Documentary Films and Programs

Subterms

    More stories

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in Television

      Alan Cumming on ‘Chimp Crazy’: ‘I Really Do Understand the Deep Love’

      by

      A documentary series by a director of “Tiger King” tells a wild tale about human-chimp relationships. The actor and activist landed right in the middle.In 1997, Alan Cumming appeared in the film “Buddy,” playing an animal handler hired by an eccentric socialite (Rene Russo) who maintained a menagerie in her Long Island home. One of his co-stars was Tonka, a male chimpanzee on the cusp of adolescence. Cumming felt a special bond with Tonka.“He was very gentle,” Cumming, 59, said during a recent video call. “When the other chimps would get a little overwrought, he was a calming influence, a mediator.”Soon after filming ended, Tonka retired. (Once chimps go through puberty, they are considered potentially too strong and sexually aggressive to work on camera.) In 2017, Cumming, a supporter of the animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and a longtime vegan — “I thought if Mike Tyson could do it, I could do it,” he said — learned that Tonka was being held in substandard conditions at a former breeding facility in Festus, Mo.What happened next is the principal subject of the HBO series “Chimp Crazy,” which premiered on Sunday, a wild and occasionally woolly four-part documentary from Eric Goode, a director of “Tiger King.” (The three remaining episodes will air weekly.)PETA secured the release of six chimpanzees from the facility in 2021. Tonka was not among them. Eventually, PETA offered a $10,000 reward for news of Tonka’s whereabouts. Cumming matched that amount.While the twisty four episodes tell several fraught and often violent stories of chimp-human interactions, its permed, lip-plumped focus is Tonia Haddix, the owner of the Festus animals, including Tonka, and an exotic animal broker who describes herself as the “Dolly Parton of chimps.” (Given the reputation of “Tiger King” as a series that exposed animal mistreatment, Goode approached her through a proxy, a former circus clown who posed as the series’s director.) Cumming claims to feel sympathy for the women Goode turns his cameras on, even as they failed the animals in their care.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in Movies

      Netflix Documentary ‘Daughters’ Shows Reality of Girls Separated From Imprisoned Fathers

      by

      The Netflix documentary doesn’t gloss over hard truths as it follows participants in the Date With Dad program.It’s not unusual for a documentary to be a tear-jerker. Stories of unusual connection or unusual bravery tend to make for good cinema, so when the film features real people, it’s even more affecting. But even by those standards, “Daughters” (on Netflix), directed by Natalie Rae and Angela Patton, is extraordinarily moving.The film focuses on the Date With Dad program, which Patton has led for more than 12 years as part of her community work with Black girls. The children are brought to the prisons where their fathers are incarcerated for a party with dancing, refreshments and opportunities to take photos and talk. Socials like these might be run of the mill for many Americans, but for these families they’re extraordinary: Prisons have increasingly stopped in-person visits (known as “touch visits”) between family members, resorting instead to video and phone calls. Furthermore, incarcerated people can be moved from institution to institution, sometimes far from their families. For some fathers, these events may be the only time during their sentences that they can interact with their daughters in person.The film focuses on several girls, ages 5 to 13, as well as on their imprisoned fathers. The men who are eligible to participate in Date With Dad are required to first attend a 10-week coaching program led by a mentor. These sessions are captured in the documentary, and feel a lot like group therapy. Rae and Patton spend equal time with the girls and the men, letting us listen as they talk about their hopes, their fears, their relationships with their own parents, their regrets and a lot more. Women, too, are part of the story: For many who have been pushed into operating as both mother and father, it’s a fraught decision to even allow their daughters this contact. Their strength is remarkable.There are a lot of tears in this documentary, for the subjects and the audience, too. But “Daughters” is a remarkable study in how to tell this kind of story without twisting into sentimentality. I had assumed “Daughters” would conclude with the dance, with the glad reunions, tears, joy and the promise of closer relationships, but Rae and Patton are more invested in candor than in a happy ending. They’ve constructed the film to show the range of emotions that the girls have toward their fathers, even at the dance, where some are overjoyed and weeping and others are clearly struggling with their feelings.After the dance, the film continues to check in with some of the subjects for several years, exploring how the program affected their futures but also how their fathers’ continued imprisonment profoundly shaped the girls’ lives. Plenty of it is good. But rebuilding a family torn apart by the often unpredictable prison system is hard work, and it doesn’t always go the way we want. When hope does exist, it’s hard-won. And “Daughters” lets us feel all of that, too. More

