Documentary Films Attract Big Audiences
By Gary Ferrington

Recent documentary films have attracted the interest of the movie-going public around the world. Here is a summary, with links, to some of the current films found in theaters.

Recent documentary films have attracted the interest of the movie-going public. Here is a summary of some current films attracting crowds to theaters.

• Michael Moore's controversial new film Fahrenheit 9/11, won the best documentary category at Cannes this spring. It is a movie that has been seen, by some, as being anti-George Bush in it's addressing of national issues and actions since the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York.

Moore's most successful film was Bowling For Columbine. It won a special jury price in Cannes in 2002 and an Academy Award in 2003. It has garnered another 28 awards since its release.

• Fog of War, by Errol Morris, is a documentary about former US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and the escalation of the Vietnam war.It is constructed from more than 20 hours of edited interviews with McNamara It has been praised for "... managing to portray his (McNamara) personality in a lucid way, showing him as a man whose self confidence remained unshaken."

• Andrew Jarecki's film Capturing The Friedmans has been hailed both in both the United States and England as a "compelling and shocking documentary." It won the grand jury prize at Sundance and was nominated for best documentary at the Oscars in Hollywood.

Jarecki's had started a documentary about clowns in New York when he discovered that one of them, David Friedman, had a terrible secret. The film's focus shifts to the Friedman family and its eventual destruction by a scandal involving the sexual abuse of children.

Although the film reaches no conclusions about the case, it is Jarecki's use of interviews with family members, police, lawyers and alleged victims as well as video tapes and home movies shot by the family before and during the crisis, that tells a story that Guardian Critic Peter Bradshaw has said, "... lifts the lid on this seething cauldron of unspoken, unspeakable shame, takes a good long peep within and then drops the lid again with a clang," Friedman maintains his family is innocent of the charges.

• Touching the Void is a story of two climbers fighting for their lives on the Peruvian Andes in 1985 that won Kevin McDonald the BAFTA for British film of the year.

The film is based on interviews with Joe Simpson and Simon Yates who struggle to survive in the remote Peruvian Mountains. It is a gripping movie that even though you know then end, you ponder the questions of life and death these two men faced in their struggle.

• Super Size Me, by Morgan Spurlock, is a US documentary on a man who eats only McDonald's food for a month and gains 25 pounds. Spurlock embarked on a tour of fast-food outlets from the east to the west coast, eating three full meals a day.

According to a BBC article, "The effects of this high-fat diet on his body were recorded by a medical team. Spurlock became increasingly depressed and started feeling chest pains, headaches, sugar crashes and heart palpitations."

"Super Size Me packs a lot of good information, witty visual aids and expert testimonials into its fast 96 minutes, and all the bad eating certainly makes for compelling if at times repugnant viewing," wrote the Los Angeles Times' Manohla Dargis.

The BBC recently published an online article about recent productions that provided the bases for this compilation.