Ballet 422 & A Ballerina’s Tale

Manuel here talking about two documentaries about the New York City ballet scene.

Ballet 422 follows Justin Peck, the youngest ever choreographer tapped with creating a ballet for the New York City Ballet. As a behind-the-scenes look at how a ballet piece is put together, from choosing a musical piece to deciding what color the costumes should be, the Jody Lee Lipes film is illuminating. The film, available on Netflix already, mines all of Peck’s whose nervousness in the run-up to the debut of his ballet for all the drama it’s worth, though the more fascinating moments of the doc come courtesy of the grueling rehearsal process that’s peppered throughout. More interesting, perhaps, is the latent argument for contemporaneity and youthfulness that characterizes the decision to choose up-and-comer Peck for this prestigious honor, but in making a film about dance, it makes sense that those larger cultural conversations are kept in the background rather than taking center stage.

A Ballerina's Tale has loftier goals. Currently playing in select cities, the film follows ballet superstar Misty Copeland. Nelson George’s doc is at both a look at the effects of the punishing art of ballet dancing on Copeland, as well as a living document of the systemic and institutional biases that the first black ballerina to be promoted to principal dancer in ABT's 75-year history, has had to deal with on a daily basis. It is a testament to Copeland’s commitment to honoring those that came before her, that what would easily (and in many ways still is) a vanity project that enshrines her as a central part of African-American cultural history, A Ballerina’s Tale spends most of its running time contextualizing Copeland’s own rise to fame and the way she’s used her platform to advocate for a more diverse vision of ballet, one that moves beyond the relatively recent post-Balanchine history of ballet as overrun with prepubescent, waif-like white ballerinas.

Ballet 422 and A Ballerina's Tale, (the former on the hunt for the Documentary Oscar), make a great double feature on an art that’s clearly struggling with how to appeal and mirror its modern audiences. Any TFE readers who are also ballet aficionados care to weigh in?

IDA Nominations Honor Amy, Kurt, Nina and Marlon

Glenn here. The nominations and specialty category winners were announced today for the 31st International Documentary Association Awards. It's a line-up heavy on artist portraits, Ukraine, and films heavy on the use of archive footage. Last year's IDA list featured three eventual Oscar nominees (Finding Vivian Maier, Salt of the Earth and the winner of both Citizenfour), but other years since 2010 the number has only been two. Except 2011 when the IDA people went way off course (in the best possible way) and awarded Patricio Guzman's Nostalgia for the Light with no eventual Oscar nominees in their list (Guzman's The Pearl Button didn't find favor from them this year, though).

I see no reason why this year won't follow that ratio status quo. But firstly let's take a look at the nominees.

BEST FEATURE

• Amy
• The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution
• Listen to Me Marlon
• The Look of Silence
• The Russian Woodpecker
• What Happened, Miss Simone?

I am extremely pleased to see the excellent Russian Woodpecker cited here. If Oscar could pay attention to that superb examination of paranoia amid the Ukrainian revolution then I would be more than ecstatic. And if you have the chance to see it then do yourself a favour. But what about the rest...

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Trailers for Short Oscar finalists

AMPAS has selected 10 documentary shorts from their undoubtedly long (unpublished that we know of) eligibility list to compete for the 5 nominations in the category. For those who are unaware the short film race at the Oscars each year can be a hodgepodge of years (no release dates apply obviously) because the shorts qualify for the competition by winning prizes at Oscar-qualifying festivals around the world. (The short film categories are often as international as the Foreign Language Film Award.) And the festival journey can be a long one for tiny low profile films. 

Doc trailers after the jump and a few Animated shorts, too...

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Iris, a great subject.

With Oscar's documentary longlist out, we're catching up with a few. Here's Deborah on Iris.

Sometimes all you need is a great subject.

To say this does a disservice to documentarian Albert Maysles, who has created a visual feast with Iris, but the primary delight of the film is Iris herself. Iris Apfel, at 94 years old, has lived a life of visual feast. If your tolerance of eccentric little old ladies is low, you won’t love this film, but phooey on you in that case. This woman is a prize, a person who celebrates her own uniqueness, who takes joy wherever she can, and the film focuses on that joy...

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HBO’s LGBT History: Outrage (2009)

Manuel is working his way through all the LGBT-themed HBO productions.

Last week we revisited Carrie & co. in their silver screen outings. As it turns out, the Sarah Jessica Parker series continues to elicit strong reactions though the films are, across the board, considered lesser versions of the oft-brilliant HBO show. This week, we look at Kirby Dick’s doc Outrage which navigates the tricky issue of outing closeted gay politicians. The doc aired on HBO in October 2009 after a Tribeca bow and a limited release earlier that year.

“There is nothing more public than privacy.”

I quote this Michael Warner gem almost every day. Usually to myself; it’s a mantra that perfectly captures many of the discussions about the LGBT community in the twenty-first century. It gets at the inherent and insidious privilege of privacy; it’s always those who don’t realize how their own “private life” (dating, family, marriage) is inherently public (coughMattDamoncough) who claim to want to keep it away from public view. Warner’s epigram could very well function as an apt tag-line for Kirby’s film (though “Do Ask. Do Tell” has a delightful campy, gossipy tone that’s a brilliant reworking of the militaryspeak it echoes).

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