This Week In Documentary
Theatrical & Streaming Releases - New & Recommended - March 15-21, 2024
Beware the Ides of March (and Substack being unexpectedly down), but embrace the documentaries of mid-month, as this week brings theatrical releases focused on much-missed performers like Ryuichi Sakamoto and Gene Wilder, plus home video selections involving such varied artists as Paul Simon, David Lynch, Stormy Daniels, Ron English, the makers of Fiddler on the Roof, and the photographers of National Geographic.
With St. Patrick’s Day arriving this Sunday, it’s a good time to highlight some documentaries focused on Ireland and the Irish. Some essentials that come to mind include Robert Flaherty’s Man of Aran (streaming on The Criterion Channel, Tubi, Plex, Shout! TV, and Amazon Freevee), the Sinead O’Connor film Nothing Compares (on Showtime via Paramount+), Julian Temple’s Crock of Gold: A Few Rounds with Shane MacGowan (Hulu and Kanopy), the boarding school doc School Life (Plex), the bare-knuckle boxing film Knuckle (VOD), and the historical doc Bobby Sands: 66 Days (VOD).
Below is our top documentary recommendation of the week followed by a handful of other highlights. As always, we then offer a guide to all the docs hitting theaters, streaming, and home video discs over the next seven days, available only to paid subscribers. Reach out to us if we missed anything or if you’d like something included in future editions of This Week in Documentary.
Nonfics Pick Of The Week: Photographer Season 1
Documentary series continue to dominate our interest here, as this week’s Pick of the Week is another multi-part offering. Unlike past highlights, this one is an anthology series where each episode tells a different story. Photographer is broken up into six installments showcasing seven remarkable artists in the field of photography. The first episode is directed by Oscar-winners Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi (Free Solo), who are also executive producers of the series, and follows another creative couple: marine biologists and photographers Paul Nicklen and Cristina Mittermeier.
The second installment, directed by Marshall Curry (Street Fight), is about the highly likable Anand Varma, who takes incredibly fascinating photographs of nature and is chronicled working on a time-lapse experiment involving chicken embryos. From there, the series also profiles Dan Winters, Campbell Addy, Krystle Wright, and two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Muhammed Muheisen.
These subjects’ work ranges from the scientific to the journalistic, from portraiture to action shots, and some of the episodes are more dynamic than others depending on the level of adventure sought by the photographers in their pursuit of thrills or activism. As with any great profile documentary, each installment of Photographer features interviews with its subject, a biographical backstory on how they came to work in their field, and some present narrative following their latest project.
There’s a bittersweet aspect to how many of them have worked for National Geographic, a magazine that has been downsizing tremendously as a print periodical lately. Hopefully, the series, which was made by and for National Geographic, paid them for access or at least will promote them and their work well enough to benefit them at a time when media is struggling and its contributors even more so.
The first two episodes of Photographer debut on National Geographic on Monday, March 18, with subsequent installments arriving each week. The series in its entirety begins streaming on Disney+ and Hulu starting on Tuesday, March 19.
Other Documentary Highlights
20 Days In Mariupol (2023) & The Last Repair Shop (2023)
Last Sunday, at the 96th Academy Awards, 20 Days in Mariupol and The Last Repair Shop received Oscars for Best Documentary Feature Film and Best Documentary Short Film, respectively. The former, a firsthand chronicle of part of the Russian invasion of Ukraine produced by Frontline, remains available to stream free online via the PBS website. The latter, a look at craftspersons who repair musical instruments for public school students, is streaming on Disney+ or also available free on YouTube via the Los Angeles Times. Not bad for films backed by platforms for journalism!
If you missed their wins at the Oscars, you should also check out their respective moments in the spotlight. Mstyslav Chernov, the director of 20 Days in Mariupol, gave one of the most memorable speeches of the night as he explained why he wished his film didn’t (have to) exist. When The Last Repair Shop won, directors Ben Proudfoot (now a two-time Oscar winner) and Kris Bowers were joined on stage by one of the participants in their film, 12-year-old Porchè Brinker, as they recognized the unsung heroes behind the scenes of music programs and the importance of music education.
Chisholm ‘72: Unbought & Unbossed (2004)
This 20-year-old documentary by Shola Lynch deserves a watch this weekend (it’s currently available on Prime Video, Ovid, and Kanopy), especially if you’re interested in checking out Regina King’s portrayal of Shirley Chisholm in the new Netflix biopic Shirley, which was just released in theaters ahead of its streaming debut next week. Chisholm ‘72: Unbought & Unbossed, which is also one of our favorite women’s history documentaries to watch this (or any) month, is about the titular congresswoman and her historical run for president.
The Dynasty: New England Patriots Episodes 9 & 10
This will be my final recommendation for this sports docuseries (at least for a while), as Apple has now released the last two installments. The Dynasty: New England Patriots episode 9, “Breaking Point,” and episode 10, “End Game,” wrap up the story by focusing on the continued tensions between Tom Brady and Bill Belichick, including a look at the latter’s disapproval of the former’s trainer, Alex Guerrero, and everything else that led to Brady’s departure from the team and the end of an era. In these episodes, Brady and Belichick have more interview moments where they remain silent about certain things, but owner Robert Kraft is as candid as ever. Overall, the series is an extraordinarily well-told history that surprisingly got me interested in football.
Lynch/Oz (2022)
Every film fan should be watching every documentary by Alexandre O. Philippe. He has tackled Star Wars fandom, analyzed parts of Alien and Psycho, and gone deep with William Friedkin on The Exorcist. In this feature, Philippe explores the work of David Lynch and how much it has been influenced by The Wizard of Oz. The documentary goes further, however, to dig into Lynch’s influence on other filmmakers and the impact of movies on children, among other tangents. It’s divided up into chapters narrated by critics like Amy Nicholson, filmmakers like John Waters and Karyn Kusama, and like-minded documentarian Rodney Ascher. Lynch/Oz is a new addition to the Criterion Collection, which is releasing a new DVD and Blu-ray of the film on Tuesday, March 19, including a new interview with Philippe.
Ryuichi Sakamoto: Opus (2023)
In my full review of Ryuichi Sakamoto: Opus, which went out in the newsletter this week, I noted that it “could only have been filmed while its subject was alive, and it could only have been released after he died.” That gives it a ghostly quality, but this “concert film” presenting the late composer Ryuichi Sakamoto’s final performance for an audience is a work of art itself. I found myself often paying more attention to the way it was shot than the way Sakamoto was playing.
Of course, the way it was shot was to best showcase Sakamoto’s performance as a visual experience as much as an aural one. Directed by the composer’s son, Neo Sora, ultimately the documentary is “as much Sora’s goodbye to his father as it is Sakamoto’s goodbye to his fans.” The documentary opens today in New York City and expands in the coming weeks. See the list of upcoming theatrical engagements around the U.S. through May here.
Documentary Release Calendar 3/15/24 - 3/21/24
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