the international documentaries association has a list of the top 25 documentaries in movie history. i usually think these "top film" lists are just a big crock. it's one of my pet peeves when something entirely subjective, like someone's list of favorite movies, is disguised as a list of some objective "best". but i have a particular affection for documentaries, so i can't help but put my usual disdain aside for this one.
i've seen 14 of the 25 on the list(and 8 of the top 10). not bad, but i'm embarrassed to admit that i haven't seen famous docs like harlan county, USA and koyaanisqatsi (as a labor lawyer the former is particularly embarrassing). on the other hand, some of the films on the list (like woodstock), i could care less if i never get around to seeing them.
it's also interesting what didn't make the list. a lot of the top 25 are recent, more than half came out in the past 5 years. but when i think of recent documentaries a whole lot of them--perhaps half of all the documentaries i have seen in the past 5 years--have been about the iraq war. but the only iraq war doc on the list is fahrenheit 9/11,1 and that's really only 1/2 of an iraq documentary (the film doesn't focus on the iraq war until the second half). also there really are a whole lot of better iraq docs than F9/11. no end in sight and iraq in fragments particularly stand out in my mind. and both, i think, are far stronger films.
i can also grumble about some of my personal favorites that aren't on the list: films like hands on hard body, fast, cheap and out of control and the corporation.
and finally, if i were writing the list, capturing the friedmans would definitely be #1. i'm glad it at least made the IDA's list, but whoever decided it should only be #17 must have been on crack. objectively speaking, of course.
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1- one could argue that the fog of war was made to say something about the iraq war, just as M.A.S.H. was really about vietnam even though it took place during the korean war. but the fact remains that "the fog of war" is a profile of robert mcnamara and focuses on his conduct during the vietnam war. any lessons to be drawn from that film doesn't change the subject matter of the film, which is clearly not iraq.
