanook of the North.)" We're gathering previews of this year's 13th edition. » - David Hudson...

As AFI Docs opens in Washington, DC, the Post's Ann Hornaday sketches a brief history of the American documentary, from the cinéma vérité of the 60s (Robert Drew, Richard Leacock, D.A. Pennebaker, Albert Maysles) through the personal essays of the 80s (Ross McElwee and Michael Moore) to the day "Errol Morris revolutionized the industry by introducing reenactments and stylized cinematic flourishes in the true-crime thriller The Thin Blue Line. (Actually, he reintroduced reenactment, if you consider the work of Robert Flaherty in 1922’s Nanook of the North.)" We're gathering previews of this year's 13th edition. » - David Hudson...

Back at the start of March, the world of film lost one of its most revered documentarians, Albert Maysles. He and his brother David made three of Sight & Sound’s Top 50 Documentaries of all time, and to pay tribute to the late director, Turner Classic Movies is tonight changing their schedule to air three of those films, along with one of his early shorts.

TCM’s Albert Maysles Memorial Tribute will air Grey Gardens, Salesman, Gimme Shelter, and Meet Marlon Brando, starting at 8 Pm Et tonight. We first reported on the series back in our film Week in Review. Here’s the schedule:

TCM Remembers Albert Maysles– Monday, March 23

8 Pm Grey Gardens (1976)

10:00 Pm Salesman (1968)

11:45 Pm Gimme Shelter (1970)

1:30 Am Meet Marlon Brando (1968)

Grey Gardens recently received a restoration via the Criterion Collection, while the controversial Gimme Shelter is an absolute must-see and pinnacle of music history, ranking along...

Above: a sultry new poster for Paul Thomas Anderson's Inherent Vice. Dumb and Dumber To has opened to unsurprisingly mixed reviews, but Farrelly brothers champion R. Emmet Sweeney makes a case for the long awaited sequel for Film Comment:

"Dumb and Dumber To is about a deep, abiding friendship that can survive any indignities. After Harry and Lloyd’s journey is over, they’ve tossed away fortunes and frittered away kidneys, but they need each other to survive. As each momentary acquaintance slinks, or runs, away, it’s up to Harry and Lloyd to forget and move on. Or as is the case for Lloyd, to think about ninjas and wake up licking the grill of a big rig. Either way they can’t live without each other. And though they could never admit it, or even form the words in their desiccated cortexes, what they have is something like love.

Doc NYC, America's largest documentary festival, has tapped filmmaker Laura Poitras (Citizenfour) to receive its inaugural Robert and Anne Drew Award for Documentary Excellence. Presented at Doc NYC's Visionaries Tribute on Nov. 14, the new award honors the legacy of Robert Drew, who died this past July. Drew, a pioneer of the documentary style that came to be known as American cinema vérité, founded the production company Drew Associates in 1960. The late Anne Drew joined the company four years later, and the two went on to marry and become filmmaking partners. The award, which includes a $5,000 prize, celebrates

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Opening Night – World Premiere

Gone Girl

David Fincher, USA, 2014, Dcp, 150m

David Fincher’s film version of Gillian Flynn’s phenomenally successful best seller (adapted by the author) is one wild cinematic ride, a perfectly cast and intensely compressed portrait of a recession-era marriage contained within a devastating depiction of celebrity/media culture, shifting gears as smoothly as a Maserati 250F. Ben Affleck is Nick Dunne, whose wife Amy (Rosamund Pike) goes missing on the day of their fifth anniversary. Neil Patrick Harris is Amy’s old boyfriend Desi, Carrie Coon (who played Honey in Tracy Letts’s acclaimed production of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?) is Nick’s sister Margo, Kim Dickens (Treme, Friday Night Lights) is Detective Rhonda Boney, and Tyler Perry is Nick’s superstar lawyer Tanner Bolt. At once a grand panoramic vision of middle America, a uniquely disturbing exploration of the fault lines in a marriage,...