    • 113 Shares99 Views

      in Television

      ‘Chimp Crazy’ Is a Jaw-Dropping Look at ‘Monkey Love’

      by

      From a director of “Tiger King,” the four-part HBO documentary dives into the wild, salacious and dangerous world of people who have chimpanzees as pets.The four-part documentary series “Chimp Crazy,” debuting at 10 p.m. Sunday, on HBO, has plenty of chimps, and boy is it crazy. Sad and gruesome, too, and sometimes poignant and philosophical. “Monkey love,” we’re told, is a unique, radicalizing kind of love — more profound than the one between two humans. “The bond is much deeper,” says Tonia Haddix, one of the show’s central figures. “It’s just natural; it’s like your love for God.”Can she get an amen? Actually, no: Haddix, who describes herself as “the Dolly Parton of the chimps,” is an advocate for and a participant in the private chimpanzee market. She says she has a special, spectacular bond with Tonka, an adult chimp who was in several movies and whom she considers particularly docile and soulful. She insists, repeatedly, that Tonka, among others, is more of a “humanzee” — as much a person as he is a chimp. In one scene, she and Tonka watch Instagram videos of other chimpanzees, including his offspring.“Chimp Crazy” and “Tiger King” share an executive producer and director in Eric Goode, and they also share an ecstatic tabloid salaciousness. One woman breastfed a chimp baby alongside her human daughter. A man describes the chimp his mother housed as “the Tom Brady of chimpanzees,” on account of his handsomeness.Everyone in this documentary is suffering, and some of them are ridiculous. And others of them are chimps. “Chimp Crazy” is more textured than “Tiger King,” partly because of its closer attention to the plight of animals. Intertwined with Haddix’s saga are stories of other people who thought they could raise chimps and live together in unending familial bliss — until the chimps reached adolescence, at which point they attacked someone. These attacks are horrific and often fatal, though the chimp owners are rarely deterred.Haddix’s battle with the animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals shapes much of the action of the documentary, and jaw-dropping details and twists are never more than a doleful recollection away. “Crazy” is both compassionate and manipulative, and the filmmakers themselves deceive some of their subjects and become major players in Haddix and Tonka’s story. (Also a player: the actor Alan Cumming, who once acted alongside Tonka and eventually offers a $10,000 reward for information leading to the animal’s whereabouts.) There’s an endless “OMG” feeling to everything here, the kind of show that puts the outrage in outrageousness. More

    • 100 Shares179 Views

      in Movies

      ‘In the Rearview’ Review: Shuttling Ukrainians to Safety

      by

      Maciek Hamela’s documentary offers a compelling perspective on the Russian invasion of Ukraine through the stories of people fleeing the country in a van.Maciek Hamela’s perceptive documentary “In the Rearview” seats us in a van shuttling groups of Ukrainians from conflict areas to safety. That simple viewpoint, along with roadside scenes of pickups and drop-offs, captures the moments when ordinary life ended and the deadly chaos of the Russian invasion began.Filmed in 2022 when Hamela volunteered as an evacuation driver, the van passes checkpoints, burned-out cars and disemboweled buildings while steering clear of mined roads and bombed bridges. But the van presents a safe space where passengers can talk about who and what they left behind, sleep, or just sit in silence.Instead of dwelling on danger, these serial portraits of everyday Ukrainians — sometimes family members neatly dressed for cool weather, carrying the odd belongings or cat — show people who have made their decision to leave but are still processing what that means.Travelers young and old talk about what happened in gripping, brief monologues: a lost husband, a surrogate pregnancy left in the lurch at a clinic, an abandoned cow, or torture at the hands of the enemy. The children look cherubic but sometimes glazed-over; unprompted, one girl reflexively proffers a paper with her identifying information to someone at the front of the van.Many passengers seem to be heading to the Polish border from remote Ukrainian villages. But the van’s familiar interior has a way of underlining how many other millions across history have had to escape military aggression. Hamela’s work as driver and documentarian reflects that reality while offering a spirit of resilience.In the RearviewNot rated. In Ukrainian, Polish, Russian and French, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 24 minutes. In theaters and available to rent or buy on most major platforms. More

