Luminous Landscape Forum
The Art of Photography => Discussing Photographic Styles => Topic started by: Quintin Lake on September 03, 2010, 11:08:52 am
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It sees to me that fact is often stranger than fiction when it comes to photography and there are some really good documentary movies on photographers in the last few years. Here's my list of what I consider to be the 10 best documentary movies about photography (http://blog.quintinlake.com/2010/09/03/10-best-documentary-films-about-photography/) at the moment. I'd welcome any additions you think are missing.
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Thanks for the list. Some of those titles (and more) are also available to Netflix subscribers in the States. The page is well hidden, behind: Browse DVDs>Genres>Special Interests>Art & Design>Photography (pheeew). Or you can simply click on this link: http://movies.netflix.com/SubGenre?pgid=2416&sgid=2236&pn=1 (http://movies.netflix.com/SubGenre?pgid=2416&sgid=2236&pn=1)
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Didn't know there was a film to accompany Burtynsky's Manufactured Landscape series.
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Slobodan, Thanks very much. I've been a Netflix subscriber since they started up and I've never known this. I just added HCB to the top of the que.
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Great list, Quintin. Thanks! Several of these films are available on zip.ca for Canadians.
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There is a point during that Peter Beard doco where I feel embarrassed for all races involved. Love the Eggleston doco.
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@ Slobodan: thanks for pointing out the netflix page, shame we don't have this service here in the UK
@ BobFisher: neither did I till a few weeks ago, it was particularly interesting to see Burtynsky making the images on location and then seeing the final print of that moment
@ Peter: glad you like it
@ DarkPenguin: I still haven't seen Scrapbooks from Africa but I can image the cringe worthy moments
For any completist nerds like me I've seen a healthy discussion about movies with photographers (including documentaries) over at lightstalkers since creating this post: http://www.lightstalkers.org/posts/movies-about-photographers (http://www.lightstalkers.org/posts/movies-about-photographers)
The assembled list from lightstalkers is below which compliments my finds ...I never know there were so many!
Films:
City of God (Fernando Meirelles, Kátia Lund).
Salvador (Oliver Stone).
Blow-up (Micheangelo Antonioni).
The killing fields (Roland Joffé).
Under fire (Roger Spottiswoode)
Pecker (John Waters).
The Year of Living Dangerously (Peter Weir).
Shooting Robert King (Richard Parry).
Born into Brothels (Ross Kauffman, Zana Briski).
Frankie’s House (Peter Fisk).
The Photographer (Jeremy Stein).
The knife (A grande Arte) (Walter Selles).
Triage (Danis Tanovic).
The public eye (Howard Franklin).
Positive (Farhan Akhtar).
Girl in a mirror (Kathy Drayton).
Palermo Shooting (Win Wenders).
Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus (Steven Shainberg).
In my father’s den (Brad McGann).
Eyes of Laura Mars (Irvin Kershner).
High Art (Lisa Cholodenko).
Documentaries::
War Photographer (James Nachtwey).
Strand, Under the Dark Cloth (John Walker).
The September issue (RJ Cutler).
The Death of Kevin Carter: Casualty of the Bang Bang Club (Dan Kraus).
The Bang Bang Club (Steven Silver).
La vida loca (Christian Poveda).
Contacts, Vol. 1: The Great Tradition of Photojournalism (Various)
Contacts, Vol. 2: The Renewal of Contemporary Photography (Various)
Contacts, Vol. 3: Conceptual Photography (Various)
American masters. Annie Leibovitz: Life through a lens.
Robert Capa: in love an war (Anne Makepeace) .
Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Impassioned Eye (Heinz Butler).
Paisajes transformados (Jennifer Baichwal).
The genius of Photography.
La ciudad de los fotógrafos (Sebastián Moreno).
Stranger with a camera (Elizabeth Barret).
An unlikely weapon (Susan Morgan Cooper).
William Eggleston in the Real World (Michael Almereyda).
An American Journey: In Robert Frank’s Footsteps.
The Photographers Series: Debbie Fleming Caffery.
Berenice Abbott: A View of the 20th Century.
Tierney Gearon: The Mother Project.
The Decisive Moment (Henri Cartier-Bresson).
Pictures from a Revolution (Susan Meiselas).
Helmut Newton: Frames from the Edge.
