Entertainment For Lively Minds
Let's have your nominations for the Word/You Tube Documentary Festival
Posted by David Hepworth on 8 March 2010 - 4:40pm.
I caught this documentary about Status Quo late at night nearly ten years ago and I've been dying to see it ever since. Today I've found it. It was made by Jane Treays who followed the band on a British tour in 2001. It's one of the most candid, touching films about what it means to have lived the rock and roll life that you'll ever see. The first part's here:
I knew it would eventually find its way on to You Tube. Some day soon every documentary ever made will join it. Why not find your favourite obscure documentary - it doesn't have to be about music - and add it here? Let's call it The Word/You Tube Documentary Festival. It's bound to be beat whatever's on tonight.
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Arty and Farty
James Cameron visits NASA
The great journalist casts a quizzical eye on one aspect of USA, always gently humorous. Just listen to his commentary and remind yourself what good reporting should be about.
*coughs*
and flicks eyes down posts to halfway down. But you're right it is good couldn't find more sadly.
Don't know where the rest of it is
But this is up there with the best of them
Rennies!
Shaun Ryder shovelling handfuls of Rennies down throughout to quell what must be monumental heartburn brought about by decades of pills and warm lager....grooo!
Crikey
Lots of parenting hints there.
Never mind Shane or Love Story..
This one is a tear-jerker from start to finish.
Not the whole documentary
but a collection of Mike Schank's best bits from American Movie.
In Bed with
Chris Needham, cringetastic mate!
he's even got a MySpace
Certainly factual
and certainly long. This is the intro to episode 1
And for all those eulogising about Brian Cox's (actually rather spiffy) solar system series on BBC2 right now, this is truly seminal (and I use the word advisedly) and utterly without peer.
I've just managed to purchase the full 13 episode set, Vangelis soundtrack and all. It was a bargain.
Posted elsewhere today!
John Zorn
Motörhead
In a similar vein to the excellent Quo one, here is part one of a C4 doc on the Ace of Spades hitmakers...surviving on a diet of Bourbon and Cigs.
Stalking Pete Doherty
Another nomination...and another one where the story is more interesting than the music.
Extraordinary, film of Pete Doherty which gradually becomes a documentary about the disintegration of the documentary maker himself, a troubled former Bafta award winning filmaker Mark Carlish. Disturbing, cringeworthy and compulsive viewing.
Here is Part 2, skip to 5:54 where Carlish tries to quell a fairly harmless looking stage invasion during a Babyshambles gig
"Stop the madness!....There is a major public health risk!....There could be millions of pounds worth of damage..."
that was intense
but interesting never the less.
I felt very sorry for the bloke but also could understand why Doherty had the reactions he had towards him.
Fascinating, if depressing, stuff.
Bill Brandt on 'Master Photographers', 1983
Brandt was a poet of the camera whose timeless images continue to resonate with successive generations. He was also a lovely man on this evidence...
The second clip isn't a documentary but is worth watching... the impressionistic imagery of photographer Saul Leiter set to music by Miles Davis.
And finally John Berger's series Ways of Seeing.
here's a whole hoard of treasure
I know Jonathon Meades can be a little "rich" for some but here's a channel on youtube full of episodes of his programmes. We loved this most recent one singing the praises of rusty sheds in the islands of scotland.
http://www.youtube.com/user/MeadesShrine#p/c/07095A1A3C8A9985/5/oXA6imo0...
there's loads more.
He's brilliant.
My Desert Island Documentary is Meades' Magnetic North. Take it away Django...
I love Meades
You beat me to it.
Meades is great. I cannot describe how happy I was when I found the Meades Shrine on Youtube last year. Meades could, though. Probably with a sentence featuring four or possibly five words that I would have to retreat to the dictionary to decipher.
Me too
Though the recent Scottish series didn't do it for me. I found myself worrying that now he is living in France he is losing a feel for Britain. Almost certainly wrongly.
I think anyone making a documentary for TV should be made to watch a Meades series and told not to copy it but to try as hard to make it interesting. Don't just walk and talk. Think first. Do do something visually interesting as well as talking. Preferably relevant.
I wonder
what he's planning next-read something about "undiscovered France"- depends on what budget he can get I suppose.
He's still got it
I thought he nailed that Scottish mini-series pretty well - the Aberdeen one was back to his architectural roots (and the bit on Donald Trump was worth the entry fee/licence fee alone); the Islands one was a bit of whimsy; and the football pools town hit a lot of nails on the head - particularly the booze/food bit.
A couple from me
Etre et Avoir
The Body In Question
(with a great pastoral soundtrack from The BBC Radiophonic Workshop)
An absolutely shocking
but utterly riveting documentary about the woeful state of affairs in Liberia. http://www.vbs.tv/watch/the-vice-guide-to-travel/the-vice-guide-to-liber...
