Los Angeles City in California

About a year ago, I wrote on the 10th anniversary of Thom Andersen‘s Los Angeles Plays Itself and claimed that due to its content it “will never get a legitimate theatrical or home release.” Sometimes it’s great to be wrong. This Tuesday, the once-thought impossible is happening, as the video essay will be available on DVD and Blu-ray courtesy of Cinema Guild. On the packaging is a quote from Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times declaring the film to be “the best documentary ever made about Los Angeles.” I agree.

It’s not the only great documentary ever made about Los Angeles, though, and so I’d like to use the release and the quote as inspiration for a list of other essentials. As the second-largest city in the United States, an epicenter of American cultural production for over a century, and a cross-section of myriad environments both geological and sociological, L.A. makes for an excellent documentary setting. And a quick overview of docs that have approached the city reveal every kind of nonfiction film there is. The following barely scratches the surface of worthwhile docs made in and about L.A.

Wattstax (1973)

The so-called “Black Woodstock,” the Wattstax music festival was held at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in August of 1972, commemorating the seventh anniversary of the Watts riots. In Mel Stuart‘s film of the event (a Golden Globe nominee back when they gave awards to docs), thrilling footage of sets by The Staple Singers, Rufus Thomas and Isaac Hayes alternates with interviews with the residents of Watts and various attendees of the concert. They speak to a variety of issues affecting African Americans, many of which are still sadly relevant. Richard Pryor‘s joke about police shooting black men needs no updating. But this is a film about solidarity and cultural celebration, and it’s one of the best (but underseen) concert films

Read more at Film School Rejects: http://nonfics.com/20-best-documentaries-los-angeles/#ixzz47g89FkQy
Read more at http://nonfics.com/20-best-documentaries-los-angeles/#lKhK3jZokBeZPDc8.99

Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C., is the capital city of the United States, located between Virginia and Maryland on the north bank of the Potomac River. The city is home to all three branches of the federal government, as well as the White House, the Supreme Court and the Capitol Building. More than 500,000 people live in Washington, D.C.The city of Washington was named for George Washington (who picked the location), while the District of Columbia was named for explorer Christopher Columbus.

• On July 16, 1790, a compromise between Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison—known as the Residence Act—was passed, declaring George Washington’s selection of a site on the Potomac River as the nation’s new permanent capital. As part of the agreement, the federal government assumed the states’ debts.

• George Washington oversaw construction of the White House, but never lived in it. John and Abigail Adams became the first occupants of the presidential mansion on November 1, 1800, although only for the last four months of his 
• While still under construction, the United States Capitol held its first session of Congress on November 17, 1800. On March 4, 1801, Thomas Jefferson became the first president to be inaugurated in Washington within the Senate chamber of the Capitol.
• After capturing the nation’s capital during the War of 1812, British troops set fire to the White House, U.S. Capitol, several federal buildings and private residences on August 24, 1814. First Lady Dolley Madison, who had refused to leave the White House until only a few hours before the British arrived, secured the full length portrait of George Washington and a copy of the Declaration of independence on her way out.

New York City

 51st New York Film Festival begins this Friday, and ahead of our coverage of the event it would seem appropriate to list some of our most anticipated titles. But there really aren’t a lot of docs at NYFF, and what is there we are excited about entirely. Maybe some films are higher up than others (At Berkeley), but all together we are looking forward to every single nonfiction offering at this year’s fest. That includes some non docs, too, such as Paul Greengrass’s opening night entry Captain Phillips.

In place of a NYFF preview, I thought it would be fun to still tie in this week’s list to the event by celebrating New York in nonfiction cinema. The city has been on my mind anyway, as I just visited over the weekend for the first time since moving away almost two years ago, and also thanks to Robert’s initial Shots From the Canon piece onNews From Home. In that post, he reminds us of how almost all movies shot in NYC wind up being documentaries of a kind, capturing the place and its people and culture at points in time and offering a cinematic record of its history from the turn of the 20th century’s actuality films (like these) up through this year’s Now You See Me, among others.

The following ten titles, though, are more truly documentaries, in part because I don’t need to be filling a Nonfics feature with such various fiction titles as King Kong and Quick Change. Each one of these docs does a phenomenal job of telling and/or showing us a lot about New York, and whether you’ve been there or not or love it or not, they should all impart on you an appreciation for the Big Apple via their distinct approaches to the subject.

Read more at Film School Rejects: http://nonfics.com/10-best-documentaries-new-york-city/#ixzz47g5RxKuj