Some of the most significant revolutions in the history of film and video have been sparked by the appearance of small and inexpensive camera—new equipment that granted individuals access to “the means of production.” Cinéma Vérité in France and Direct Cinema in the United States emerged in the 1950’s and 60’s as lighter, smaller, and less obtrusive 16mm cameras became available. These movements created a new film vocabulary based upon handheld cinematography that revolutionized the non-fiction form. The now mythic Sony Portapak video camera, introduced in 1969, became the weapon of choice for
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CAROL SQUIERS Johnny Carson unerringly summed up the public mood about the war in the Persian Gulf two weeks after the ceasefire, when he had Pentagon's Operations Chief Lt. General Thomas Kelly as a guest on his talk show. Before asking the general about his impending retirement from the military, not to mention the war itself, Johnny showed a clip of Kelly bidding farewell to the Gulf press corps by mouthing platitudes about how important a free press is in a democracy. Like actors in film clips from other big-budget ventures, Kelly came off as supremely human, magnificently self-possessed
For professional videographers who have followed the rapid evolution of the 8mm format from its humble home-camcorder beginnings, it came as no surprise co hear that High-Band 8mm (or Hi8) recorders and decks were part of the gear packed by network news crews to furtively gather images of "naked aggression" in the Persian Gulf. There is now little doubt about the practicality or popularity of the 8mm format in the professional market, though manufacturers have repeatedly expressed legitimate worries about the proliferation of the Hi8 format and its possible cannibalization of professional
Almost every review I've seen of Stephanie Black's exceptionally moving 70- minute film concerning the labor abuses suffered by Jamaican men brought to Southern Florida to pick sugarcane, mentions the way the picture looks. This is fairly unusual for a new documentary, but particularly for one in which most of the footage was shot clandestinely. For her work on H-2 Worker, Maryse Alberti, the director of photography, was awarded the 1990 Sundance Film Festival Award for Best Cinematography. Access to the heavily guarded camps is severely restricted; after sneaking inside, Alberti was often
While many documentary makers struggle to create the illusion of objectivity in their films, Ross McElwee has celebrated the inevitable subjectivity of the form. He has experimented with a highly personal style of filmmaking, working as a one-person film crew and using his ideas and curiosity, his dry, ironic humor and even his libido as primary motivating forces within his films. His two-and-a-half-hour autobiographical epic, Sherman's March, which landed him offers from nearly every major studio after its release in 1986, is already considered an American classic. McElwee turned Hollywood
Paris Is Burning opens with a dramatic entrance by a magnificent creature named Pepper Labeija. Wearing immense puffs of gold lame, gloves up to her elbows, and a feather headdress, Pepper glides into a Harlem Elks lodge as though the place is her own special kingdom, and in a sense it is, since she is a legendary drag queen. She walks the floor amid a throng of admirers until the emcee of the event orders them to clear the floor. Sexy and defiant, she struts to a disco beat and blithely sheds her headdress and sleeves to reveal a somewhat more sedate ensemble. If the spectacle looks a bit
Barbara Kopple's success with American Dream in this year 's Sundance Film Festival documentary competition can only be described as a landslide victory. She won Best Filmmaker, the Audience Award, and shared Best Documentary with Jennie Livingston's Paris Is Burning. Five years in the making, and a million-dollar budget, American Dream follows the difficult decisions that workers and union leaders are forced to make in the one-company town of Austin, Minnesota when Hormel, a meat-packing company, drastically cuts its workers' wages. As an exploration of the effects of economic decline in
The lifting of certain restrictions in South Africa, namely the unbanning of anti-apartheid opponents, including the African National Congress, does not apply to visual material. To date this is still censored. The fists of the youths carrying the coffin punch the air as the they trot, chanting slogans, towards the police line. Left of frame, a news cameraman looms into view, backing off in front of the coffin-bearers. It is a familiar confrontation between militants in South Africa. We have seen it dozens of times before on the evening news— teargas, the shots, the screams of pain and rage
At the Mannheim International Film Week, non-fiction filmmakers don't have to feel like second-class citizens. Documentaries were well represented among the prize-winners at the 1989 festival, held from Oct. 2-7 in this mid-sized West German city. I was told that a seventeenth century ruler, inspired by the ideal of a rational order, gave central Mannheim its grid plan and a peculiar system of addresses: there are no street names, only ascending numbers and letters of the alphabet, which intersect. (For example, most screenings took place at P4, building 13, a modern multiplex cinema.) It made
If 16mm film production once seemed threatened to near extinction by small format video (and in news gathering, at least, this is indeed a fait accompli), three technical innovations promise to take the small format film robustly into the '90s. How does this sound for your next documentary: an inexpensive, well implemented film stock suitable for high-definition distribution, with machine readable code for easier posting, and digital stereo optical track? Like 16mm in the 1990's, perhaps. Not with standing already accomplished advances in 16mm film production—including Kodak 's tabular grain