Editor's note: Robert Drew passed away today at age ninety. We revisit a 2003 interview with the filmmaker. Wisconsin, 1960. An unlikely setting perhaps for one of the most crucial showdowns in the wide-open race for the presidency. The Democrats had to decide whom to nominate to run against Richard Nixon. John F. Kennedy realized that if he beat Hubert Humphrey in the Wisconsin primary (and if he could prove that a Catholic senator from New England could triumph over a Protestant senator from a neighboring state), he could also prove his national appeal. It's quite a story and Primary tells it like no documentary ever had before.>> - Jonathan Marlow...

Editor's note: Robert Drew passed away today at age ninety. We revisit a 2003 interview with the filmmaker. Wisconsin, 1960. An unlikely setting perhaps for one of the most crucial showdowns in the wide-open race for the presidency. The Democrats had to decide whom to nominate to run against Richard Nixon. John F. Kennedy realized that if he beat Hubert Humphrey in the Wisconsin primary (and if he could prove that a Catholic senator from New England could triumph over a Protestant senator from a neighboring state), he could also prove his national appeal. It's quite a story and Primary tells it like no documentary ever had before.>> - Jonathan Marlow...

The documentary filmmaker who was called the “father of American cinema verite” died today at his home in Sharon, Conn. Robert Drew was 90. He was a Life magazine correspondent and editor when he formed Drew Associates in 1960 and hired a team of filmmakers that included then-unknowns D.A. Pennebaker, Albert Maysles and Ricky Leacock. Their first project was Primary, which followed handsome young senator John F. Kennedy as he campaigned in Wisconsin for the 1960 Democratic presidential nomination. Starting with Primary, Drew’s films pioneered a new journalistically minded code of documentary creation, including not directing subjects or using set-up shots or […]...

Documentary filmmaker Robert Drew, widely regarded as "the father of American cinéma vérité," has died at the age of 90. As Vadim Rizov writes at Filmmaker, "It’s not oversimplifying to note that Drew’s Primary (covering the JFK-Hubert Humphrey faceoff in the 1960 Wisconsin primary) and Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment (examining the administration’s standoff against segregationist George Wallace) are two of the key documents of the Kennedy presidency, whose levels of candor, access and good judgment about where to point the camera when remain startlingly fresh." » - David Hudson...

Documentary filmmaker Robert Drew, widely regarded as "the father of American cinéma vérité," has died at the age of 90. As Vadim Rizov writes at Filmmaker, "It’s not oversimplifying to note that Drew’s Primary (covering the JFK-Hubert Humphrey faceoff in the 1960 Wisconsin primary) and Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment (examining the administration’s standoff against segregationist George Wallace) are two of the key documents of the Kennedy presidency, whose levels of candor, access and good judgment about where to point the camera when remain startlingly fresh." » - David Hudson...

A press release prepared by documentarian Robert Drew’s family announced his death today at age 90. Drew is remembered as a pioneer of cinéma vérité — now a term thrown around carelessly to denote just about any documentary assembled without talking heads or a narrator, which is a radical oversimplification of vérité’s possibilities. It’s not oversimplifying to note that Drew’s Primary (covering the JFK-Hubert Humphrey faceoff in the 1960 Wisconsin primary) and Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment (examining the administration’s standoff against segregationist George Wallace) are two of the key documents of the Kennedy presidency, whose levels of candor, access […]...

A press release prepared by documentarian Robert Drew’s family announced his death today at age 90. Drew is remembered as a pioneer of cinéma vérité — now a term thrown around carelessly to denote just about any documentary assembled without talking heads or a narrator, which is a radical oversimplification of vérité’s possibilities. It’s not oversimplifying to note that Drew’s Primary (covering the JFK-Hubert Humphrey faceoff in the 1960 Wisconsin primary) and Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment (examining the administration’s standoff against segregationist George Wallace) are two of the key documents of the Kennedy presidency, whose levels of candor, access […]...

Albert Maysles: Gimme Some Truth

By

Alex Simon

I'm sick and tired of hearing things/From uptight, short-sighted, narrow-minded hypocritics/All I want is the truth/Just gimme some truth/I've had enough of reading things/By neurotic, psychotic, pig-headed politicians/All I want is the truth/Just gimme some truth. – John Lennon

Albert and David Maysles are generally regarded as the fathers of the modern American documentary film. Beginning in the early 1960s, their pioneering work with contemporaries such as Robert Drew, Richard Leacock and D.A. Pennebaker helped launch the “Direct Cinema” movement, devoted to capturing real life as closely as possible, in all its unscripted reality. Today, filmmakers like Michael Moore, reality TV and every news magazine on the air and on the web can trace their linage back to the Maysles brothers.

