The Best of the Decade in Cinema

The following is the final posting in a series of features breaking down the trends of cinema in the 2000's. Click below for parts 1-5:
Part 1: Tentpole Franchisees
Part 2: Social Realism
Part 3: Documentary
Part 4: The New Auteurs
Part 5: The Old Guard

For me, it takes about 3 or 4 viewings to really appreciate a masterpiece, or at least to define a film a masterpiece (even though I've prematurely made declarations of such on first time viewings tsk tsk). What defines a masterpiece? Not just a good film, or a great film, but a film after the third or fourth viewing reveals new layers of depth, complexity, humour, suspense, or whatever emotion it stimulates. As a result as I cross-reference this list with my previous Year End lists, it’s much different. Many times, my knee jerk reaction to a first viewing of a film has decreasing returns on subsequent viewings. You might see an odd inclusion in there, ‘In the Loop’ which only made #3 on my list of the best of 2009, so how come ‘Inglourious Basterds’ or ‘Un Prophete’ is not up there? Well, I’ve seen “In the Loop” four times and each time it holds up. It also provides an antidote to the wholly dark material of the other 9 films on this list. It's not a scientific method either, a gut reaction, a feeling of what is rising to the top.

1. United 93 (2006) dir. Paul Greengrass


A rare occasion when a pivotal event in history is dramatized with as much resonate impact as the event itself. United 93 is an experience - intense, harrowing and reverential to the heroic participants, without sensationalizing them

2. Mulholland Drive (2001) dir. David Lynch


David Lynch had made eight feature films prior to Mulholland Drive, and a few of them masterpieces in their own right. Lynch remarkably recycles the character, themes, textures, and tone of his other films like a jigsaw puzzle into this beguiling compendium of Lynchian perfection.

3. The Prestige (2005) dir. Christopher Nolan


Sure his Batman films are great, but its ‘The Prestige” which packs the greatest emotional wallop. The Prestige is tricky, clever and complex, expertly weaving a great game of professsional one-up manship with a real cynical edge.

4. Werckmeister Harmonies (2000) dir. Bela Tarr


High contrast black and white photography, long meandering tracking shots draw the audience into the bleak and barren mood of a secluded Hungarian town and its post-Communist xenophobic townsfolk. A challenging aesthetic to be sure, but undeniably mesmerizing and hypnotic. European art cinema par excellence.

5. Primer (2004) dir. Shane Carruth


A $7,000 film written, produced, directed, shot, acted, sound designed and composed by one person makes this Sundance winner an inspiring story. But even more remarkable is Shane Carruth’s ability to execute a narratively complex time travel thriller with equally precise composition and control.

6. In the Loop (2009) dir. Armando Iannucci


The comic timing, and assured satirical tone of Armando Iannucci’s great political farce is pitch perfect. The manic complexities of the dozen or so ensemble actors riff and roll with one another like a well-oiled machine.

7. Battle Royale (2000) dir. Kinji Fukasaku


Kinji Fukasuku’s high concept black comedy action feels like a cinematic hand grenade like only the Japanese could explode. A near future society where a group of high school classmates are assembled on a island to kill each other off as part of a nationwide solution to youth violence. Audacious and potent and even more impressive that it was made by a 70 year old director!

8. Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) dir. Guillermo Del Toro


Guillermo Del Toro’s luscious and alluring gothic masterpiece is the pinnacle of fantasy filmmaking. It was sad to watch the disappointment on Del Toro’s face when “Lives of Others” was read out as the (albeit deserving) winner of the Best Foreign Language film Oscar that year. But "Pan's Labyrinth" willl remain a special film for a long time to come.

9. Lives of Others (2006) dir. Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck


But let’s not take anything away from “Lives of Others”, deeply moving Cold War character, which finds a surprisingly warm and optismistic sentimental tone.

10. 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2007) dir. Cristian Mungiu

Wholly disturbing and fascinating procedural involving a woman's journey tohelp her friend get an abortion in 1980's communist Romania.

And a second opinion from my contributor, Blair Stewart:
(in no particular order):

Morvern Callar (Lynne Ramsay)
My Winnipeg (Guy Maddin)
The Proposition (John Hillcoat)
Oldboy (Chan Wook-Park)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry)
Hidden (Cache) (Michael Haneke)
The White Ribbon (Michael Haneke)
American Splendor (Shari Springer Berman, Robert Pulcini)
Punch Drunk-Love (Paul Thomas Anderson)
Lost in Translation (Sofia Coppola)
No Country for Old Men (Coen Bros)
The Pianist (Roman Polanski)
Songs from the Second Floor (Roy Andersson)
Master and Commander:The Far Side of the World (Peter Weir)
Talk to Her (Almodovar)
Children of Men (Alfonso Cuaron)
Metallica: SKOM (Joe Berlinger)
Grizzly Man (Werner Herzog)
Bloody Sunday (Paul Greengrass)

