Deep Dive Docs
Today's best doc find is an immersive view of pro cycling that lets you join the race while sparing your legs.
The age of digital filmmaking has arguably affected no genre more than documentary. With the basic tools readily available in most everyone’s pocket and life providing a constant stream of free material, modern documentary finally pays off the a prediction by Francis Ford Coppola of a day when the tools of cinema are available to anyone, and film becomes a true art form. Actually, what Coppola said was that “some little fat girl in Ohio is going to be the new Mozart and make a beautiful film with her father’s camera,” because he’s a wild dude who has lived a long, long time without being proofread. But the underlying sentiment is accurate. Today there’s fewer barriers than ever to creating a film, and fewer still for creating one that meets the criteria of a documentary. Making a good documentary is another challenge, one beyond the scope of this series. We’re here to focus on the third issue: getting it seen.
Digital distribution is also far more painless than in days of celluloid or even DVDs, and documentaries have a leg up in this arena, too. Nearly all streaming services distribute documentaries, some of them exclusively documentaries, and since many docs speak to a specific niche audience, they’re well-suited to the fragmented “long tail” philosophy of distribution, rivaled maybe only by horror films.
The downside: lots and lots of titles to choose from. There’s gold in those hills of titles, but it’s nestled in caves of wasted time. How to fight the non-stop watchlist pile-on, to separate the films of interest from the (ugh) content? That’s where we come in. Some docs are boosted by Oscar noms, some get featured on major services, and some need to be delivered on the wings of the Magpie.
Letterboxd Views: 304
Services: Tubi, Pluto Roku, Plex, various rentals
Having a niche subject can bring a pre-sold audience, but either this one missed its target or the overlap between cycling enthusiasts and Letterboxd dorks is vanishingly small. For those who don’t fall into the first category, do not let this dissuade you. I am firmly in the second category only; to me a bike is a means for getting to and from the library, and the only timed goal I’m concerned with is the years or minutes before a cardiac event. But while this film centers on cycling (and a little club dancing), in the end it’s an incredible portrait of one man’s fight against his own body that happens to feature a lot of cycling.
One need not be a commercial deep sea fisherman to appreciate the sensory doc Leviathan, and Time Trial applies that kind of immersion to the professional bike circuit. Director Finlay Pretsell follows Scottish cyclist David Miller as he attempts to qualify for one more Tour de France in the final year of his career. Miller was a regular on the tour before confessing to doping and receiving a two-year suspension from the sport. Age is catching up to Miller, and the ending to his career he’d hoped for becomes more and more elusive.
Originally intended as a more straightforward look at Miller’s return to the sport and pro cycling in general, the movie became an impressionistic view of the competitive drive and the enormous task of redemption, especially redemption tied to performance by a body that no longer pumps oxygen like it used to. Pretsell’s camera finds extraordinary angles, taking advantage of specialized rig stabilizers and relatively new mountable cameras. We glide alongside mid-race conversations and hurtle forward through tunnels. Sweat drips off Miller’s face beads so large they look like we could hold them in our hands. The images blur with moisture and speed. The context interviews play like intrusive thoughts, like ghosts Miller tries to outride. It culminates in a must-win race in a downpour with a final climb so visceral your calves seize up watching.
Most documentaries do well to capture athleticism clearly, with many sports documentaries explaining aloud the significance of the feats we’re seeing. Time Trial is the rare film that makes the viewer feel the toll of the accomplishment and the meaning. Athletes at their peak can seem like gods on the screen. In Time Trial you watch a god fall to earth and feel every rocky peak on the way down.
About the writer
C. D. Ploughman
The weary Ploughman is a writer and filmmaker, focusing these days on documentary and educational projects. He obsesses over movies with his very patient wife and children.
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What did we watch?
M*A*S*H, Season One, Episode Seven, “Bananas, Crackers, and Nuts”
This is a show where everyone works really hard to show us that everyone is working really hard. It’s in big ways, obviously; this opens with the characters visibly exhausted and eating during surgery and it’s the first of many, many, many episodes to end with Hawkeye about to go on leave only to be interrupted by choppers. But it’s on fundamental levels too – the writers always work to give every scene incredible verbal spectacle, from Radar and Margaret engaging in a ‘who’s on first’-like bit when he introduced Captain Sherman or Hawkeye’s elaborate rant about why he seems insane. There’s even a lovely bit where Radar informs the doctors no more choppers are coming, and Gary Burghoff puts some affectionate warmth into it, knowing these people have been working so hard.
This actually hits on a lot of recurring themes very lightly; Frank is put in charge while Henry goes on holiday so Hawkeye pretends to have gone nuts, and this only goes for a few scenes before the psychiatrist turns up (treated with much less respect than Sydney will be later) and Hawkeye gives up and confesses, forcing him to drive the guy away with pranks. This density of ideas is always what’s attracted me to the show. Like, on top of all this, you have a classic scene of Frank and Margaret doing their Macbeth relationship.
