
I can already imagine what my webmestre Kim Gjerstad might say about this post: “Magnus, I told you, only original material!”
But in my defense, these articles are very interesting, for different reasons. It’s disappointing however that the one about the abundance of docs at the Toronto International Film Festival doesn’t mention any Canadian docs, such as Surviving Progress. Maybe one reason is that TIFF programs very few Canadian docs?
Anyway, enjoy the reading.
- Captivating Films, Complicated Truths – the New York Times writer A.O. Scott explores the implications and importance of five new documentaries: Errol Morris’s Tabloid, James Marsh’s Project Nim, Werner Herzog’s Cave of Forgotten Dreams, John Turturro’s Passione and The Interrupters, Steve James and Alex Kotlowitz’s “eagerly anticipated, much-admired examination of violence in Chicago’s poor neighborhoods based on an article Mr. Kotlowitz wrote for The New York Times Magazine.”
- A Bounty of Documentaries at Toronto Festival – focusing on the documentary offerings at TIFF, but in particular Werner Herzog’s film Into the Abyss, about the execution of death-row inmate Michael Perry. While editing, “Herzog said he was too shaken by his encounters with Mr. Perry, his associates, his pursuers and the family of his victims to work on the film for more than a few hours each day.”
- The Documentary.org article Three New Studies Prove that Docs can Change the World puts the spotlight on three studies analyzing the impacts of the documentary films such as An Inconvenient Truth and Waiting for Superman.
- Another NY Times article reviews a book by filmmaker Errol Morris, “Believing is Seeing” about the limitations of photographs. “Each of its six chapters originally appeared, in different form, in the Opinionator blog of The New York Times, and each centers on a photo or photo set: two slightly different pictures taken by Roger Fenton during the Crimean War; the infamous Abu Ghraib images, over two chapters; Depression-era photographs by Walker Evans and Arthur Rothstein; pictures of children’s toys lying in the rubble after Israeli airstrikes on southern Lebanon in 2006; and an ambrotype of three young children that was found clutched in the hand of a dead Union soldier at Gettysburg in 1863.”
Thanks to Tobi Elliott for her help with the blog.
Aha! Well, not quite. Your own original articles are important for sure, but linking to good content out on the web is also appreciated by Google, and your readers.
You can surely do this once a month.