And a second opinion from my colleague, Greg Klymkiw:
(in alphabetical order):

Antichrist (Lars VonTrier)
Dog Days (Ulrich Seidl)
Eureka (Shinji Aoyama)
Freddy Got Fingered (Tom Green)
Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino)
Lives of Others, The (Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck)
Mulholland Drive (David Lynch)
My Winnipeg (Guy Maddin)
Passion of the Christ, The (Mel Gibson)
Sin City (Robert Rodriguez, Frank Miller)

Deconstructing the Cinema of the 2000’s: Part 5 – The Old Guard

The following is part of a continuing series of features breaking down the trends of cinema in the 2000's.
Click below for parts 1-3:
Part 1: Tentpole Franchisees
Part 2: Social Realism
Part 3: Documentary
Part 4: The New Auteurs

So what were the cinema mainstays up this past decade? The old guard consists of the Clint Eastwoods, Steve Spielbergs, Martin Scorsese and Woody Allens whose careers are as rock solid as blue chip stock. Ooops, sorry, there is no thing as blue-chip stock on both Wall Street and the movie business. The decade saw some ups and downs for the established masters. Let’s check them out.

The miraculous renaissance of Clint Eastwood is perhaps the story of the decade. Clint had been directing films for over 20 years before he even got his first piece of hardware (or even nomination) with ‘The Unforgiven’ in 1992. Throughout the rest of the 90’s Clint continued to make decent if not forgettable films with little impact on box office, or cinema history (anyone remember ‘Absolute Power’, or ‘True Crime’?). But starting with ‘Mystic River’ was a completely unexpected career resurgence. Clint followed with Oscar baiters, ‘Million Dollar Baby’, ‘Sands of Iwo Jima’, ‘Flags of Our Fathers’, ‘Changling’, ‘Gran Torino’ and ‘Invictus’. Sure, not all these films were great, or even successful but each were culturally relevant and drew more attention than he ever had. And he did all of this work in his upper 70’s, with an assured easygoing, confident and patient work ethic.

The Coen Bros seem immune to the ravishes of time. Throughout the 2000’s they made almost a movie a year, mixing the idiosyncratic, ‘A Serious Man’, and ‘The Man Who Wasn’t There’, with audience-friendly mainstream pictures like ‘Burn After Reading’, as well as another masterpiece of neo-noir, and a few more Oscars for their shelves from ‘No Country For Old Men’.

Paul Thomas Anderson seems to be engineering himself a Kubrickian type career with a sparse output, with 3, 4, and 5 years in between films. His ‘There Will Be Blood’ will be considered one of the great American auteur masterpieces of the decade. His only other film of the decade, ‘Punchdrunk Love’, never did turn my crank like it did other fans, but it did win him at Best Director award at Cannes. But next decade, he really really needs an Oscar.

PTA contemporary Quentin Tarantino became more idiosyncratic and esoteric with his tastes. His gargantuan ‘Kill Bill’ was split into two movies, one good, but disappointing. His Grindhouse event with Robert Rodriguez was a fun experiment satisfying the same but limited cinegeek audience, but was unfortunately buoyed heavily by the Rodriguez’s more enjoyable film as well as the fake trailers in between. Quentin's entry, 'Death Proof' felt like dead weight. QT did end the decade with a bang with ‘Inglourious Basterds’, the quality of which was helped in part due to his unofficial creative rivarlry wiuth PTA. QT publically stated that watching ‘There Will Be Blood’ caused him to elevate his game with ‘Basterds’. We’re all thankful for that!

Gus Van Zant, who was into his third decade as director, elevated his career to new levels of artistry. Through the 00’s he purposely eschewed the mainstream success he achieved with ‘Good Will Hunting’ developing a new and unique minimal/atmospheric brand of realist picture through the middle part of the decade. This string of art house oddities started with 2002’s ‘Gerry’, an odd, obtuse bit of existentialism. He took this tone and style and produced his great Palme D’Or winning stunner “Elephant”. “The Last Days” would appear to complete this unofficial ‘death trilogy’. But then he followed it up with a fourth arty beguiler, ‘Paranoid Park’. Van Zant ended the decade with a return to populism with the multi-Oscar winning ‘Milk’, which proved him one of the most adaptable directors in the world and nothing he couldn’t direct. We need to give him the reigns on a tentpole franchise to really see how subversive he could be. Could you imagine what Gus Van Zant’s “Superman” would look like? If he remade a shot-for-shot version of ‘Psycho’ nothing is out of bounds for Van Zant.

Steven Spielberg was his usual prolific self throughout the decade, making 7 films, a mix of popular blockbusters, ‘War of the Worlds’, ‘Minority Report’ and that Indiana Jones sequel, with his serious fare, the mixed-bag of ‘AI: Artificial Intelligence’ and his unequivocally engrossing ‘Munich’. Sandwiched in between these big pictures is his most unlikely film success ‘Catch Me If You Can’ a relatively low budget under-the-radar pyrotechnic-free breezy comedy. We don’t ever need to mention ‘The Terminal’.