Their three defining features: Salesman (1968), a sobering and often hilarious look at the lives...

On Nov. 22, America marks the 50th anniversary of the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy - and television is giving viewers plenty to think about.

"Nova: Cold Case JFK" (PBS, Wednesday, Nov. 13): With a nod to the enduring conspiracy theories surrounding the assassination, the science series enlists modern investigators with state-of-the-art forensic tools to see if they can do a better job sorting out the evidence than was done in the '60s.

"Secrets of the Dead: JFK: One Pm Central Standard Time" (PBS, Wednesday): CBS news footage chronicles the assassination minute by minute, including Walter Cronkite's emotional report of Kennedy's death.

"Letters to Jackie: Remembering President Kennedy" (TLC, Nov. 17): Actors including Laura Linney and John Krasinski bring to life some of the condolence letters written to Jacqueline Kennedy after her husband's death.

"Where Were You? The Day JFK Died Reported by Tom Brokaw" (NBC,...

Turner Classic Movies (TCM) will commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Nov. 22nd assassination of President John F. Kennedy with a primetime lineup on Thursday Nov. 21 featuring five powerful documentaries about Kennedy’s election, presidency and tragic death. Also included is a popular drama about Kennedy’s service during World War II.

TCM’s commemoration of the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s assassination will open with four works by documentary filmmaker Robert Drew, considered a pioneer of the cinéma verité. Drew’s use of new light-weight cameras traditional allowed him to capture reality as never before, leading to a filmmaking movement known as “direct cinema.” He utilized the new cameras for the first time while chronicling the election of John F. Kennedy in Primary (1960), airing at 8 p.m. (Et), which focuses on the 1960 Wisconsin Democratic Primary contest between Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey.

Primary will be followed by the...

Twenty years ago another recession was gripping America, documentarians were shooting on film, and D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus were immortalizing the election campaign of Bill Clinton. The renowned duo behind Kings of Pastry, Jimi Plays Monterey and many other films, is presenting The War Room at a 20th anniversary screening at Toronto’s Hot Docs Documentary Festival this week. “It was an idea we always wanted to do,” Hegedus told Filmmaker, “to see a man become President.” In 1960, Pennebaker gained valuable experience by co-editing and doing sound on the very first campaign doc, Primary by Robert Drew. Shot in …...

Cinedigm announced today it will be elevating its Docurama Films independent label into a multi-platform 'Docurama" brand with a series of national theatrical screening events and a streaming network service. For almost 15 years, Docurama Films has presented acclaimed documentaries, including Kirby Dick's "The Invisible War," Danfung Dennis' "Hell and Back Again," Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing's "Detropia" and genre classics such as D.A. Pennebaker's "Don't Look Back" and Robert Drew's "Primary." The Docurama platform will launch on April 22 with a 7-week, 7-film series of screenings across the country, with its free streaming service launching at the same time.  Stated Cinedigm chairman and CEO Chris McGurk: "These outstanding films deserve a theatrical release, the boost from which provides ongoing community engagement and discussion. We fervently believe that most consumers desire to see what they want, when they want, on the device of their choosing. This program satisfies.

As America anticipates the first general election Presidential debate of 2012 tonight, it’s clear that there’s one thing on everyone’s mind: what does The Criterion Collection have to say about American politics at the executive level? The Collection certainly has a multitude of world leader’s represented, from Idi Amin in Barbet Schroder’s General Idi Amin Dada (1974) to Ivan the Terrible in Sergei Eisenstein’s two-part masterpiece of the same name. But Criterion also has three of the best movies made about real and fictional 20th century American Presidents and Presidential candidates… #602: The War Room (1993) The cinema verite documentary more or less began in the field of Presidential politics with Robert Drew’s Primary (1960), a film that chronicled the Wisconsin Democratic primary battle between John F. Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey. It was a fly-on-the-wall’s-eye-view of presidential politics, and revealed the exhausting process of campaigning between hands shaken and speeches given. More...