To Sleep with Anger – A retired couple in South Central LA has their lives turned upside down by a visit from an old friend who really isn’t anyone’s friend. The story never entirely comes together for me, but it’s pretty likely I am missing cultural cues that would make it work more. But even with that in mind, the tension between vaguely supernatural drama and slice of life drama never clicks well. Still. director/writer Charles Burnett creates a wonderful sense of place and community, and gets the most from a talented cast featuring Danny Glover as the somewhat demonic visitors and Richard Brooks and Carl Lumbly as the couple’s somewhat estranged sons. This film is on the Library of Congress registry and Burnett is widely respected in indie circles, but he is sadly another example of a talented Black director who never reached the heights.
Kojak, “You Can’t Tell a Hurt Man How to Holler” – An assistant to a rising bookie is arrested for the murder of a city councilman who owed the bookie a lot of money. Kojak knows something is fishy and tries to find the actual killer, even though the highers up are happy with the arrest and even though the arrested man does not trust The Man. And did I mention the suspect and wrong man are Black people? A good faith effort to address the gulf between the Black community and the cops, but a show like this just cannot address such things well. A lot of familiar faces: future Oscar nominee, Margaret Avery, Harrison Page (the boss on Sledge Hammer), Roger E. Mosley (Magnum’s chopper pilot buddy on the original show), Tom Pedi (Caz in The Taking of Pelham One Two Three), and a young John Pleshette.
Frasier, “Oops” – An incorrect rumor spread by Frasier leads to Bulldog Briscoe quitting, and Frasier has to plead the man’s case with the obnoxious station manager. Not a particularly good episode, but the first to spotlight Bulldog, and introducing the trope “there is always a new station manager.” This one is played well by John Glover.
The more I learn about the history of Black filmmakers and actors, the angrier I get how they’ve been treated. Just egregious racism and casual ignorance.
Burnett has in particular had a hard time despite the apparent respect his work has received.
https://www.indiewire.com/features/interviews/charles-burnett-the-annihilation-of-fish-25-year-journey-1234971346/
I’ll never be over what happened with Carl Franklin’s directorial career.
All I ask is a six or seven movie series of Easy Rawlins adaptations with Denzel, directed at least initially by Franklin.
One name alone: Wendell B. Harris Jr.
I liked To Sleep With Anger when I saw it in 1995. I don’t remember a ton beyond the one main thing that happens, but I’ve referred to Richard Brooks exclusively as “Baby Brah” ever since.
Live Music – managed a double-header last night, first there was an instore acoustic performance from The Weather Station promoting their new album. The songs worked so well in acoustic duo format that somebody from the crowd asked (after being prompted) whether they would consider releasing an acoustic album. I wonder if we were all thinking “this is kinda better than the albums”, haha. It was great.
After that I dashed down the road for a friend’s EP launch, I’ve seen her play solo a bunch of times but she’d assembled a full band for this show and it worked really well. Not sure I’d quite put her at the “must recommend to people outside of the local scene” level yet* but she’s absurdly young and there’s a ton of potential there. They ended on a raucous cover of “Night Shift” by Lucy Dacus and it felt pretty triumphant. Also she introduced one of her songs, “Wantable”, and some guy in the crowd said “did she say Wonderwall?” and I think it was a genuine mis-hearing rather than a joke but it was very funny.
* might as well try anyway: https://eleanormcgregor.bandcamp.com/track/letting-people-go-demo-2
Live music, sounds great!!
Woooo live music! I appreciate your fellow concert-goer being concerned about a Wonderwall ambush, this isn’t a college dorm.
Wooooo live music!!
Wooooo live music!!
Grand Theft Hamlet – During the pandemic lockdown two struggling actors stumble across a large amphitheater within Grand Theft Auto Online. Fighting boredom and nerves, they decide to recruit other players and stage a production of Hamlet within the game. This means having to rely on the jerky avatars and their pre-programmed emoting options, not to mention fending off interruptions from others playing the game as designed and murdering the performers with rocket launchers.
The entire film takes place within the game. It’s best in the early-going as the players find auditioners and innovate ways to interpret the bard’s words while dodging bullets and falling planes. The potential of GTA as a vehicle for empathy is limited, to say the least.
This is the more interesting subtext of the film, the challenge of creation in a world constructed to celebrate destruction. The lurid world of GTA (the very detailed NPC junkies and vagrants in the game is a hell of a choice given the opportunity to program a human population in any way imaginable) is so at odds with the actors’ goals, you wonder if there’s any virtual ground fertile and grenade-free enough to foster traditional creativity.
