You Should Watch This: Behind The Camera
On this edition of You Should Watch This, we explore a triumvirate of films that take a deep look at the art of filmmaking.
Welcome back to You Should Watch This, a series where we explore the history of cinema three films at a time. This week, we’re looking at a trio of documentaries focused on the art of what happens behind the camera when making a movie.
These films not only provide an insight in to the art of filmmaking, they urgently remind us what makes cinema so very powerful. The movies included here can also be seen as a warning to avoid the hubris of the single-minded, overly ambitious artist.
The Burden Of Dreams (1982)
In the late 1970’s German director Werner Herzog took a cast and crew into the South American jungle to make his film Fitzcarraldo. The film was intended to be a treatise on the philosophy of man versus nature. As terrific a film as Fitzcarraldo is, the documentary behind the making of it is even better, as the films director begins to shadow the obsessions of his “hero”.
Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald, an Irish rubber baron that the local natives call Fitzcarraldo is obsessed with opera and dreams of spending his fortune to build a massive opera house in the Peruvian jungle. Sweeney runs into one obstacle after another and manically pushes forward despite the difficulties. Eventually, he is man railing at windmills.
When Herzog and his crew descended into the jungle a young American filmmaker named Les Blank came along for the ride and documented the production at each step. Blank’s film becomes a companion piece to Herzog’s finished film. The Burden Of Dreams affords us the chance to see Herzog becoming a maniacal version of his own main character. Despite massive technical complications, a pair of marooned steam ships, disease, injury, and near madness Herzog relentlessly pursues the vision he has for his film.
The Burden Of Dreams is a marvelous look at the dirty business of filmmaking and pursuing a life in art. It calls into the question the line between madness and artistic vision.
Hearts Of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse (1991)
Francis Ford Coppola moved his family to Manila in the Philippines in early 1976 to begin principal photography on his Vietnam epic, Apocalypse Now. Principal photography began in March of that year and was supposed to be finished within a month. Things did not go according to plan.
Over the course of more than a year, Coppolla would endure script alterations, casting changes, severe weather, wild animals, disease, and his star enduring a heart attack during shooting. What had begun as a monthlong location shoot turned into more than a year of chaos, and confusion in the midst of filmmaking.
Barbara Coppolla, the director’s wife was there not only with support and love but also with a camera to document the ongoing saga. Her footage makes up the vast majority of Hearts Of Darkness. What follows is a cinematic diary of a cursed production and the characters within it. The resulting documentary is far more interesting and important than the actual film they were making. Sometimes the making of the art is the greatest art of all.
The Man With A Movie Camera (1929)
Dziga Vertov’s 1929 masterpiece is almost impossible to define. It is certainly a documentary, but one unlike you have ever seen before. The film is an avant-garde look at modern life in the Soviet Union at the end of the 1920’s. It teems with scenes that seem to come bursting forth almost as if through the screen and into reality.
Vertov took his camera to Moscow, Kiev, Odessa, and a host of other sites to capture the daily lives of everyday Soviet peoples. But instead of just presenting in straight two-dimensional form, Vertov gives us glimpses as to how the shots we see were created. He uses superimposition, odd camera angles and rapid movement to exhibit to us the power of the camera and the moving image.
In one instance, we see Vertov place the camera on a truck which is followed by a quick jump cut to the footage from that very camera. Instantly, we are careening down the streets of a bustling Soviet city. We are placed simultaneously into both the mind of the artist and the universe of the art itself.
The film is playful, energetic, and at times even intimidating. Vertov lugs his camera onto trucks, into cars, on trains and whirs it around the streets to brings us deep within the world he is capturing. He documents factory work, the newest communication technologies, and the faces of everyday Soviets. Although it is nearly 100 years old, The Man With The Movie Camera remains fresh, vibrant, and exciting. It was so revolutionary that its still feels completely new.
Cheers,
Matty C
Do you have a favorite film about moviemaking? Is there a documentary on cinema that stands out for you? Tell us all about it.
Hearts of Darkness was incredible. Dennis Hopper was a riot!! It was so insane to see everything they went through to finish the film.
I've seen the Herzog and Coppola docs, but thanks for the last one. Will seek it out.