Martin Scorsese had his most commercially successful of decades. Most of the 00's were spent trying really really hard to win an Oscar. ‘Gangs of New York’, he tried and failed, same with ‘The Aviator’, and eventually we all breathed a sigh of relief when he won with a particularly brutal and cynical crime film ‘The Departed’. Though it may not make up for losing out to ‘Dances With Wolves’ at least that monkey is off his back.

Woody Allen was hit and miss throughout the decade, but with his usual pace of a film a year. Allen had been off my radar for a long time, until he made ‘Match Point’ an inspired change of pace for the man. Not only did he make a brilliant black comedy which Alfred Hitchcock would have been proud of, he made it in England! Unfortunately, his decade was also filled with kindling efforts such as ‘Small Time Crooks’, ‘Scoop’, ‘Hollywood Ending’ and ‘Curse of the Jade Scorpion’.

Steven Soderbergh was equally prolific as Woody, and like Van Zant, moving back and forth with idiosyncratic art films with monstrously huge star-driven fare. It was a fortuitous start to the decade for sure, achieving a rare feat of having two Best Director nominations in the same year, ’Traffic’ and ‘Erin Brockovich’. Miraculously the Academy got it right and picked Soderbergh (with ‘Traffic’) over Ridley Scott (‘Gladiator’) that year for the trophy. Though the Ocean’s films were largely disposable and forgettable fluff, their success did allow him to experiment with films like ‘Bubble’, ‘The Girlfriend Experience’, and ‘Full Frontal’, sure none of those were particularly great, but certainly admirable attempts to test the art of cinema. Oh yeah, in addition to his 13 films as director, he produced 16 more films with his buddy George Clooney under his Section Eight prodco banner.

As for some of the other cine-mainstays of the 80's and 90's..David Fincher’s was mostly sparse decade, but did deliver one of his best films, ‘Zodiac’. Ron Howard clipped along the same studio safe tone of the 80’s and 90’s films. The other employer of Tom Hanks, Robert Zemeckis, spent most of the decade developing motion capture and directing three CG rendered live action films – ‘Polar Express’, ‘Beowulf’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’. Oliver Stone was a shadow of his former self, producer lame duck after lame duck. Same with Michael Mann, who lost the magic touch he gained in the 90's, delivering only one decent film in the decade, 'Collateral.' Pedro Almodovar broke further into the mainstream with decent art house returns from 'Talk to Her', 'Volver', and 'Broken Embraces.' David Lynch was still doing his own thing, but getting even more oblique with his audacious 'Mulholland Drive' and 'Inland Empire', proving he's still as relevant as he was in the 80's and 90's.

Deconstructing the Cinema of the 00's: Part 4 - The New Auteurs

The following is part of a continuing series of features breaking down the trends of cinema in the 2000's.
Click below for parts 1-3:
Part 1: Tentpole Franchisees
Part 2: Social Realism
Part 3: Documentary

The creative process doesn’t acknowledge breaks in years or decades, and so compartmentalizing and passing judgment on ten years in cinema is completely arbitrary. Yet this is an easy way to view the passage of time, and the evolution of cinema. Decades have always defined filmmakers. For example when we think of Jean-Luc Godard he’s a 60’s filmmaker, even though he made as many films in the 70’s and 80’s. Same with, say, John Hughes, a man whose influence was as prescient in the 90’s, will always be defined by the 80’s.

With the end of another decade upon us, it’s time to start defining people’s careers, packing them up into a little box to be put away on a shelf never to be tampered with again. And so, even if someone like say, Judd Apatow, were to go on to make film after film of complete and utter garbage, or if he were to be revealed as a pederast, he would still be a 00’s filmmaker.

If you’ve read the previous installment of the Deconstruction of the decade in Cinema you’ll know that the indie-film dominated auteur films of the 1990’s doesn’t quite apply with the same creative force as it did back. The death of almost every art house-sensible distributor in the U.S. helped cause this, same with the risk-averse attitude of the tent-pole mentality of studio heads.

From this largely mainstream perspective, a number of fine filmmakers emerged and will likely be defined by this decade:

Why not start with Judd Apatow? He directed three films in the decade – two successful (“The 40 Year Old Virgin” and “Knocked Up”) and one not so much (“Funny People”). But his influence as writer-producer extends into a number of the decade’s most successful and memorable comedies including ‘Anchorman’, ‘Talladega Nights’, ‘Superbad’, ‘Forgetting and Sarah Marshall’. He also emerged as discoverer of great talent, specifically the young players of his TV series ‘Undeclared’ and ‘Freaks and Geeks’ – Jay Baruschel, Seth Rogan, James Franco and Jason Segal.