Less successful are some reaches for pathos in the characters’ real lives. GTA’s limited avenues for expression eventually catch up. While it adds an interesting layer in some ways – when our lead Sam’s avatar folds his arms in frustration it means somewhere Sam is making the decision to hit the button to do that, probably for the sake of the documentary – it can’t successfully fend off the tedium that comes with watching someone else play a video game. Solutions to this have already been found in other virtual space-set movies. The Remarkable Life of Ibelin animated scenes in the style of World of Warcraft to give them more freedom of expression. Grand Theft Hamlet also recalls the art collective Total Refusal which stages peaceful protests and virtual tourism inside of violent war games (their output has been shorts rather than features, which is also in their favor).
Still, Grand Theft Hamlet is an interesting step to stretch the boundaries of virtual space beyond their intended use. No other production has been able to stage acts both on a subway platform and atop a blimp, even if it comes with the downside of the actors occasionally taking a false step and dying grizzly deaths in front of the audience. All the world’s a stage, and now we’re expanding to worlds beyond.
As a Hamlet geek, I gotta see this. (It’s a play that I think got sneered at online for too long as being about a whiny depressed privileged guy when it’s narrative cohesion and sense of poetry is just genius, as many people smarter than me have said.)
Shōgun, “Servants of Two Masters”
Lots of nice scheming and politicking in this episode. I like that this is a show that understands that sometimes you have wheels within wheels, and sometimes you just Ferris Bueller a sleeping presence in your bed: Toranaga is working with a whole toolbox, not just the hammer that makes everything look like a nail, and you know, he’s flexible. Blackthorne receives an exposition dump from an imprisoned friar, and while it’s a little bit clumsy, the scene where he puts the intel to use more than makes up for it (“Unless I win”). We get more Mariko in this episode, following her incredible introduction in the pilot, and get an even better sense of the passionate belief that animates her–and connects her to a larger world her husband would like to exclude her from. Tadanobu Asano continues to kill it as Yabushige, with a fundamental good humor animating all his cruelty; it feels like he’s a spectator or voyeur at heart (something the courtesan picked up on last episode), treating everyone else as his entertainment. It’s a more fundamentally dehumanizing approach to the world than we see from anyone else: Ishido will just make you swiftly dead, but Yabushige will make you into a haiku or a dog, whatever suits him.
Without going into detail, I’ll just say that Yabushige’s taste for poetry leads into one incredible joke late in the season.
Excellent read on Yabaguishe. Pretty sure he was the show “breakout” based on talking to other fans.
The Shield, “Snitch”
Man, Vic’s self-righteousness is so fucking annoying.
I get a kick out of the Spook Street kid. “It was my own ingenuity shit!”
Of course, the main plot is Billings coaching Vic through raising a teenage girl. It’s always delightful to see the one thing Billings is good at in action.
Also, after bringing my wife home from getting her wisdom teeth removed, she threw on Super Troopers and a bunch of Tacoma FD episodes. I had to run out for my own physical therapy appointment and to pick up food and medication for her, so I only caught the last 15-20 minutes of the movie, which, as you know, remains a personal favorite in the stupid-comedy genre. And having seen the show so many times, I don’t have much to say, but it is just good, solid, comfort-food sitcom fare.
It just occurred to me that Jerry on Parks and Rec having a great home life where he’s a much-adored stud feels like a comedic exaggeration of Billings being an excellent father with an affable relationship with his ex, which exists on a much more human scale and feels more naturalistic. (As does the mockery Billings gets–he still has a much easier time at work than Jerry.) This does make me imagine a scene where we find out that Billings has a massive dong.
I don’t think we can post images in comments, right? Picturing the reactions to finding out about Billings’ dong– both Vic and Dutch get a “You gotta be shitting me!” and Ronnie’s “….What?”
I also enjoy how after Billings’ rant about respect, he finally puts in minimal effort and takes about five seconds to see through the case. (If even that– he basically figures it out in the middle of his rant.)
Also… if Cassidy had gone to literally any other detective in the building…
Went looking for quotes from the episode just to clarify what in particular Vic was being self-righteous about in this episode and found this amusing note: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1243832/goofs/?tab=gf&ref_=tt_dyk_gf
Ahahahah. “Goofs: Vic Mackey is a racist meathead asshole, even though we have seen no previous indicator of this.”
I was thinking about when he’s taking Shane to meet Aramboles at the top of the episode, and it’s the same house he took Guardo to. Which of course he won’t stop trying to hold over Shane, because he’s an asshole who can only cling to his self-righteousness by never letting other people forget their mistakes. (Even when, you know, he did what he did.)
continued working through The Ring cycle; on Siegfried into act 2 scene 3, the 1980 bayreuth production.