    • 100 Shares149 Views

      in Movies

      9 Great Songs Recorded at Electric Lady Studios

      by

      A new documentary spotlights the Greenwich Village creative hub. Listen to tracks by Jimi Hendrix, Patti Smith, Frank Ocean and more that were recorded there.Patti SmithVagabond Video/Getty Images.Dear listeners,I’m a sucker for any documentary that features scenes of people at a recording studio’s mixing board, isolating tracks from a great, intricately layered song.* Over the weekend, I watched a new film that, I am happy to report, features plenty of such footage: “Electric Lady Studios — A Jimi Hendrix Vision,” a recently released documentary that charts the origins of the famed, still vital Greenwich Village landmark.Located at 52 West 8th Street and formerly an avant-garde nightclub, the property that would become Electric Lady was purchased by Jimi Hendrix and his manager in 1968. Over the next two years, they poured somewhere around $1 million of their own money into its construction. (When the cash flow dried up, Hendrix would go play some live gigs and return with enough dough to pay the contractors.) Hendrix initially dreamed up Electric Lady as his own personal recording studio, a place where he and his friends could experiment freely without incurring exorbitant hourly rates. But, tragically, Hendrix did not live long enough to use it much at all. Construction was finally completed in August 1970; Hendrix died, at 27, on Sept. 18 of that year.Word had already gotten out that Electric Lady was special, combining state-of-the-art technology with a groovy atmosphere that made it a more comfortable place to hang out than most cramped, sterile recording studios. Thanks to some early bookings by marquee artists like Carly Simon, Led Zeppelin and Stevie Wonder, Electric Lady managed to stay afloat in those precarious first years after Hendrix’s death. More than 50 years later, it has survived ownership changes, gentrification and huge shifts in recording technology, remaining a crucial link between popular music’s past and present. Today, it’s arguably as busy as it’s ever been: Taylor Swift, Zach Bryan and Sabrina Carpenter are just a few stars who have recently laid down tracks there.Today’s playlist traces Electric Lady’s decades-long history via nine very different songs recorded within its hallowed walls. I’ve arranged them in chronological order, so you can gradually hear the way the sounds of pop music have changed over time. I hope that you’ll also hear certain echoes between now and then — similarities in the soft-rock confessions of Simon and Swift, or the genre-blurring explorations of Wonder and Frank Ocean.These are, of course, just a sampling of the thousands and thousands of songs that have been recorded at Electric Lady throughout the years. Next time you find yourself scouring a favorite LP’s liner notes or Wikipedia credits, don’t be too surprised if you see that familiar address.This is our place, we make the rules,Lindsay* (The Fleetwood Mac episode of “Classic Albums” where Lindsey Buckingham pulls up individual vocal and instrumental tracks from “Rumours” is my personal gold standard.)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in Movies

      ‘Sugarcane’ Is a Stunning, Sobering Look at the Mistreatment of Indigenous Communities

      by

      “Sugarcane” follows survivors and investigators after the horrifying treatment of Indigenous Canadians was discovered at residential schools.When it comes to stories that hold the potential to slide from sensitive to sensational, documentarians can take several approaches. There’s the talking-head driven journalistic approach, in which the story and its analysis are laid out, beat by beat. There’s also the more lurid approach that films about cults and crime can employ, with re-enactments and ominous musical cues.But a third way — and the one that Emily Kassie and Julian Brave NoiseCat take in “Sugarcane” (in theaters), to their great credit — is to invite the audience to dwell alongside those affected by the story, letting their experiences and emotions guide the film. This one tells a horrifying story: In 2021 and 2022 in a series of cascading discoveries, unmarked graves were found on the grounds of a number of Indigenous Canadian residential schools. On investigation, they revealed horrifying mistreatment of Indigenous communities, where parents were virtually forced to send their children to the schools as part of the government’s quest to “solve the Indian problem.”The film’s jumping-off point is the graves discovered at St. Joseph’s Mission, a residential school in British Columbia, near the Sugarcane Reserve of Williams Lake. NoiseCat’s father and grandmother were survivors of St. Joseph’s, and his journey to learn their immensely painful stories is one strand of the documentary.There are others, too. Charlene Belleau and Whitney Spearing are two investigators working with the Williams Lake First Nation to uncover the truth about what happened at St. Joseph’s, and their determination helps fill in many of the disturbing details that were covered up at the time of the abuse. Rick Gilbert, a former chief of Williams Lake First Nation, was also educated at St. Joseph’s but is a faithful Catholic and reluctant to acknowledge the full extent of the atrocity — even when DNA tests appear to confirm that his father was one of the priests. He is summoned to the Vatican as part of an audience with Pope Francis regarding the discoveries. But his own story takes a long time to come out.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 138 Shares189 Views