Perhaps Christopher Nolan stands tall as the defining filmmaker of the decade. His career essentially started out at the turn of the millennium with his intellectually-stimulating art house noir film ‘Memento’ and ended with the biggest hit of the decade, ‘The Dark Knight’. After a number of filmmakers tried their hand at rebooting the Batman series, it turned out to be Christopher Nolan who impressed Warner Bros and DC Comics with his realistic and humanist take on the superhero. Nolan wasn’t one to sit back and coast on the hype of franchise filmmaking, in between his two huge Batman pictures, he crafted one of the best and most underrated films of the decade – “The Prestige”. A film as profoundly existential and powerful as it was thrilling mass-market entertainment. We don’t know how ‘Inception’ will turn out but his desire to keep working and produce both personal non-franchise films with his own writings is exciting.

Is it just me as does ‘Lord of the Rings’ seem like a hundred years ago? Those three films made so much money, were nominated for so many awards, got so much publicity the first 4 years of the decade Peter Jackson’s name was everywhere. Not to mention that after LOTR was over he miraculously was energized enough to remake ‘King Kong’ as a 3 hour epic CG gargantuan. The quality of that picture notwithstanding doesn’t taint Jackson’s influence on cinema in the decade, in what will be forever seen as his decade to shine. The achievement of shooting three films back-to-back is almost believable. But now, if anyone wants to do a franchise that’s just about the only way to maximum time, resource and the creative powers of your talent. After LOTR, Harry Potter employed the same methodology, essentially giving work to the same craftsmen and actors for 10 years straight, same with the last two installments of ‘The Matrix’ and ‘Pirates’ trilogy as well as the “Twilight” bunch.

Paul Greengrass’ visual style has become a verb in Hollywood. I can’t confirm, but I’m sure filmmakers are referring to the style of handholding the camera and rapid cutting it to almost near incomprehensibility is referred to as doing it ‘Greengrass’. Greengrass’s body of work is simply astounding – like Christopher Nolan, an ability to be put an auteur-intelligent stamp on big budgeted studio pictures. The decade started out for Greengrass with his Irish-UK dramatic recreation of ‘Bloody Sunday’ a Berlin Golden Bear winning drama which would come to define his distinct documentary-like visual style. Each successive film – ‘Bourne Supremacy’, ‘United 93’, ‘Bourne Ultimatum’ built upon this foundation of energetic realism. And arguably the zenith of his career will likely be ‘United 93’ – a perfect rendering of 9/11 and essentially the first and final cinematic statement of that fateful day.

In general Greengrass fits into a new wave of British filmmakers employing a similar tone of stylish realism, including Kevin MacDonald (‘Touching the Void’, ‘Last King of Scotland’) and Michael Winterbottom. Winterbottom was prolific throughout the decade making 8 dramas and 2 documentaries, honing the run-and-gun, location-based filmmaking he established in the 90’s. Despite his preference for genre hopping, the near future sci-fi of ‘Code 46’, the Western epicness of ‘The Claim’, the procedural realism of “A Mighty Heart” or the absurd comedy of ‘Tristram Shandy’, his visual sensibilities admirably connect his body of work with a true auteur stamp. Perhaps his most memorable film of the decade is his ambitious ‘In this World’ which follows an Afghan refugee boy from across the world from war torn Peshawar to Great Britain.

In 2006, the careers of the Mexican trio Guillermo del Toro, Alfonso Cuarón, and Alejandro González Iñárritu, famously merged with three of that year’s most acclaimed films, respectively, ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’, ‘Children of Men’ and ‘Babel’. Throughout the decade the trio great success: Cuarón delivered the hardcore sexual road comedy, ‘Y Tu Mama Tambien’ then segued curiously into the Harry Potter franchise with, arguably, the series’ best entry, ‘The Prisoner of Azkaban’. Iñárritu’s decade started off loudly with his cleverly structured triptych story ‘Amores Perros’, then reworked the same concept with varying results in ’21 Grams’ and the aforementioned ‘Babel’. De Toro found success with each of his five films in the decade – the genre fantasy action pictures ‘Blade 2’ and both ‘Hellboy’ films as well as his lower key Spanish language creepers ‘The Devil’s Backbone’ and ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’.

Since most of Charlie Kaufman’s work in the decade was as writer, he may not qualify using the ‘Cahier du Cinema’ definition of auteur but nonetheless emerges as a legitimate cinematic force. As writer of ‘Being John Malkovich’ in 1999, Kaufman expounded on these same Escher-like methods of storytelling producing three memorable films – Spike Jonze’s ‘Adaptation’, Michel Gondry’s ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’ and his own directorial debut ‘Synecdoche NY’.

Looking into Asia, Korean cinema overtook Japanese cinema as the most influential of the Asian extreme genre. And there’s no doubt the work of Chan-wook Park stands as the high bar of Asian cinema in the decade. The force of nature that is his ‘revenge’ trilogy will leave a lasting legacy. Arguably, it was the internet support of ‘Aint It Cool News’ which helped ‘Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance’, get some notice in North America. And so, when ‘Old Boy’ was released in 2003 Park was high on the radar of cinephiles. It did not disappoint, certainly shocking me into a cinematic coma.

