Sight & Sound Poll 2014: The Greatest Documentaries of All Time - Kevin Macdonald's Picks
https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-sound-magazine/greatest-docs-full-poll/#/?poll=combined&voter=20efb2
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- DirectorAlbert MayslesDavid MayslesCharlotte ZwerinStarsMick JaggerKeith RichardsMick TaylorWhen three hundred thousand members of the Love Generation collided with a few dozen Hells Angels at San Francisco's Altamont Speedway, the bloody slash that transformed a decade's dreams into disillusionment was immortalized on this film.I love the fact that the editor, Charlotte Zwerin, gets a directing credit on this. So often in documentaries the editor is at least as important to the finished film as the director. I think this is the best film ever made about performance – but it also manages to say so much about the hippy dream turning sour and the power of the image.
- DirectorMiroslav JanekDocumentary about blind pupils of the Jaroslav Jezek School in Prague. They're given the photo camera to capture their life and surroundings by themselves that shows as a result a unique point of view and perception these children have.The Unseen is generally unseen but is a film that had an enormous impact on me when I saw it at the inaugural It's All True doc festival in Brazil. It tells the story of blind children who become obsessed with taking photographs.
- DirectorSantiago ÁlvarezStarsLena HorneA documentary short about racism in the United States.The most potent campaigning film ever made. Only five minutes long it is raw, technically innovative and angry. The Lena Horne song that it is based around is forever stuck in my head.
- DirectorHumphrey JenningsStewart McAllisterStarsLeonard BrockingtonJoseph MacleodBud FlanaganA depiction of life in wartime England during the Second World War. Director Humphrey Jennings visits many aspects of civilian life and of the turmoil and privation caused by the war, all without narration.Humphrey Jennings was a genius at yanking together unexpected images – the John Donne of cinema. This film is pure poetry and makes patriotism seem not just acceptable but admirable.
- DirectorErrol MorrisStarsRandall AdamsDavid HarrisGus RoseA film that successfully argued that a man was wrongly convicted for murder by a corrupt justice system in Dallas County, Texas.I love its intelligence, its coolness and its humour. It influenced every film I have ever made.
- DirectorLeon GastStarsMuhammad AliGeorge ForemanDon KingBoxing documentary on the 1974 world heavyweight championship bout between defending champion, George Foreman, and the underdog challenger, Muhammad Ali.The most exciting and uplifting non-fiction experience I have had in a cinema
- DirectorHubert SauperStarsElizabeth 'Eliza' Maganga NseseRaphael Tukiko WagaraDimond RemtuliaA documentary on the effect of fishing the Nile perch in Tanzania's Lake Victoria. The predatory fish, which has wiped out the native species, is sold in European supermarkets, while starving Tanzanian families have to make do with the leftovers.An imaginative, fiendishly gothic tale about the the survival of the fittest and the Nile Perch.
- DirectorMichael MooreStarsMichael MooreRoger B. SmithRhonda BrittonAfter General Motors closes its factory in Flint, Michigan, eliminating 35,000 jobs, filmmaker Michael Moore undertakes a quixotic quest to interview General Motors' chairman, Roger B. Smith.Michael Moore brought entertainment back into documentary films – and made it the strange bedfellow of anger.
- DirectorMarcel OphülsStarsKlaus BarbieClaude LanzmannMarcel OphülsA documentary about Klaus Barbie, the Gestapo chief of Lyon, and his life after the war.Ophüls is a genius and I could just have easily chosen Sorrow and The Pity for this list.
- DirectorAri FolmanStarsAri FolmanRon Ben-YishaiRonny DayagAn Israeli film director interviews fellow veterans of the 1982 invasion of Lebanon to reconstruct his own memories of his term of service in that conflict.Because it did something new.