November 19, 2003

It was Doc Day on Tuesday…

At about 10 a.m. p.s.t., the Academy started calling the filmmakers of the 12 films that have made the “short list” of documentary nominees. In some homage to perversity, the Academy doesn’t announce the list, just as they refuse to publish a list of all the documentaries that actually qualified for consideration as of September 1, the deadline for doc qualifiers. We found 9 of the 12 by late Tuesday and the list, which you can find on MCN, should be complete sometime this morning.

I had the good fortune to sit down with 2 of the 12 short listers on the same day.

Andrew Jarecki would probably be being accused of being a wealthy artistic wannabe had he completed his documentary about birthday clowns in New York City, no matter how good or popular the film. As I found with some terrific docs about karaoke and modern tribalism, people tend to dismiss docs about “unimportant” topics, no matter good or how well audiences respond.

But the Silly Billy The Clown had a secret. His father and his brother had been accused of child molestation in Great Neck, NY at the height of the child molestation hysteria. (Which is not to say that those who have been molested do not deserve compete respect… just that there was a moment when recovering memories, true or false, was a fashion.) The story of this family was ripe for documentation, even the more so since the family was loaded with amateur filmmakers who were early adapters to video. Even when video of some moments did not exist, there was often audiotape filling the void.

Jarecki and his co-producer/editor Richard Hankin knew that they had a different movie than they bargained for. They laugh now, remembering when Andrew came to Richard, who had signed on for this funny little clown doc, and asked whether he would stay on for the bigger project. Hankin made it clear… he wasn’t going anywhere. These are the moment documentarians die for… a truly great and important story that hasn’t been documented before.

These days, the duo is focused on the DVD for the movie, which will includes hours of material that didn’t make it into their release. We talked about the DVD as a reflection of the future of documentary. The ability to take a second, bigger bite of the apple in home entertainment made cutting some precious moments easier for these filmmakers. And they are readily aware that their work will be seen on DVD in much greater numbers than ever will see the film, with all its success, in theatrical release. And as a special DVD treat, look for the completed version of the party clown documentary that started this whole thing.

There is a sense of great confidence that radiates from Jarecki, which may be because of his wealth, earned by building and selling Moviefone. But my guess is that it is the other way around. I’m betting that Jarecki was cocky enough to make Moviefone happen. My guess is that he will do as he pleases, in a decent human sense, for much of his life. Hankin, on the other hand, has the feel of a guy who hit the jackpot, in great part because of his own efforts and skill. But still… here he is on the A-train. He disputes the idea that most documentarians are starving artists, but few of them are hanging at The Peninsula either.

More than the Movifone mentions in every story, Jarecki seems to have the doc community on his mind. He is very aware that the fact that his film feels a lot like a narrative fictional feature distances him from those who revere old-school doc traditions. It’s not a voice over piece. It’s not a life-as-it-happens piece. It’s not raw. It moves along, using many of the tricks that any theatrical movie would use.

But Jarecki, along with Hankin and the rest of the team, are developing their own voice as documentary filmmakers. And while the old school may balk, young filmmakers, like Jonathan Karsh and Jennifer Chaikin, see his film as a step into a new future for theatrical documentary.

Karsh and Chaikin are the director and producer, respectively, of My Flesh & Blood, a rather extraordinary film about Susan Tom and her family of 1 biological daughter and 11 special needs kids that she permanently foster parents. The film is soon to start its theatrical life before heading back to its fiscal birthplace, HBO.

Jonathan Karsh didn’t go into big business. He was headed into Big TV, when he took this massive turn. He was hosting and segment producing for Evening Magazine and just one story he had done stuck with him. This woman, Susan Tom. Her story was a great one, but even more so, there was a magic of a sort in this family of kids who didn’t seem to see themselves as needy, even if they did see themselves as special.

Karsh’s friend, Jen Chaikin, was an experienced doc producer, having spent years on Family Name and throwing together Naked States for HBO. She had also moved on, it seemed, to features. But when Karsh got the call from Susan Tom that the family was going on a road trip and that he could come along, he called Jen, she said, “Let’s do this,” and production began just days later. As it turns out, only a few images remain in the film from the trip, after the decision to focus on a different chunk of time in the family history. But that was the learning curve.

Like Jarecki, Karsh was learning how to make a feature length doc as he was making it. But Karsh, in the end, has a completely different energy about future work. In the midst of all the hullabaloo about the film, Karsh is already in the process of making two docs for television. They aren’t his dream gigs, but he is happy to be stretching his muscles as a documentarian. He is, with a potential Oscar nomination in reach, still apprenticing, albeit for good money.

Chaikin and Karsh see more gentrification in the doc world. There are, in their view, The Funded and The Struggling with very little middle. This duo is developing that middle. Like Jarecki and Hankin, they are not ruled by doc tradition. They believe in the idea of doc makers as storytellers, using whatever tools are appropriate to the tale. But unlike Jarecki, who has been on Friedmans for seven years and is still raring for more, they are ready to find the next subject… something completely different. They are approaching the craft of doc making with all the passion that they have attacked the art of it.

The thing that both teams have most in common is an unmitigated love of the subjects they covered. These four are still in the lives of their subjects. There is increasing distance, but the intimacy that was struck is undeniable. You can feel it in the work. You can hear it as you chat with the filmmakers and they talk about their subjects like family. Truth really is stranger than fiction.

READER OF THE DAY: FRANKLY , HE GIVES A DAMN writes: “In response to the “popular comment”

Right, George Lucas is a hack and a one hit wonder. So is that one hit wonder his Oscar nominated “American Graffiti,” or are you talking about his expressionistic and powerful “THX 1138”? Oh…you are talking about “Star Wars” (also nominated for multiple Oscars). I hate to use the Oscars as a measure of quality, but demeaning Lucas because that seems to be the hip thing to do right now is just as petty. Lucas has been involved in some of America’s best fantasy films over the years, whether it be writing (“Williow”) or producing (The Indiana Jones series). Regardless of whether you have jumped the Star Wars ship in favor of the safer LOTR trilogy, there should be no denying that Lucas’ contribution to film has been strong and substantial over the years.

Concerning Jackson, he has had some good earlier films (“Heavenly Creatures”) but his others, like “Bad Taste” and “Dead Alive” are hardly works of an accomplished and respectable film auteur. The comparisons between Lucas and Jackson only naively consider their present work on the two big trilogies. And this is a comparison that I do not believe holds much validity, seeing as Jackson’s praise is coming from his interpretation of an already validated and beloved book series. Lucas is working from his own creative mind. One is taking cues from a book, the other from his mind. I am not trying to say Lucas is a great filmmaker, because I do not think he is, but he certainly deserves more credit than he receives in the media and on the web. He’s been one of the most influential craftsman ever in the history of film, and to call Lucas “a crummy writer and even crummier director” is to ignore all of his influential 70’s work, to say the least.

E ME: Do you do docs often enough?