There’s lot more interesting filmmakers with memorable bodies of work I haven't discussed like American indies Kelly Reichardt ('Wendy and Lucy'), David Gordon Green ('George Washington), Rahmin Bahrani ("Chop Shop') Jason Reitman’s three films seem to be increasing in complexity, though the 10’s promise to be even better. And I barely touched on international cinema, but filmmakers like Thailand’s Apichatpong Weerasethakul (‘Syndromes and a Century’), China’s Jia Zhang-ke (‘Still Life’), France’s Claire Denis (‘Beau Travail’), Jacques Audiard (‘Un Prophet’) and Gaspar Noe ('Irreversible') became unquestioned auteurs of world cinema.

Of course, I end off these discussions with my own personal favourites of the ‘New Auteurs’ discussed here:

United 93 (2006) dir. Paul Greengrass
The best film of 2006 was no doubt, ‘United 93’. All public worries that it was too early to make a film about 9/11 were allayed when Greengrass’ intense, reverent and shattering depiction of 9/11 was first seen. The film succeeds beyond its need to commemorate the event and the heroes, it’s supreme immersive filmmaking no matter the subject.

The Prestige (2005) dir. Christopher Nolan
Largely ignored at the time, the film had the misfortune of coming out after another ‘magician’ film that year, ‘The Illusionist’. But you just have to look at the userforum discussions from viewers and fans who continue to debate this beguiling film

Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) dir. Guillermo Del Toro
Del Toro’s film had the misfortune of going up against the equally miraculous ‘Lives of the Others’ at the Oscars that year. ‘Others’ won the Oscar and shocked most people, including myself, who assumed ‘Labyrinth’ would win. I’m sure del Toro will get his Oscar some day, but for now, his wholly imaginative and emotionally heartbreaking WWII-set fantasy picture is still a masterpiece.

Old Boy (2003) dir. Chan-wook Park
Like ‘United 93’ Old Boy had the same visceral impact. Without knowing anything about the film, it’s possible to foresee how deep Park goes into the characters’ deep dark internal psychoses. Few films have capture the raw power and impact of vengeance with as much cinematic force as ‘Old Boy’. The final act packs as much force as a freight train.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) dir. Michel Gondry
I’m confident enough to say that I doubt there is a more creative director working cinema today than Michel Gondry. As evidence in his phenomenal music videos, he is a cinematic magician. And the merging of Gondry and the storytelling surrealist trickster Charlie Kaufman with ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’ is a magical concoction. Gondry manages to create a kaleidoscope of emotions of Kaufman’s character logical and empathic. ‘Eternal Sunshine’ is masterpiece of this age of self-ware cynicism.

Deconstructing the Cinema of the 2000’s – Part 3: Documentary

By Alan Bacchus

The following is part of a continuing series of features breaking down the trends of cinema in the 2000's. Click below for parts 1 and 2:
Part 1: Tentpole Franchisees
Part 2: Social Realism

It’s not hard to pinpoint the exact moment when documentaries became more than just an art house or 'special interest' genre but a legitimate mass market theatrical entertainment product. It was May 2002, when Michael Moore’s ‘Bowling For Columbine’ was invited into Official Competition at the Cannes Film Festival. It was unprecedented for a documentary to even go to Cannes, let alone secure a spot in contention for the Palme D’Or. It didn’t win the big prize, but Moore did take home the ‘55th Anniversary’ prize, in recognition of its precedent-setting accomplishment.

The film would of course, go on to win the Oscar but not before it became the highest grossing theatrical documentary of all time, taking in $21million in the domestic box office and Moore would eventually win the Palme D'Or in 2004 with Fahrenheit 9/11. But in 2002, with 'Bowling' instantly a bandwagon was formed, and Hollywood was not slow to jump on board. Throughout the decade each year, half a dozen or more documentaries not only trumped the ones before it in terms of intellectually stimulating product, but provided a legitimate alternative to traditional studio product.

Why the sudden change in people’s tastes? Several reasons, all of which influenced each other:

1) The Snowball Effect: Once documentaries proved a viable money making venture, its popularity spread bringing more documentary filmmakers out of the woodwork, and creating healthy competition to be better than the next. And with feature film revenue streams from theatrical and DVD distributors now open, documentaries became bigger.

2) Technology: The 2000’s saw a radical change in the tools of production for filmmakers. Between 2000 and 2009, the affordability, quality and acceptability of digital technology compounded exponentially. In 2000, digital cameras were available to use, though still nowhere near the quality of real film. But its affordability meant that shooting quality footage was cheaper than ever, and with non-linear digital editing already established it didn’t take more than a decent home computer system to be one’s own production studio. Gradually as high definition overtook the lower rent DV, digital imagery became near indistinguishable from film, resulting in low cost high production values. We thus saw feature film sized storytelling in the genre.

