Docs Shine a Light on Dark Times
FROM CLEAR-EYED EXPOSES TO PLAYFUL EXPERIMENTS WITH FORM, NONFICTION FILMMAKERS ROSE TO THE CHALLENGES OF A STRANGER-THAN-FICTION YEAR
IT’S RARE TO KNOW for certain that the year one is currently living through will absolutely take up large real estate in future history textbooks, but 2020 is certainly one of those. From the COVID-19 pandemic to one of the most unruly presidential elections in American history, the past 12 months have been a near-ceaseless procession of climactic events, and the documentaries vying for Oscar attention largely fit the mood of our uneasy era.
It’s a testament to the work ethic and journalistic drive of nonfiction filmmakers that 2020 saw three documentaries released that deal directly with the pandemic: two from the Chinese perspective (“76 Days,” “Wuhan Wuhan”) and the other about the American government’s own botched response to the virus (“Totally Under Control”).
As for the election, the year did see at least one film, Dan Partland’s “#Unfit: The Psychology of Donald Trump,” which focused entirely on the outgoing president, but plenty of others explored issues in his orbit. “All In: The Fight for Democracy” centered on voting rights through the lens of Stacey Abrams’ enfranchisement efforts in the all-important state of Georgia. “The Fight” found relatably human heroes in the ACLU lawyers who battled some of the president’s more Draconian policies. Dawn Porter managed to release two features within the year that spotlighted two of Trump’s major political antagonists (“John Lewis: Good Trouble” and the Obama White House time capsule “The Way I See It”), while “I Am Greta” profiled yet another in teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg. The administration’s undoing of conservation efforts was given an eye-opening treatment in David Garret Byars’ “Public Trust.” And through “Boys State,” one could track with simmering dread the ways in which our era’s Machiavellian political cynicism has already trickled down to the next generation of aspiring leaders.
Meanwhile, pervasive institutional corruption was the theme of “Athlete A,” about the sexual assault scandal within U.S. Gymnastics, as well as the Romanian health-care shocker “Collective” and music industry reckoning “On the Record.” Risks posed to our social fabric by internet culture were given chilling treatments by “The Social Dilemma” and the Pepe the Frog doc “Feels Good Man.” And the gruesome murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was examined from two very different angles in “The Dissident” and “Kingdom of Silence.”
Of course, the year was not all horror and sickness. Something resembling normal life still went on throughout all the tumult, and there were plenty of nonfiction features that profiled major figures in our culture and entertainment, from athletes (“Red Penguins”) to musicians (“The Go-go’s,” “Crock of Gold,” “Miss Americana,” “The Velvet Underground,” “Beastie Boys Story”) and screen heroes (“Belushi,” “Be Water,” “Disclosure: Trans Lives on Screen,” “Mr. Soul!”).
Perhaps most encouragingly, there was a plethora of docs that managed to do what doc makers do best, and simply tell fascinating stories that were often beyond the imaginations of most fictionalists, from “The Painter and the Thief” to “The Mole Agent” and “My Psychedelic Love Story.” There was also room for visionary filmmakers to do imaginative work with the form. Kirsten Johnson made space for playfully postmodern fantasy as she reckoned with mortality in “Dick Johnson Is Dead.” Garrett Bradley twisted the chronology of home movies into a painterly portrayal of incarceration in “Time.” And master nonagenarian documaker Frederick Wiseman once again called our attention to the beauty and nuance of the everyday with “City Hall.”
“The documentaries vying for Oscar attention largely fit our uneasy era.”