The Greatest Book on the Documentary Film
Thanks to WVLC Library Services spending more than $500,
West Virginians have access to The Encyclopedia of Documentary Film, the most comprehensive book compiled to date on documentary films. As Hollywood films have collapsed as a result of vast overproducing and mindless bureaucrats, the documentary film has risen to the forefront. Many of the best films each year are documentaries, and many of the best film festivals focus on documentaries including the West Virginia Film Series at The South Charleston Museum and the Sutton-based West Virginia Filmmakers Film Festival.
If you want to learn more about the genre, this large print encyclopedia is a good place to start.
The encyclopedia includes more than 800 articles that cover documentary film from the beginning in 1885 up to Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11.”(2004) It also presents information on documentaries from around the world, not just the Anglo-American world. There are 300 stills and for once is printed with very legible size letters so even people over 50 can read it without a magnifying glass. When I first looked at the EDF, I visited the entry for my friend Les Blank. It is well written and presents a nice article by Melinda C. Levin of theUniversity of North Texas. It also includes a selected list of his films. Unfortunately, it lists only one “see also” entry – “Del Mero Corazon.” In fact, the EDF includes nice entries on Blank’s acknowledged two masterpieces, “Chulas Fronteras” ( chosen for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress and my own fav by Les) and “Burden of Dreams,” a British Oscar winning film that many consider to be the best film ever made about filmmaking itself. I made copies of the three entries and mailed them to Les so he could see what some people are writing about him. The EDF also has three entries about
West Virginia’s greatest filmmaker, Pare Lorentz. The three entries are on Mr. Lorentz himself and his two most famous films, “The Plow that Broke the Plains” and “The River.” I used the information for a program in January 2007 at The South Charleston Museum. Congressman Ken Hechler introduced “Plow” and the 2005 winner of The Pare Lorentz Award from the International Documentary Association, “America’s Lost Landscape: The Tallgrass Prairie” from Bullfrog Films was shown. Unfortunately, there is no entry for arguably the world’s most famous and productive media arts center, Appalshop of Whitesburg, KY for more than 35 years they have produced a library of award-winning, poignant documentaries that have influenced people around the world. There is nothing about them in the EDF. There is an entry for “Barbara Kopple” but none for “Harlan County, USA” which has to be ranked as one of the most influential of the post-WWII world. Oddly, the selected filmography only lists films of her up to 2001,”The Hamptons.” She has made three films since then. I enjoyed the entry on Luis Bunuel’s most famous documentary,” Land Without Bread” but there is no entry for Bunuel himself, certainly a great filmmaker not known for his documentaries but still worthy of a full entry. Dusan Makavejev, one of the most amazing filmmakers to move to America since WWII, has an entry but none of any of his films such as “WR: Mysteries of the Organism” and “Sweet Movie.” This is odd considering that one author writes,” [Yugoslavian documentary filmmakers] introduced a contemplative, philosophical, and cinematically thrilling approach in treating reality.” Michael Moore and Errol Morris, probably the most famous American documentary filmmakers presently, also have entries, but just amazingly “Fahrenheit9/11” is only a “see also” reference. There is an entry for Moore’s first major film,”Roger and Me” but “Bowling for Columbine” only gets a “see also” reference to
Moore’s entry – which is only two pages. Morris also gets only two pages plus one entry for “The Thin Blue Line,” and nothing for his Oscar winning, “The Fog of War.” Perhaps this shouldn’t surprise us when Robert Flaherty, the father of the American documentary film, only gets three pages.