3) Reality Television: It’s sad to say but there’s no question the prevalence of reality TV in prime time helped acclimatize audiences to seeing real life as entertainment. Survivor premiered on US in 2000 as an instant hit. The format has proved to more than a fad, and a legitimate form of televised entertainment. However manufactured and low brow, audiences can thus see cinema verite as an extension on some of these reality shows, with The Osbornes or Nick and Jessica serving as training wheels for more intellectually challenging yet conceptually similar entertainment.

4) Political and Social Awareness: After 9/11 and the military presence in Middle East, Americans seemed to be more politically aware of the rest of world than ever before. Suddenly what’s happening in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran immediately influenced people’s lives. Same with socially conscious causes like the Environment, usual topics for documentary filmmakers suddenly became bankable as well. Looking at the top 10 documentaries of all time, there’s a clear influence toward these social and political topics such as the War in Iraq, the Environment, Government Accountability. Audiences not only saw real life as entertainment but ideas, and journalism as entertainment too. The environmental movement of the 2000’s has had the most profound effect on documentary filmmaking. “March of the Penguins”, at a glance, appears no different than programs aired on PBS or National Geographic for decades. But with this increased awareness combined with fundamental storytelling skills and high production values, “March of the Penguins” became a box office smash.

Courtesy of Indiewire, here are the top box office earning documentaries of the 2000's

1. Fahrenheit 9/11 2004 $119,194,771
2. March of the Penguins 2005 $77,437,223
3. Sicko 2006 $24,540,079
4. An Inconvenient Truth 2006 $24,146,161
5. Bowling For Columbine 2002 $21,576,018
6. Capitalism: A Love Story 2009 $14,093,834*
7. Religulous 2008 $13,011,160
8. Winged Migration 2003 $11,689,053
9. Super Size Me 2004 $11,536,423
10. Mad Hot Ballroom 2005 $8,117,961
11. The Aristocrats 2005 $6,377,461
12. Spellbound 2003 $5,728,581
13. Shine a Light 2008 $5,505,267
14. Touching the Void 2004 $4,593,598
15. Food, Inc. 2009 $4,411,489
16. The Fog of War 2003 $4,198,566
17. Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room 2005 $4,071,700
18. Young@Heart 2008 $3,992,189
19. Good Hair 2009 $3,826,821*
20. Step into Liquid 2003 $3,681,803

And here are my own personal top five documentaries:

5. The Fog of War (2003) dir. Errol Morris

Errol Morris was already royalty in documentary filmmaking by the 2000’s. His idiosyncratic subject choices, his particularly cinematic visual look and his moody reflective tones were hallmarks of his style going back to the 70's. With the 'Fog of War', he finally won a Best Documentary Oscar, which he should have gotten a long time ago. The first person look at Vietnam War architect Robert McNamara is a riveting look at the military turmoil of the 1960’s and McNamara’s key role and culpability. It’s also a marvelous character and psychological study of an intellectual man full of over confidence and ego.

4. Bowling For Columbine (2002) dir. Michael Moore

Michael Moore has had a string of great films in the decade, all of which seem to relate and connect with each other like a franchise of working class grievances. Columbine is perhaps his best, a film - an angry and emotional chastisement of America’s obsession with guns and its tragic consequences. Moore uses his affable and waddling everyman persona to maximum effect.

3. Touching the Void (2003) dir. Kevin Macdonald

2003 was certainly a good year for documentaries. Kevin Macdonald’s real life story of survival of two mountain climbers stranded for days in the snow capped Peruvian mountains makes for a thriller of a doc as exciting as any dramatic genre picture. Macdonald who freely moves from doc and drama in his career, employs a cinematic style similar to Errol Morris, with impeccably recreated dramatic scenes. In fact, most of the film are these dramatic recreation filmed with such authenticity and emotional drama, the question of whether this film should be consider doc or drama caused much controversy.

2. Man on Wire (2007) dir. James Marsh

The Best Documentary winner of 2007, like ‘Touching the Void’, is a Hollywood heist film fashioned out of a documentary. The personality of Philippe Petit the French acrobat and enfant terrible who walked across the twin towers on a hirewire in 1974 makes for a unique personality study as well as a suspenseful thriller.

1. Capturing the Friedmans (2003) dir. Andrew Jarecki

One of the most astonishing and disturbing real life stories ever documented on film. Friedmans is one of those happy accidents of film. Andrew Jarecki who started making a film on a New City clown, uncovered some dark skeletons in his closet which turned the light comic documentary into a jet black story of family abuse and paedophilia. After interviewing the members of the Friedman family he discovered their entire lives were already documented in their own personal super 8mm and Hi8 home movies they had been filming for years. This accidental goldmine of footage turned his little clown film into an ironic masterpiece.

