We’re in a ‘golden age’ of documentaries
NEW YORK — You’re on the couch. It’s been a long day. The remote control is in your hand. What can you watch?
There’s that new CNN documentary series on the Pope. Or maybe you’re more in the mood for some sinners in “Girls Incarcerated” on Netflix?
Keep scrolling? Sure. How about the A&E series on adults returning to high school in “Undercover High?” What about some Frank Sinatra on HBO?
If you’re looking for documentaries these days, they’re hard to miss. Once considered more medicinal than entertaining, and consigned to highbrow places such as PBS and art-house theatres, documentaries are scattered across the film and TV spectrum, as well as online portals and on video streaming apps. Even mighty NBC is getting in on the act with a documentary on Martin Luther King Jr. that aired Saturday night.
“It feels like the golden age of documentary right now,” says Josh Koury, a professor at Pratt Institute and a documentary filmmaker.
Showtime has also increased its output of documentaries, said Vinnie Malhotra, head of documentary programming for the network. He marvels at how much the landscape has changed from 15 years ago when docs were independently financed and had limited releases.
“There are more outlets for documentary than there ever have been before,” he said. “There’s a lot of money being fuelled into the documentary industry from newer platforms.”
No wonder recent documentaries have lately found themselves at the centre of popular culture, including Ava DuVernay’s “13” on the American prison system, the Oscar-winning “O.J.: Made in America,” “The Jinx about Robert Durst,” and “Blackfish,” about the treatment of orcas. Netflix scored its first Oscar this year with the doc “Icarus.”
Award-winning filmmaker Darren Aronofsky has been lured to the genre, executiveproducing National Geographic’s 10-episode “One Strange Rock” about planet Earth (premièring Wednesday at 10 p.m. on NatGeo Canada).
Many thank Sheila Nevins for bringing documentaries into mainstream popular culture during her 38-year tenure at
HBO. It was Nevins, president of HBO Documentary Films from 2004 until this year, who shook up the staid format — usually nature shows or archive footage explained by experts — with such lurid shows as “Taxicab Confessions” and “Real Sex.”
“When I arrived at HBO, docs were considered a highbrow thing. That never interested me. I didn’t care about the life of the university professor. I care about his doorman,” she says.
Under Nevins’ watch, HBO pumped out more than 1,200 documentaries, most recently with such films as the Scientology investigation “Going Clear” and the Oscar-winning “Citizenfour,” about Edward Snowden. HBO once tried to hide its offerings as “docutainment.” Now it proudly has a documentary tab on its home page.
Nevins credits the new interest to technology but also reality TV shows such as “Big Brother” for championing the lives of noncelebrities. “It’s the democratization of documentaries; the spotlight is on regular people and the struggles everyone faces,” she says.