Toward the Margin of Life (Cornell Capa).
The Adventure of Photography (Various).
Aaron Siskind.
What Remains: The Life and Work of Sally Mann.
American Masters – Richard Avedon: Darkness and Light.
Masters of Photography – Diane Arbus.
Photographer: Alfred Eisenstaedt.
Masters of Photography – André Kertesz.
W. Eugene Smith: Photography Made Difficult.
Masters of Photography – Edward Steichen.
American Masters – Alfred Stieglitz: The Eloquent Eye.
John Szarkowski: A Life in Photography.
Peter Beard: Scrapbooks From Africa & Beyond.
American Photography (Various). Half Past Autumn – The Life and Works of Gordon Parks.
National Geographic’s The Photographers (Various).
Ansel Adams – A Documentary Film.
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Not sure if these have been mentioned anywhere above, "Master Photographers" was a series aired by the BBC in 1983, here's the Youtube playlist -
http://www.youtube.com/user/Rangefindergeneral#g/p
Enjoy.
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Fascinating, Lightbox, thanks very much!
Rob C
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@ Slobodan: thanks for pointing out the netflix page, shame we don't have this service here in the UK
@ BobFisher: neither did I till a few weeks ago, it was particularly interesting to see Burtynsky making the images on location and then seeing the final print of that moment
@ Peter: glad you like it
@ DarkPenguin: I still haven't seen Scrapbooks from Africa but I can image the cringe worthy moments
For any completist nerds like me I've seen a healthy discussion about movies with photographers (including documentaries) over at lightstalkers since creating this post: http://www.lightstalkers.org/posts/movies-about-photographers (http://www.lightstalkers.org/posts/movies-about-photographers)
The assembled list from lightstalkers is below which compliments my finds ...I never know there were so many!
Films:
City of God (Fernando Meirelles, Kátia Lund).
Salvador (Oliver Stone).
Blow-up (Micheangelo Antonioni).
The killing fields (Roland Joffé).
Under fire (Roger Spottiswoode)
Pecker (John Waters).
The Year of Living Dangerously (Peter Weir).
Shooting Robert King (Richard Parry).
Born into Brothels (Ross Kauffman, Zana Briski).
Frankie’s House (Peter Fisk).
The Photographer (Jeremy Stein).
The knife (A grande Arte) (Walter Selles).
Triage (Danis Tanovic).
The public eye (Howard Franklin).
Positive (Farhan Akhtar).
Girl in a mirror (Kathy Drayton).
Palermo Shooting (Win Wenders).
Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus (Steven Shainberg).
In my father’s den (Brad McGann).
Eyes of Laura Mars (Irvin Kershner).
High Art (Lisa Cholodenko).
Documentaries::
War Photographer (James Nachtwey).
Strand, Under the Dark Cloth (John Walker).
The September issue (RJ Cutler).
The Death of Kevin Carter: Casualty of the Bang Bang Club (Dan Kraus).
The Bang Bang Club (Steven Silver).
La vida loca (Christian Poveda).
Contacts, Vol. 1: The Great Tradition of Photojournalism (Various)
Contacts, Vol. 2: The Renewal of Contemporary Photography (Various)
Contacts, Vol. 3: Conceptual Photography (Various)
American masters. Annie Leibovitz: Life through a lens.
Robert Capa: in love an war (Anne Makepeace) .
Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Impassioned Eye (Heinz Butler).
Paisajes transformados (Jennifer Baichwal).
The genius of Photography.
La ciudad de los fotógrafos (Sebastián Moreno).
Stranger with a camera (Elizabeth Barret).
An unlikely weapon (Susan Morgan Cooper).
William Eggleston in the Real World (Michael Almereyda).
An American Journey: In Robert Frank’s Footsteps.
The Photographers Series: Debbie Fleming Caffery.
Berenice Abbott: A View of the 20th Century.
Tierney Gearon: The Mother Project.
The Decisive Moment (Henri Cartier-Bresson).
Pictures from a Revolution (Susan Meiselas).
Helmut Newton: Frames from the Edge.
Toward the Margin of Life (Cornell Capa).
The Adventure of Photography (Various).
Aaron Siskind.
What Remains: The Life and Work of Sally Mann.
American Masters – Richard Avedon: Darkness and Light.