Deconstructing Cinema of the 2000's - Part 2: Social Realism

Deconstructing Cinema of the 2000's - Part 2: Social Realism

By Alan Bacchus

After watching the nearly unwatchable latest Bond flick, ‘Quantum of Solace’ it was clear to me the prevailing film movement of the decade is Social Realism. Though QoS is at the far end of Social Realism, the stylistic aesthetic of independent European cinema had crept all the way into one of the most exploitive and fantastical of Hollywood franchises – the 47 year old 22 film James Bond series.

What is Social Realism? Well for starters it’s a movement which isn’t necessarily exclusive to cinema – an art movement which began in the Depression-era 1930’s reflecting the everyday life struggles of poor working class citizens. The Italian neo-realism movement of the 1940’s is the most famous – such as Roberto Rossellini's 'Open City' and Vittorio de Sica’s seminal morality tale ‘The Bicycle Thief’. The hallmarks of these films – real locations, unprofessional actors, loosely structured minimalist plotting - has defined this movement ever since.



Fast-forward to 1996 and the introduction of the Belgian filmmaking duo, the Dardennes Bros third feature drama ‘La Promese’, but first of their vertite style films, is distinctly neo-realist and won the Palme D’Or. After “La Promesse” came “Rosetta” then “Le Fils” then “L’Enfant” then “Lorna’s Silence” five films which would first influence European cinema and eventually bleed down into American films.

Perhaps “Le Fils” is the most influential film of the Brothers, a Best Director Award-winner at Cannes, a simple film about a lowly factory working who takes a local street kid under his wing as an apprentice. For an hour the Dardennes’ camera hovers behind Olivier Gourmet’s shoulder going through the mundane daily routine of his life and his job. Just at the moment the audience might give up on this film the Dardennes sledgehammer us with a dramatic reveal which suddenly gives context to the film jumpstarting a third act which plays upon the best examples of morally challenging complexities of the original Italian realism.



Throughout the decade European and international cinema has been dominated with films of this aesthetic. Just look at the success stories from Cannes – “The Class”, “Gomorrah”, “4 Weeks, 3 Months and 2 Days”, "Serbis" – a collection of films which chose to treat formalism like a plague. The filmmakers of these films found inspiration in the details of people lives. Whether its following someone walking through a hallway or across the street characters in these films are defined more by their actions that their dialogue.

Charting it's relationship to the original neo-realist dogma the casting of the children in “The Class” exemplifies Social Realism’s preference of non-professional actors. Laurent Cantent cast his film after a lengthy workshop with real Parisian street youth to find the right people to personalities to weave his stories around – a situation not unlike the casting of Lamberto Maggiorani as Guido in “The Bicycle Thief”, an unprofessional plucked from a factory to be De Sica’s viewpoint into postwar Italy.



Realism is not the be all and end all though. It's as self-conscious and fashionably trendy as any 'new wave' in cinema - a stylistic choice in many cases which alienate audiences as much as draw them in. Personally, I thought Mateo Garrone's "Gomorra" was transparent hogwash. Garrone's desire to 'keep it real' left me detached and uninvolved with it's characters. It was remarkably empty and had me yearning for the melodrama of 'The Godfather', or the stylish bravura of 'Goodfellas.' Even 'The Class', celebrated everywhere, winning a Palme D'Or was admirable in it attempt to show the real lives of an urban Parisian high school, but also tedious and remarkably undramatic at the same time.

By the second half of the decade we saw this movement slowly creep into American films. In the world of Hollywood, it seems to be the norm now to shoot any action scenes off the sticks and handheld for that 'gritty' feel. The days of the locked down formal compositions of the camera in action were long gone, and thanks to the films of Paul Greengrass (Bourne Supremacy and Ultimatum), Steven Soderbergh and Alejandro González Iñárritu handheld dialogue seemed to become the norm as well.

These were just stylistic crutches for directors keeping pace with the times, and few of these films actually drew from the fundamental and core humanism tropes of European Social Realism. We had to look to the American independent film movements to find these influences. New York Times critic A.O. Scott’s widely circulated article earlier this year on neo-neo-realism summarized the American version of the trend well, identifying Kelly Reichhart’s Wendy and Lucy” and the three films as Ramin Bahrani (‘Man Push Cart’, ‘Chop Shop’ and ‘Goodbye Solo’) as the quintessential American neo-realist films.



A film which Mr. Scott doesn’t mention, which has as much influence from European Social Realism and had the widest audience reach in the U.S. is Darren Aronofky’s ‘The Wrestler”. Aronofsky’s camera which often follows behind Mickey Rourke’s shoulders takes direct influence from the Dardennes’ “Le Fils”. Even Rourke himself, though far from a non-professional, takes influences from his life and career as much as any of the films mentioned above. The 180 degree switch of Aronofsky from the formalism of his three previous high concept features to the stripped down humanistic integrity of “The Wrestler” sums up this trend.

