For his post, I originally intended to list only films I’d actually seen, which are the first eleven title below.  Normally I’d say that’s how you ought to do it, but when I started reading up about some of the ones I hadn’t seen for whatever reasons, I felt I the need to include them as additional titles. Those five films are at the end of this post. I plan to see the ones available for streaming, but for now I’ve just got my fingers crossed that they’re as good as I’ve heard. I’m sure there are many other docs from last year that I don’t even know about. Well, what can you do?

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Eno (Gary Hustwit, director)  Brian Eno is a genius, musically and otherwise. If you read his interviews or listen to him speak,  you know his brain is wired up in ways that elude most of us. This film is unique, a “generative” documentary that changes each time it’s shown. I don’t understand how it works, but it does. I saw it at Film Forum three times on separate days. Some scenes didn’t change, but enough did to keep it interesting. I don’t know how they’ll handle a streaming or home video version. Seems like they’ll have to pick one version out of the near infinity of possible combinations. But to the extent that any iteration let’s you inside Eno’s head, it will be interesting. The two trailers below are different enough that I think it’s worth seeing both.

Not yet available for streaming.

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Film Geek (Richard Shepard, director & writer)  This deep dive into Richard Shepard’s life as a hopeless film geek growing up in New York City’s movie houses in the 1980s is a real trip and a treat for fellow film geeks such as myself. His belief that Brian De Palma’s Dressed to Kill (1980) is a great film is inexplicable to me, but other than that, I was with him all the way. This is a very personal account. The way he describes his relationship with his rather shady father is quite moving at times.

Not yet available for streaming.

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How to Come Alive with Norman Mailer (Jeff Zimbalist, director & co-writer)  Excellent study of the controversial, larger-than-life author who, like Ernest Hemingway, was a personality in his own right. An often brilliant writer, Mailer had a take-no-prisoners approach in his public life. He could be appalling and charming, often at the same time. He wanted to be taken seriously, yet often played the clown. This film gives us examples of all this, while becoming quite moving by the end.

Available for streaming on Prime.

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Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger (David Hinton, director)  Excellent documentary about the great filmmaking team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, narrated by the always enthusiastic Martin Scorsese. This is an excellent account of their lives and films. I learned a lot. One of the best things about it is that it makes you want to see these films again.

Available for streaming on Prime.

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Merchant Ivory (Stephen Soucy, director & co-writer)  This would make a great double feature with Made in England. As with Powell and Pressburger, we learn a great deal about James Ivory and Ismail Merchant, and the 44 films they made together from 1961 until Merchant’s death in 2005. It makes me want to see their films again, too, included the many I hadn’t been aware of.

Available for streaming on Prime.

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On the Adamant (Nicolas Philibert, director & co-writer)

Edited from Jordan Mintzer’s review in The Hollywood Reporter:

“The observant documentaries of Nicolas Philibert often focus on either a single character or location — the latter usually a French public institution — exploring them with painstaking detail and plenty of compassion.

“For his eleventh feature, On the Adamant (Sur l’Adamant), the 72-year-old filmmaker spent months aboard a barge anchored on the Seine in Paris, chronicling a mental health care facility that caters specifically to its patients’ creative needs. What emerges is not only a depiction of psychiatric treatment administered with plenty of warmth and enthusiasm, but a portrait of several individuals who, despite their noticeable disabilities, are capable of producing original and moving works of art.

“Like Frederick Wiseman, Philibert never provides voiceover or explanatory titles in his movies, and rarely do they feature interviews (though his latest includes a few talks with patients). They are more like discreet immersive experiences, and therefore the opposite of the shock-and-awe docs currently popular on Netflix and other streamers.”

Available for streaming on Kino Film Collection and rental on Prime.

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Soundtrack to a Coup D’Etat (Johan Grimonprrez, director & writer)  This is my pick for the best documentary of those I saw last year. It’s a history lesson that plays like a jam session. The ideas and detail ricochet off the screen. You’ve got to pay attention.  I’ve included as many quotes as I have because I hope to at least partially suggest the importance and depth of this film, and give you a sense of it. Don’t be mistaken, this is not a music documentary, though the music here is wonderful.

Oscar nomination for Best Documentary.

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Per the IMDb description: “Jazz and decolonization are entwined in this historical rollercoaster that rewrites the Cold War episode that led musicians Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach to crash the UN Security Council in protest against the murder of Patrice Lumumba.”

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Per Alissa Wilkinson, New York Times: “In making Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat, the director Johan Grimonprez used every instrument cinema affords. His documentary is rhythmic and propulsive, with reverberating sound and images juxtaposed against one another to lend more meaning. The result, in a word, is marvelous.”

