The first of three rounds in the documentary feature judging has been completed, and in narrowing the contenders to 15, the Academy’s documentary screening committees have kicked a few big names out of the race.
Goodbye, Michael Moore. It’s a TKO, Mike Tyson. You won’t be winning a second Oscar this year, Davis Guggenheim. Your fairy-tale story isn’t getting this particular happy ending, Anvil.
The documentary committee is no stranger to controversy (remember “Hoop Dreams”?), but this year’s omissions aren’t going to stir up any grand talk of conspiracies. Gone are the days when the doc screening committee, made up of members whose only qualification was that they had lots of free time, would halt screenings by waving little flashlights 20 minutes into the movie.
Now the committee is made up of members of the documentary branch, and now they watch everything all the way through. The fact that the voters have to see every movie before voting throws many of the usual yardsticks (visibility, momentum, popularity) out the window.
("Capitalism: A Love Story" photo: Overture Films/Front Street Productions)
It comes down, basically, to what they like. Which means that the shortlist can teach a few lessons about just how the voters think, and what they’re looking for. For example:
1. A big name is not a free pass.
Michael Moore is the 800-pound gorilla in the field. He presented “Capitalism: A Love Story” as his magnum opus, and he worked it hard. Some reviews were raves; others weren’t. In the end, it’s likely that voters, unswayed by celebrity, just didn’t think it was good enough. (I didn’t, either.)
Davis Guggenheim was probably the second biggest name in the competition, a winner three years ago for “An Inconvenient Truth.” (Al Gore got the glory; Davis went home with the statuette.) Guggenheim made a wonderful documentary this year, “It Might Get Loud,” which didn’t get shortlisted. Because:
2. The Academy is too old to rock ’n’ roll.
Or maybe age has nothing to do with it; maybe they’re just reluctant to rock.
Whatever the reason, “Anvil! The Story of Anvil” was one of the year’s funniest docs, the touching story of a real-life Spinal Tap. It attracted enthusiastic, high-profile fans. But it was also about loud, brash and more than occasionally stupid rock 'n' roll. And while the media, guild members and other guests went to “Anvil!” parties with Catherine Keener and Tilda Swinton and Cameron Crowe, the doc committee members watched it in a dark room and shrugged.
“It Might Get Loud,” meanwhile, was Guggenheim’s classy doc about three rockers: Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page, U2’s the Edge and the White Stripes’ Jack White. The musical performances were terrific, the conversations were often relevatory, and the whole thing was enormously entertaining. But it was about guys playing guitars.
“Soundtrack for a Revolution,” on the other hand, made the shortlist as a music-heavy doc that also has terrific performances, intercut with a civil rights movement primer that’s awfully pro forma and doesn’t tell you much that hasn’t already been seen in many previous documentaries.