Looking the Part: Faux Docu Addresses Tea Party Politics with Everyday Issues

When it comes to the world of U.S politics, more specifically Republican Party candidacy, the state of Iowa could be considered the Hollywood in terms of star wattage. For the most part, all giving some of their career best performances, featuring the likes of Romney, Bachmann, Santorum, Perry and Gingrich, Grace Lee’s Janeane from Des Moines hypothetically situates a pressing issue that no politician appears to have a basic answer for and does so with ingenuity, guerrilla-styled indie-budgeted smarts and a panache performance from co-writer/lead actress Jane Edith Wilson.

Working from a narrative that seamlessly includes hot button topics that not only create a divide between Democrats and Republicans but the conservatives from the moderates found in the Republican party, co-written by Lee and the film’s protagonist, comparably similar to Frances McDormand’s Fargo...

Yesterday was all about the Cannes lineup, so we've got quite a bit of news to catch up with today. First and foremost, Cinema Scope has relaunched its site with a healthy selection of pieces from Issue 50, which cinephiles lucky enough to be holding a print copy have been talking about for weeks now. Editor Mark Peranson: "So to commemorate 50 issues, I came up with the silly (not stupid) idea of deciding on the best 50 filmmakers currently working under the age of 50 (or the top, or the greatest — I've spent far too much time pondering this silly adjective). I'm anticipating heaps of criticism for this in the blogosphere, but I hope this leads to a little discussion outside of the pages of this magazine, and provides a snapshot of where cinema finds itself today."

20 of those 50 pieces are online. You'll find, for example, Raya Martin on Carlos Reygadas (and...

Editor’s Note: Anne Drew, with husband Robert Drew, carried on the pioneering tradition that Robert and his team of cinema vérité legends had begun with the seminal Primary in 1960. Anne joined Drew Associates in 1967 and married Robert in 1970. What follows is an account, by Robert Drew, of Anne’s generous contributions to the documentary form, and of her richly rewarding life.

Anne Drew, an award-winning documentary filmmaker, died April 12 at her home in Sharon, Conn., after a long bout with lung cancer. As a central partner for more ...

Anne Drew, who was a central partner in the production company Drew Associates with her husband Robert Drew ("Primary") and an early leader in the cinema verite movement has died at the age of 70. Here, her husband writes about the long legacy Ms. Drew leaves behind. -- Bryce J. Renninger Anne Drew, an award-winning documentary filmmaker, died April 12 at her home in Sharon, Conn., after a long bout with lung cancer. As a central partner for more than four decades in our documentary film company Drew Associates, Anne edited and produced cinema verite films on ballet, war, Duke Ellington, Indira Gandhi, and President John F. Kennedy, among others. Her work was broadcast on television and celebrated at film festivals worldwide. Anne was fearless in going after her stories. Filming in mobs in India, or being arrested by Noriega’s thugs in Panama, or facing armed militiamen in Montana, she produced...

Fake Fruit Factory from Guergana Tzatchkov on Vimeo.

"Every year, Librarian of Congress James H Billington personally selects which films will be added to the National Film Registry, working from a list of suggestions from the library’s National Film Preservation Board and the general public," reports Ann Hornaday for the Washington Post. This year's list of 25 films slated for preservation:

Allures (Jordan Belson, 1961) Bambi (Walt Disney, 1942) The Big Heat (Fritz Lang, 1953) A Computer Animated Hand (Pixar, 1972) Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment (Robert Drew, 1963) The Cry of the Children (George Nichols, 1912) A Cure for Pokeritis (Laurence Trimble, 1912) El Mariachi (Robert Rodriguez, 1992) Faces (John Cassavetes, 1968) Fake Fruit Factory (Chick Strand, 1986) Forrest Gump (Robert Zemeckis, 1994) Growing Up Female (Jim Klein and Julia Reichert, 1971) Hester Street (Joan Micklin Silver, 1975) I, an Actress (George Kuchar, 1977) The Iron Horse (John Ford, 1924) The Kid (Charlie Chaplin, 1921) The Lost Weekend (Billy Wilder, 1945) The Negro Soldier (Stuart Heisler,...