      in Television

      With ‘Sprint’ and ‘Simone Biles: Rising,’ Netflix Fills Olympic Content Gap

      by

      New seasons of documentaries about running, gymnastics and basketball are being filmed this summer as part of a partnership with the International Olympic Committee.The four-person crew from Box to Box Films, the production company responsible for the hit Netflix motorsports docuseries “Formula 1: Drive to Survive,” has often shot in lavish settings like Monaco and Miami.But one recent morning, it congregated in a far less glamorous spot: a set of flimsy bleachers next to a running track in the Paris suburb of Eaubonne, where it waited about an hour for a practice session to begin.“This is our life,” Warren Smith, a top executive at Box to Box, said of the waiting. It could have been worse: Across town, a second crew was filming a runner having a haircut.The footage from France will eventually be part of the second season of “Sprint,” a Netflix documentary following the American 100-meter stars Sha’Carri Richardson and Noah Lyles and a dozen or so other track athletes.The series is one of three projects being filmed during these Summer Games as part of a partnership between Netflix and the International Olympic Committee, a latecomer to the sports-documentary genre that is now an eager participant.Just as “Drive to Survive” forged a deeper connection between fans and Formula 1 auto racing, the I.O.C. hopes these projects will pique awareness and interest among a new (read: younger) generation of Olympic fans. They include the track series, a gymnastics one called “Simone Biles: Rising” and one about the U.S. Olympic men’s basketball team.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 138 Shares199 Views

      in Movies

      ‘Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes’ and the Moment Star Worship Curdled

      by

      The documentary blends audio interviews with footage from her life to provide a revealing look not so much at the actress, but at celebrity culture.This summer, thanks mostly to the rise of Glen Powell, I’ve been in a lot of discussions about the state of movie stardom. The jury’s still out on whether we have “real” movie stars today, but it’s clear that the process of becoming a celebrity is different now from what it used to be. Social media and the popularity of small-screen entertainment have changed the game.That question of stardom permeates “Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes” (premiering Saturday on HBO and Max), an intriguing documentary about one of Hollywood’s most famous actresses, mostly in her own words. In the 1960s, Taylor gave interviews to the prolific journalist Richard Meryman, who died in 2015. Meryman, who had been known for his interviews with celebrities, was researching a book. Recently, more than 40 hours of tapes containing Taylor’s interviews were found in his archive.That audio, in which Taylor is reflective and candid, is the backbone for this documentary. The director Nanette Burstein takes a smart approach to the material, layering the conversation — along with audio from a handful of older interviews with Taylor and some of her friends — on top of archival footage from her life. Taylor became a familiar screen presence while still very young, with her first screen role, in “There’s One Born Every Minute,” hitting theaters when she was 10, in 1942. Soon after, she starred in “Lassie Come Home” and “National Velvet” and turned into a figure of fascination for the audiences. Thus the cameras followed her everywhere.For the Taylor enthusiast, the film is unlikely to reveal much new information. But that’s not really the point. The movie covers each of her eight marriages and many of her projects, but Taylor’s narration focuses largely on her feelings at the time. Because we’re often seeing footage of her public appearances as she talks about her interior life, the result is almost like a behind-the-scenes track, a fresh disclosure of the disjunction between what we think we know about stars — who they are, how they feel — and what’s actually going on inside.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More