The Story of Documentary Film (The 1970s)
(UK, 119 min.)
Dir. Mark Cousins
Prod. John Archer
Programme: Cannes Classics
When last we left Mark Cousins’ most recent project chronicling the long history of non-fiction film, he had barely made it past cinema’s formative decades. As noted in POV’s review of chapter one of The Story of Documentary Film at Sundance [parts two through four debuted at Berlin], the formal connection between Cousins’ usual shtick of layering snippets of film history through montage and his choice to focus on documentary in this project seems to be his most perfect blend so far. His commentary and the collision between disparate works benefit far more when he connects subjects with clear focus instead of making narrative jumps from fictional work to fictional work. This concentration provides a more engaging and less chaotic journey through cinema history by looking at documentary.
We’ve skipped a number of substantive chapters to get to the 1970s, and Cousins alludes to the likes of Gimme Shelter’s Altamont sequence when discussing how documentary can capture of moments of tragedy, as the film inadvertently captures a fatal stabbing by a Hell’s Angels biker close to the stage. However, save for the ubiquitous inclusion of Barbara Kopple’s seminal Harlan County U.S.A., Cousins spends most of his time with his gaze outside North America.
The titles of the two chapters screened at Cannes, “Pathfinders” and “Everywhere,” speak to both the expansion of the documentary form during this period, but also the explosion of differing locales where the technology allowed stories by resident filmmakers to transcend the restrictions formerly keeping them from participating in dialogue afforded by cinema.
Much of that time is spent in Japan, where a wave of socially conscious docs illustrated how tenacious filmmakers could stay on a story with far more resilience than journalists, as films provided years-long witness to movements and protests. The various social currents, especially environmental and economic causes, occupy much of these projects, while the burgeoning social change of the 1960s’ saw its expansion throughout the following decade, with many of the films of the era reflecting these interests overtly.
The decade also saw far more insular but no less radical titles, including Ed Pincus’ radical Diaries 1971-76, where the salaciousness and sordidness of reality TV saw its progenitor in far more revealing fashion. One clip shows the filmmaker carrying his sound equipment to a loft to capture the moment he engaged in coitus with his lover while his partner was in another room. Exploding the very notion of what it was to be a personal documentary while breaking down the barriers between subject and filmmaker, it’s obvious why Cousins highlights this film, shot in the ’70s but completed and released in the early ’80s, above many others.
There’s a welcome inclusion of a cherished film from the decade, Orson Welles’ magnificent F for Fake. This sequence exemplifies this playful interplay between subject and storyteller, as the film itself an exercise in post-modern irony with subterfuge part of its very title. Meanwhile, the likes of, say, Martin Scorsese’s The Last Waltz doesn’t receive a mention (with similar projects clearly covered in early chapters), nor does Cousins include populist fare like Moonwalk One, or the deeply compelling World at War series narrated by Laurence Olivier. In fact, the explosion of TV documentaries during the decade, and the intrinsic connection between what was told on the news versus in long-form considerations, revealed that filmmakers were finding fuller pictures as they embraced the big screen for their so-called small stories, although Cousins could have covered this point elsewhere in the series.
Among the many pithy comments that Cousins provides are aphorisms that feel at once profound and prosaic. “Where there are debates, there are documentaries,” he intones at one point. He illustrates deep political debate often has cameras in tow to record the events for eventual analysis, celebration, or even simply to make sense of chaos afterwards. There’s plenty of righteous outrage on display throughout, with statements like, “Tyranny is the word, We can wince at its excesses.” Such words speak to how, in Cousins’ telling, documentary can play an intrinsic role in fostering freedom and rebelling against complacency and flattery.
This jump from the early period right through to the 1970s is not ideal, of course, and it’s quite frustrating for this far more linear viewer to have missed out on the connective tissues of what’s obviously a long-form argument by Cousins, although seeing it this way seems by design with episodes premiering in isolation at festivals worldwide. Still, the exploration is no less astonishing, and the variety of titles, the vast majority of which are likely unknown to the many viewers, provides exactly the kind of thrilling discovery and expansion of the horizons of documentary that such a massive project promises at its core.
The Story of Documentary continues to be a thrilling one, even when experienced in spurts. I look forward to filling in the gaps, but also to diving deeply into the many titles that are highlighted, namely those that seem in desperate need of rediscovery. The ideological push to highlight the lesser known is, of course, endemic to Cousins’ process, but in the case of these non-fiction titles, the feeling remains that this isn’t simply about expanding the so-called canon, but truly allowing those voices that are often skipped over to be amplified and applauded. It’s a project of astonishing scope with just enough hubris and obnoxiousness to keep it entertaining. The story becomes ever more global, ever more resonant, and ever more remarkable as it continues its journey.