©Paramount Pictures

“My momma always said, .Life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get..” That line was immortalized by Tom Hanks in the award-winning movie “Forest Gump” in 1994. Librarian of Congress James H. Billington today selected that film and 24 others to be preserved as cultural, artistic and historical treasures in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress.

Spanning the period 1912-1994, the films named to the registry include Hollywood classics, documentaries, animation, home movies, avant-garde shorts and experimental motion pictures. Representing the rich creative and cultural diversity of the American cinematic experience, the selections range from Walt Disney.s timeless classic “Bambi” and Billy Wilder.s “The Lost Weekend,” a landmark film about the devastating effects of alcoholism, to a real-life drama between a U.S. president and a governor over the desegregation of the University of Alabama. The selections also...

On this year's list of contributions to the National Film Registry, it was a good year for indies, experimental films and the non-Hollywood moving pictures in general.  While Disney's "Bambi," "Forrest Gump," "Silence of the Lambs," "Norma Rae," and Chaplin's "The Kid" were among the Hollywood fare, the Library of Congress's National Film Preservation Board named films from John Cassavetes, Julia Reichert, Robert Drew, Chick Strand and George Kuchar (who died earlier this year) on this year's list.   Robert Rodriguez's "El Mariachi" and Joan Micklin Silver's "Hester Street," two low-budget first films, also made the cut. The mid-20th century home movies of black dancers Fayard and Harold Nicholas and an early CGI video of a human hand, created by future Pixar cofounder Ed Catmull (watch it here), also made the list of films worthy of preservation. The National...

I’m never one to put significant stock in the film-based choices made by any kind of committee — be it an awards group, critics circle, soup kitchen line, etc. — but the National Film Registry is a little different. Not that they’re any different than those aforementioned organization types, but because the government assemblage preserves works deemed “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant.” No small potatoes.

Their latest list — created for both public awareness and the opportunity to grumble, as I’ll do in a second — has been unveiled, and the selections are none too out-of-left-field. The biggest of these 25 would have to be Forrest Gump, a choice I fully understand but completely disagree with on an opinion and moral scale. The only other true objection I can raise is toward El Mariachi, film school-level junk from a director whose finest works are the direct result of working with those more talented.

Gloria Grahame, The Big Heat Forrest Gump, Bambi, The Silence Of The Lambs: National Film Registry 2011 Movies Besides the aforementioned Hester Street and Norma Rae, women are also at the forefront of Julia Reichert and Jim Klein's Growing Up Female (1971); Chick Strand’s Fake Fruit Factory (1986), a documentary about Mexican women who create ornamental papier-mâché fruits and vegetables; and the recently deceased George Kuchar’s experimental short I, an Actress (1977), which is available on YouTube. I couldn't find any titles focusing on gay, lesbian, bisexual, multisexual, etc., or transgender characters. As so often happens, political correctness will go only so far. Anyhow, more interesting than p.c. choices was the inclusion of A Cure for Pokeritis (1912), an early comedy starring then-popular (and quite odd) couple John Bunny and Flora Finch; and what may well be my favorite noirish crime drama, Fritz Lang's The Big Heat (1953), starring Glenn Ford and Gloria Grahame.

“In 1972, Ricky put a Super 8 synch-sound camera in my hand and said, ‘If you want to become a filmmaker, you have to shoot,’” writes filmmaker Jane Weiner on the Kickstarter page for her project, Ricky on Leacock. “Turning my lens on him, I was suddenly transported into another universe: What began as a filmic conversation developed into a filmic adventure that traces the roots of Leacock’s cinematic quest and his role in documentary-making over the last century.”

Four decades later, and less than a year after Leacock passed away, Weiner is finishing her documentary on the legendary filmmaker Richard Leacock. As she tells in her Kickstarter video, Leacock agreed to the documentary so many years ago on two conditions: it had to be shot on Super 8 synch sound, and there could be no interviews. More from Weiner:

Mixing my own footage with film clips and never-before-seen images...