Oops.. not YouTube though.
Doh..
Leyton Orient - Club for a fiver
Don't think the whole thing is on youtube, but John Sitton's famous halftime rant where he sacks a player and threatens a couple of others is. Absolute comedy gold.
I've always loved that
I love the way football has just invented its own language. "Bring your dinner", eh? How many times have we felt like saying just that? Can anybody find any trace of the very good documentary that BBC made about Sunderland in the early says of the Premiership? Peter Reid was the manager and his half-time bollockings were poetry.
Do I not like that
What about the great Graham Taylor's finest moment as England boss? That doc must be out there somewhere...
Linesman!!! Linesman!!!!
Ronnie Lane & Ivor Cutler
The beautifully told tales of two lovable dreamers...
"The Passing Show: The Life & Music of Ronnie Lane":
"Ivor Cutler: Looking for Truth with a Pin":
I love Ronnie Lane, I've
I love Ronnie Lane, I've been wearing a scarf indoors all day and I'm considering buying a caravan. Thanks for that, really cheered me up.
Mick Jagger
Only seen this the once but really enjoyed it.
Hmm.
I seem to remember turning this off at the time as it was beginning to seem like old Mick was a very boring man. This was not what I wanted to hear. Would rather watch Cocksucker Blues.
You mean....
This?
This is exactly the kind of thing I love seeing
It's Mick presenting a version of Mick's life for the cameras. The dance of the Seven Veils. It's every bit as much Mick as any of the supposedly grittier stuff.
It's like he's overwhelmed that
someone has decided to make a documentary about him. He runs around almost looking for things to put on screen as if he's worried deep down that he's not actually interesting enough in himself. Maybe he's more insecure than he lets on.
I just think he's a brilliant frontperson, writer, singer (even dancer in an odd way). A great, great pop star. Beyond that there doesn't seem to be much going on. Which is fascinating in a way, and fair enough.
He's not really gritty at all.
New Order Play at Home
Vintage Anthony H Wilson & Martin Hannett, some rare Alan Erasmus and some New order live thrown in for good measure.
The Power of Nightmares
Great. Scary, but great.
Adam Curtis makes first-class documentaries.
Not without controversy here I know
but I reckon this was years ahead of its time in some ways
Occupation 101...
this should be watched. A revealing and deeply moving documentary on the effects of Zionist policy in Palestine.
I Love Quincy Jones
The documentary of that name was broadcast around 1984 and is an insight into the world of the man who was then the top record producer in the world. A couple of clips here, one shows Quincy in the studio with Herbie Hancock, the other shows the part cocaine plays in the recording process.
That's fantastic
Don't you think this is a strong argument for a channel devoted to old documentaries? All these days of factual telly that never get shown again because somebody decides they're dated or they're looking for a topical hook. Why can't they just pour them forth in a never-ending stream?
re the last but one podcast
aren't we supposed to say at this point "just do it yourself ;-)
Seriously though, I for one would probably watch it, and I'd have thought it would be viable-however I notice that the market seems fragmented into the history, science, etc etc niches that one finds on satellite. I always remember millymollymandy's great line that the Sky+ was known as the Hitler Box in her house because of its endless supply of WW2 documentaries.
What seems to be lacking is the kind of quality threshold that would give one Curtis, Meades or [insert ones fave here].
There would seem to be a market
and as someone who is only now discovering (thanks to Patrick C) The Ascent of Man and its ilk, I would love to see a channel devoted to old Arenas or Omnibuses. Gathering the source material is a challenge, but not unsurmountable. However you are now competing with youtube and other forms of distribution, which comes back to a point DH has made elsewhere; that people are getting their information in different ways now and we spend far more time sat here in front of our computers than we do in front of the TV (well I do anyway).
Why not?
It amazes me how little any of the corporations exploit their own back catalogue. The one problem with youtube is you're watching someones grainy old VHS transfer, when ITV or BBC are sitting on a pristine copy in the vaults, or have even done a digital transfer to use in a future clip show or a 'new' documentary.
Music docs could be a problem though? On the Podcast with Mark Hagen he talked about the difficulties in clearing certain clips or the prohibitive cost of using a certain music track. I'm not sure if the same problems would be encountered if you were just wanting to repeat the entire show as originally broadcast?
Music and other clearances
were a big problem for Adam Curtis' work, e.g his comments here
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/4202741.stm
South bank Show
now that it is dead, why on earth not start repeating some of these programmes shown once and then gathering dust on a shelf? I'd love to see Costello's Making of Almost Blue SBS in all its glory
It seems the Arenas n Omnibuses only get screened as part of BBC4 theme nights.