Masters of Photography – Diane Arbus.
Photographer: Alfred Eisenstaedt.
Masters of Photography – André Kertesz.
W. Eugene Smith: Photography Made Difficult.
Masters of Photography – Edward Steichen.
American Masters – Alfred Stieglitz: The Eloquent Eye.
John Szarkowski: A Life in Photography.
Peter Beard: Scrapbooks From Africa & Beyond.
American Photography (Various). Half Past Autumn – The Life and Works of Gordon Parks.
National Geographic’s The Photographers (Various).
Ansel Adams – A Documentary Film.
Don't forget the Hitchcock classic Rear Window, with Jimmy Stewart.
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Huge list of interesting conversations, but the problem is finding videos to watch. Reading is a poor second-best when it comes to photography.
Perhaps that will be one of the new great leaps forward: online documentaries at your request!
Rob C
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Daido Moriyama - Stray Dog Of Tokyo
A great 90 min documentary
http://www.scifijapan.com/articles/2010/01/13/daido-moriyama-stray-dog-of-tokyo-documentary-from-viz-pictures/
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A couple others that I enjoyed.
Sally Mann - What Remains
Trent Parke - Dreamlives
William Klein - Out Of Nessesity
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@ PhillyPhotographer thanks for the info. Online I found Trent Park Dream lives here http://vimeo.com/6831560 and a trailer for William Klein - Out Of Necessity here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4wieOa_Kog and Stray dog of tokyo trailer here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZxLA02ZfA0
I found some real goodies "Visions and Images, American Photographers on Photography " 1980's interviews with:
Elliot Erwitt
Garry Winogrand
Cornell Capa, Burk Uzzle
Joel Meyerowitz
Horst P Horst
Frederick Sommer
Harry Callahan
Duane Michals
Barbara Morgan
Arnold Newman
digitised by Duke university full length all on youtube here:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=visions+and+images+DukeLibDigitalColl+&aq=f
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The art 21 series also has a handful of photographers. A worthwhile series in general.
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There is a doc called "worldartstar" about Miroslav Tichy wich can really teach you a lot about the art world :)
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"Visions of Light" is a fantastic documentary about cinematography.
Although it is devoted to moving pictures, there is still plenty of meat in it for still photographers.
I have found that the documentaries of Manufactured Landscapes and William Eggleston in the Real World were not very revealing about the photographers, their work, or their craft. They just kind of follow the photographers around while they make some photos. I find it much more instructive to look through the actual photographs made by these gentlemen.
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Showing now !!!!
http://www.zeitgeistfilms.com/billcunninghamnewyork/
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A few more that I didn't see listed:
"Ron Haviv - Freelance in a World at Risk". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6jn-T74inE (Full)
Similar to War Photographer but with less production polish. National Geographic documentary.
Lomo Documentary "The Lomo Camera-Shoot from the Hip." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pd-fufbjeo0 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pd-fufbjeo0) (Part 1 Full)
BBC documentary.
"At Close Range" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0SgFMN1NjU (Trailer)
PBS documentary on National Geographic photographer Joel Sartore.
"Vietnam's Unseen War-Pictures from the Other Side" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZcxwtKp7BM (Full)
National Geographic documentary.
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Last Friday night free-to-air telly here in Oz screened (again) "The Eloquent Nude" which is a 60 minute interview doco with Charis Wilson-Weston which gave great insight into the working relationship between these two abundantly creative minds. A lot of the material centred around their Guggenheim project, "California and the West". I have a second edition copy of the book they produced and her writing is as crafted and wonderful as EW's images.
Cheers,
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Yousuf Karsh is one of Canada's and the world's premiere portrait photographer of the rich and famous. A 50 minute documentary was produced recently of which I will give one clip, I notice more clips on the side of this youtube, it is a good documentary:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYxgxoKIL3g
And I think you will like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQq2kAPDNA8&feature=related
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Great stuff. I love it when Morley Safer asks the usual stupid question: something to the effect of "Are you trying to find your subject's inner person?" and Karsh says, "No, I'm just trying to get them to shut up so I can get on with my work." Now there's a photographer after my own heart.
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The second link was something of a let down.
Ooops!
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check out http://www.documentaryjungle.com/ they seem to have quite a bit in their art and artists section