Siegfried, last seen as a zygote at the end of die Walküre, is now a young man. An orphan, he’s raised by the dwarf Mime (brother of Alberich, who stole the rheingold and forged the ring by forswearing all love, Wotan stole the ring, and then paid the giant fafner the ring and a helmet that lets you shapeshift). Siegfried I think is supposed to be 20 but he empotionally scans as somewhere between 5 and 13. Mime is trying and failing to forge an acceptable sword for Siegfried. He’s very funny; alternately self-deprecating and cunning. Wotan drops in and we get a dramatic scene where we establish the stakes and Wotan reveals that only one who knows no fear can forge the sword and kill Fafner, the giant, who is also a dragon. Fortunately for Mime, he happens to have an impetuous young hero available to wield his father’s sword (which was shattered in die Walküre). The forging of the sword is pure triumph for Siegfried, who has no idea what he’s doing but manages to forge the sword); it’s really a very moving scene.
Then we go to the forest to find Fafner; we have some chit chat with Wotan and Alberich and Siegfried and Mime. Siegfried is endearingly childlike; when Mime warns him about Fafner’s attacks, Siegfriend confidently responds that he’ll simply dodge them. And then a moment of surreal beauty. While waiting in the dappled
sunlight of the forest, Siegfried laments, wondering what his parents looked like. He tries talking to the birds. Children believe they can talk to animals and animals can talk back. It’s a beautiful little character moment for him. He’s just a lonely child. Then the dragon shows up, yadda yadda yadda, and now Siegfried can talk to birds for real.
Everything’s looking up for Siggy. I sense a great future ahead of him.
I’d like to watch one of Wagner’s operas, where would you start? Or listen…
There’s a lot on youtube, and the recommendation algorithm has served up some nice litttle videos about the motifs.
I like the 1969 berlin philharmonic recording which is on spotify. It might be useful to some by itself first.
You can watch the 1980 bayreuth performance on youtube here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_2dS77FYjOKscYQ4XyRYIrN5PwkJbeES&si=MAqGAryiEf_0WIfv You can watch them with subtitles but die Walküre only has auto-translated english titles. You can read a synopsis on wikipedia either before or after the act breaks.
There’s also Kate “mcmansion hell” Wagner’s (no relation) essays on it in her substack, which i have been reading. https://open.substack.com/pub/thelatereview?r=q2yu2&utm_medium=ios
Wagner took a long break (years IIRC) between composing the first half of Siegfried and the second. I feel you can really hear this change in the music, and I like the first part better. OTOH, the later-composed Gotterdamerung is my gotterdamn favorite of the Ring operas, so who knows?
Castlevania: Nocturne
Season 2, Episode 4. “Monstrous Things”. First time.
A very good episode to mark the season’s haflway point. In Paris, demons from hell guide Annette to the Egyptian goddess’ mummified corpse they’re looking, only for Drolta to catch up to them and a fight breaking up in the Louvre. It’s another good one, and things don’t end up well for the gang. But the heart of the episode is the child Maria Renard confronting her father, the Abbot, for creating the night monsters they’re fighting and giving up her mother to vampirisim. There’s also a brief theological argument, and kudos for the show for always taking its characters beliefs seriously and really dealing with what would happen if these terrifying things were true. Hence, SPOILERS Maria summoning monsters and burning her father SPOILERS, a point of no return for her, since she almost dies herself, if not for old Juste Belmont barely saving her. It also feels like a point of no return for him, and a point were he’s really bound himself to the other people in this show. Nice contrast too, in having the oldest (human) character relucltantly bond with the youngest one.
Adding this to my Tubi list, as it is probably the closest I’ll get to achieving any kind of true athleticism, even a poignant, on-its-way-out variety. Leviathan really grabbed me, so I’m excited to get that kind of immersion in a completely different experience.
Yeah, this is a great kickoff for an excellent idea and I like that Chris knows to entice us Leviathan sickos.
Wait a minute, Leviathan was a documentary? All the stuff really happened to Peter Weller and Daniel Stern? There really was a gigantic mutated sea monster? My mind is officially blown.
Next you’ll tell me Moby Dick’s right and whales are real.
Nah, they’re a conspiracy sailors made up to justify the cannibalism.
Are you telling me all that stuff in Pribrezhny really happened and there’s corruption in modern Russia?
I think it’s really interesting to focus on someone who’s trying to claw their way back after being part of such a big scandal. Part of me thinks that he shouldn’t have raced again, tbh, but maybe trying to regain your former capacity is a punishment that fits the crime.
I don’t know a whole lot outside what’s discussed in the film, but apparently he came clean and didn’t fight the suspension. He also became very outspoken against doping, I get the feeling his comeback if not welcomed by all, could have had warm reception.