More likely to happen this way I guess at the moment
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8551034.stm
though the Tony Palmer-directed ones are on DVD
http://www.systemrecords.co.uk/palmer-tony-south-bank-show-boxset-p-1019...
Can only find the trailer
but was greatly taken with this after a recommendation on this site:
also don't forget the Internet Archive, great source for Adam Curtis for example, has downloadable .ISO files for Pandora's Box as well as other formats.
http://www.archive.org/details/AdamCurtis_PandorasBox
this is a nice find too
unfortunately youtube is swamped by his bombastic namesake so not sure if there's anymore bits.
Some brilliant stuff so far. Here's a few more
Also if radio is your particular bag (Radio Caroline, Radio One, the pirate stations, local radio etc etc) you could do a lot worse than check out radprog's channel as he seems to have an *inordinate* amount of amazing rare radio documentaries from down the years: http://www.youtube.com/user/radprog
The Beyond Within
the story of LSD; how it escaped from Albert Hoffmann's lab, was used by the CIA on unwitting human guinea pigs and how, as Ken Kesey puts it: "the CIA turned on America".
This clip includes the controlled experiment involving British MP Christopher Mayhew. Fascinating
Briiliantly parodied
about 52 seconds in here, unless I am very much mistaken
Louis Theroux
I'm not sure if this really counts as documentary but I loved Louis Theroux's method of extracting the truth from the most extreme characters. This is one of many highlights, no ordinary interviewer could have achieved this.
this is a interesting jazztastic curio
Cor..
What a bit of kit the Lightning was. Two sodding great jet engines with a couple of wings, a tailplane and a cockpit bolted to them. An interceptor in the truest sense, meant to climb incredibly quickly to intercept Soviet bombers, no-one really knows how fast it could go because it would keep accellerating until it fell to bits. My mate Dave's dad flew one a couple of times and he said it was the most exhilarating and terrifying experience of his life. Standing it on the tailpipe and accelerating vertically.. whoo.. As a lad, I saw one take off at full afterburner at Farnborough in the early 70's. Scared the crap out of me.
Jimmy and Louis
Talk about shattering your childhood dreams...
The Duchess....
Keeps all her old clothes in the wardrobe and gets them dry cleaned ever year does Jim'll. Nothing wrong in that...
phew rock'n'roll!
Jonathan Ross' finest hour
I love this
Five hour doc. on making a jet.
Boring? Not to me, I lapped it up.
Also: Music! a slightly worthy impressionistic doc. that includes HJH's doing HJ, Tony Blackburn and a scattering of Radiophonics. And Clifford Curzon.
From Metafilter.
The XTC Play at Home
episode is wonderful but not on Youtube
so here is their own mini documentary history of the band
XTC
I remember a documentary on XTC recording, I think, Towers of London. Set in a nice country recording studio (Manor, in Oxford?) Gace the young me an insight into recording a pop song. Can't find it on You Tube though.
I remember that too
It was made by the BBC for their 'Rock Week' in 1980.
Saw it and never forgot it. Never seen it since.
That Rock Week also included a showing of 'Cream's Farewell Concert' filmed at the Albert Hall in 1968. I remember I was looking forward to it and being incredibly disappointed. It's a terribly directed thing. All fast edits, far-too close ups and whooshing about. Typical 60's 'happenin'' bollocks.
XTC at the Manor
I have it on boot DVD but you can get it here I think
http://xtc4u.org/xtc_atthemanor_1980.html
Man, you guys are good
Have an up arrow.
Seconded or thirded
I too have happy memories of this programme, with Steve Lilywhite producing at the Manor. As said above, a fascinating insight into the process of recording, and an inspiration to a young musician like me (as I was then...!)
I have this on
VHS but I found it on YouTube.
Good 50 minute interview with Martin Scorsese in 1997.
I also have the 1998 Brian De Palma Scene By Scene interview which is even better. I copied it onto DVD and I tried to stick it on YouTube but it's way too complicated and complex for me. It's a shame as I think a few thousand people would find it very interesting.
Also this doc about the art world in the credit crunch is worth watching while it's still up on iPlayer.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00r5ylr/The_Man_with_the_Golden_Ga...
Yeah the De Palma one was ace
Also the David Lynch one.
I think Cousins is *brilliant* in these Scene By Scenes, knows his stuff and gets away with murder i think in the questions he asks.
Have you seen this LOUDspeaker? Might be just up your street if you like Da movies an that:
I'll have a look at it later.
I recommend this book on the subject. Well worth reading.
Final Cut: Dreams and Disaster in the Making of "Heaven's Gate"
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Final-Cut-Disaster-Heavens-Pimlico/dp/0712662723...