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PerWikipedia: “To retain control over the riches of what used to be the Belgian Cong, King Baudouin of Belgium finds an ally in the Eisenhower administration, which fears losing access to one of the world’s biggest known reserves of uranium, a metal vital for the creation of atomic bombs. Congo-Léopoldville takes center stage to both the Cold War and the scheme for control of the UN. The US State Department swings into action: jazz ambassador Louis Armstrong is dispatched to win the hearts and minds of Africa. Unwittingly, Armstrong becomes a smokescreen to divert attention from Africa’s first post-colonial coup, leading to the assassination of Congo’s first democratically elected leader. Malcolm X stands up in open support of Lumumba and his efforts to create a United States of Africa while also reframing the freedom struggle of African Americans as one not for civil rights but for human rights, aiming to bring his case before the UN.

“As Black jazz ambassadors are performing unaware amidst covert CIA operatives, the likes of Armstrong, Nina Simone, Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, and Melba Liston face a painful dilemma: how to represent a country where segregation is still the law of the land.”

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Per Phil Concannon, Little White Lies: “To make moves in Africa, the Americans needed a smokescreen, and the most fascinating strand of Grimonprez’s film shows how many of the greatest jazz musicians of the era – Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Nina Simone, et al – were often used as unwitting stooges in CIA operations. …This musical angle ensures the film bounces along to a vibrant, eclectic score, but it also helps Grimonprez organise and structure the enormous wealth of archive footage, soundbites and quotations that that he uses to tell this complex story.

“…Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat is as exhilarating and illuminating a history lesson as you’ll ever have.”

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P.S. There are several clips in the film of Malcolm X speaking to the camera. I must have never heard him actually speak before, because I was stunned by the clarity and persuasiveness of what he said, and his incredible charisma. Just another way Soundtrack to a Coup D’Etat gives the audience electric jolts.

Available for streaming on Kino Film Collection and rental on Prime.

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Steve! (Martin): A Documentary in 2 Pieces (Morgan Neville, director)  Morgan Neville has made many films, including 20 Feet from Stardom (2013), The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble (2015), Won’t You Be My Neighbor (2018), and Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain (2021). This one is simply wonderful, a total gas. Part 1 is Steve Martin then, part 2 is Steve Martin now. Part 2 includes a lot of Martin Short. He and Steve seem like a really weird married couple. But it’s great to go back and remember where he came from as he became “Steve Martin,” a wild and crazy guy. I’d forgotten that for a time he was about as big as you could get, rock star famous filling huge arenas. It’s fascinating to see how he evolved over the years, always maintaining a high level of creativity and freshness, always on his own terms. Which is what Neville has done in working with obviously a huge amount of material, archival and new.

Available for streaming on Apple TV+.

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 Sugarcane at Film Forum. (Directors: Emily Kassie, Julian Brave Noisecat) Per Wikipedia, this film “…follows an investigation into the Canadian Indian Residential School System, igniting a reckoning in the lives of survivors and descendants.” It’s a tragic story of a search for truth and accountability.

Oscar nomination for Best Documentary.

Available for streaming on Hulu.

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Uncropped (D.W. Young, director) I love this film. I’d been seeing James Hamilton’s photos in the Village Voice since I moved here in 1977, but didn’t know who he was. It’s great to see the person behind that work and get to a sense of him. Uncropped really took me back to that time in the city. He’d covered war zones and civil unrest in Central American countries, Haiti, Grenada, and Tiananmen Square, but his main focus was the film, art, and music scene in New York City in the ’70s and ’80s. Always nice to see artists at work.

Available for streaming on Prime.

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Will & Harper (Josh Greenbaum, director)  Will Ferrell met Harper Steele on his first day at Saturday Night Live in 1995, where Harper was a writer. They connected and havebeen good friends for 30 years. When Harper told Will he had transitioned to female gender, they decided to take a 17-day road trip across America to talk about it.  And film the journey while they were at it. The result is very funny, as you’d expect, but also serious and touching.

Available for streaming on Netflix.

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Below are five additional documentaries that I haven’t seen as yet.

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Black Box Diaries (Shiori Ito, director & writer)  Oscar nomination for Best Documentary.

Available for streaming on Paramount+.

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 No Other Land. (Yuval Abraham, Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, directors)  Oscar nomination for Best Documentary.

Not yet available for streaming, but currently showing at Film Forum in NYC.

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 Porcelain War (Brendan Bellomo, Slava Leontyev, directors)  Oscar nomination for Best Documentary.

Not yet available for streaming, but currently showing at Quad Cinema in NYC.

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 To Kill a Tiger (Nisha Pahuja, director & writer)

Available for streaming on Netflix.

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 20 Days in Mariupol (Mstyslav Chernov, director & writer

Available for streaming on YouTube and rental on Prime.

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Supplemental materials for some of the films in this post will be up in a day or so. See you then. — Ted Hicks

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