I watched the full doc.
Interesting doc.
I watched the first 45 minutes of the long cut of Heaven's Gate many years ago. A really boring film. I think it's visually really ugly and oppressive in its camera work and sepia lighting. On a shot by shot basis it might look okay but after five minutes it beats you down. Just a really boring story very poorly filmed. Audience poison. I wonder how many people have got to the end?
Well thanks for that!
I promised myself that I would get more work done today and then this subject comes up with the potential for using up hours and hours of my time....
If you havent seen it
this is a corker.
"A is for Autism"
This film "lasts exactly eleven minutes", according to Tim Webb, the autistic teenager who made it.
As a "neurotypical" I'm perhaps not the best judge, but I reckon "A is for Autism" is the best attempt yet to evoke and describe the autistic experience:
new
Thanks for this Nick .As the parent of an autistic child it has given me an insight into how her mind works
...
I'm so glad you found it useful. You probably already have access to information but if I can help in any way let me know. (I teach children with autism and other special needs.)
Brilliant!
Thanks
death in jonestown
On restricted cinema release a few years ago, this film about Jim Jones and the People's Temple is probaby the most searing examination of naked evil masquerading as religion I've seen in years. This is only part one, the rest is on youtube.
Terrified me when I saw that!
It's sadly fascinating.
I have a DVD of these
films about London from the 1960's but this is my favourite. Mr Sidney James takes you to Portobello Road
also 'Heavy Petting' a 1980's documentary that has various intellectual artist types talking about their first sexual memories intercut with government sex ed films.
http://www.heavypetting.com/index.php
and Ozzy makes breakfast in Decline Of Western Civilisation Pt II: The Metal Years
"Do you have a more stable life now?"
"No."
I love Ozzy.
I love Ozzy too
He's a gem!
John Pilger's 'Stealing a Nation'...
is an indictment of the UK and USA's atrocious behaviour in uprooting the people of Diego Garcia (the largest island in the Chagos archipelago) to make space for a shiny new airforce base. This crime took place in 1971 and the effects are still being felt by those forced to leave their homeland.
In my opinion almost any documentary made by Pilger is necessary viewing.
I think we may have just created the best telly channel
on earth.
'The Iron Wall'...
a film concerning the hideous affront to humanity otherwise known as the 'security' (or more accurately, separation) wall in Israel.
I took these photos of a section of the wall in Bethlehem.
Seeing it reduced me to tears, and I'm not ashamed to say it. What I am ashamed of is the fact that any supposedly 'civilized' country could permit such a monstrosity to be constructed in the first place...
"We Are Together"
This is only the trailer, unfortunately.
"We Are Together" is a UK documentary about the Agape AIDS orphanage in South Africa, a place where music and singing helps people through the worst imaginable situations. Extremely moving and well worth a look:
http://wearetogether.org/
Really, you can't beat this
Never shown, an amazing document of the times. Tons of it all over Youtube...
The Rock N Roll war
Dear America : Letters home from Vietnam. Brilliant and moving documentary, although you feel a bit guilty for enjoying the War scenes accompanied by Gimme shelter.
I know I'm way down the page...
but having just watched the whole Quo Doc,aren't fans strange & wonderful & essential.As seemingly mad as they are,how similar the band & the fans really are.Their devotion to each other is extraordinary.What would happen I wonder if Rick Rubin decided that it was time for the Quo to be exalted?
Scratch Documentary
Probably not for everyone on here but fantastically interesting.
This was repeated a couple of years back
an Arena about Kendo Nagasaki
featuring a star turn by his manager (reminisent of Terry Norton from 'Knowing me Knowing You') climaxing in a silent interview with Kendo at night in a multistory car park
This is funny, touching and irreverant all at the same time from the excellent 'Life Of Python' doc
yeah that Graham Chapman memorial service clip is brilliant
(sniff) but sad.
Have we had this yet?
Tricky documentary. Most memorable for the revelations of his uncle.
As usual...
The rest is on the 'tube.
Slap
This is sad and funny, featuring the late Alan Murphy, great guitarist.
"Encounters at the End of the World" (2007)
Werner Herzog visits Antarctica. He explores the landscape and the wildlife, and meets the slightly odd scientists who work there.
In 11 parts:
"Grizzly Man" (2005)
Richard Thompson soundtrack alert!
Werner Herzog again, showing us the life (and footage) of grizzly bear enthusiast Timothy Treadwell. The true tale of a descent into obsession, delusion and madness. In 11 parts:
Talking of which
yeah they were probably aiming for Kermode but as Werner says 'it is not a significant bullet'
It Was Twenty Years Ago Today
1980's Beatles doc.