Back to 'Quantum of Solace'. To make the connections back to neo-realism, follow this chain. QaS, along with its prequel, 'Casino Royale', was a concerted attempt to 'get back to the real', away from the cartoony of the Brosnan pictures. The visual style of QaS seems to take it main influence from the action as Paul Greengrass's handheld aesthetic and very serious tone of the (last two) Bourne films, a style actually birthed from Greengrass's 'Bloody Sunday' , his documentary-like take on the 1970's massacre in Northern Ireland, a particularly British version of neo-realist real time action film.

Here are my favourite Social Realism films of the decade:

The Wrestler (2008)

As mentioned above, the most accessible and entertaining of the above-mentioned films, featuring an immersive performance from Mickey Rourke, told with an unabashed humanist and sentimental unironic tone.

4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2006)

A difficult film to watch but ultimately devastating portrait of communist Romania and the lengths to which one woman will go to get an illegal abortion for her best friend

Wendy & Lucy (2008)

A simple minimalist story of a woman and her dog, plays like an American version of Vittorio De Sica’s ‘Umberto D’ replacing 1951 Rome for 2008 American Midwest

L’Enfant (2006)

The Dardenne bros second Palme D’Or-winning film, dramatizes the redemption of a hardened street youth who sells his baby for money.

Click Here to read: Deconstructing Cinema of the 2000's - Part 1: Tentpole Films

Deconstructing the Cinema of the 2000s - Part 1: THE TENT POLE FRANCHISEES

We’re just past the halfway point of 2009, and thus under 26 weeks left on the cinema calendar of the decade. So it’s not too early to start breaking down and looking back on the decade that was for the movies. What are the most memorable films of the 2000’s? Several clearly stand out, many won’t likely emerge until the passage of time allows the cream of the crop to emerge and linger as era-defining cinema.

Perhaps the best way to start the discussion of the best films of the 2000’s is with the distinct trends which dominated the movies. This is the first of several articles analyzing the decade of cinema in the 00's.

PART 1: THE TENT POLE FRANCHISEES

In 1999, of the top ten highest grossing films, only 2 were sequels, or franchise-related films - Star Wars Episode 1 and Toy Story 2 (The Matrix was also released but had yet to be a franchise). By the middle of 2009, 5 of the top ten films were sequels. In fact, of the entire 90's only 5 'sequels' appear in the top 20 grossing movies of the decade, compared with (so far) 16 for the 2000's! This the tent pole phenomenon.

As it relates to movies, a 'Tent Pole' refers to a film, which, because of an already established broad audience, becomes the cash cow for a studio to float the losses of other riskier film ventures. The need for tent poles increased the need to establish movie franchises - material and characters which could be reused and recycled for maximum impact and minimum risk. Arguably James Bond was the first modern franchise. But it wasn't until the 00's when studio's exploited its successful films over and over again ad nauseum. This is why we saw so many TV shows, comic books, remakes, and sequels on our screens.

Throughout the decade, it was rare for a year to go by with either a Pirates film, a Shrek film, a Harry Potter film, Lord of the Rings film or a Marvel/DC Comic franchise film to be out in the theatres at any one time. In fact in 2007, the four top grossing films (worldwide) of the year were four of the biggest-ever Hollywood franchises:

1. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End ($960,996,492)
2. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix ($938,212,738)
3. Shrek 3 ($890,871, 626)
4. Spider-man 3 ($798,958,162)

The top ten grossing films of all time, which used to be a barometer for audience-pleasing quality, is now diluted with these tent pole sequels. Kind of like the steroid era in baseball - average players with inflated statistics.

Even older franchises which had seemingly run its course could be given new life with the concept known as the ‘reboot’. Anything is possible in Hollywood. And so, this is how the 40 year old Star Trek franchise was made as fresh and modern any new fangled high concept film. It’s been a late-decade phenomenon, but one that produced reboots for Halloween, Friday the 13th, James Bond with even more to come in the '10's

Arguably the belle of this bunch is The Dark Knight and in many ways an anomaly of the blockbuster world. An intelligent adult comic film, perhaps more in keeping with the structure and tone of a classic crime film than a comic book extravangza. Nolan's previous reboot Batman Begins was successful in the box office ($205million domestically in 2005) and similar numbers were expected. No one would have predicted it to challenge Titanic as alltime box office champ. The untimely death of Heath Ledger undoubtedly contributed to the mass interest in the film, as well as Christopher Nolan’s experimentation with true Imax shooting and projection.

With much talk in the latter half of the decade about how filmmakers could tear young people away from youtube and Bit Torrent, get them to take their money out of their wallets and continue to stick their butts into the theatres, the answer came from a film system which had been staring us in the face for 30 years but never capitalized on. Now it seems a no-brainer to use the pristine resolution and awe-inspiring spectacle of true full screen IMAX. It’s only been a year since The Dark Knight, but with Transformers, Harry Potter and Iron Man franchises shooting partially on IMAX, it’s now a standard for new blockbusters to keep up with.

With the success of these films every studio was looking to establish their own franchises, and new reboots – many of course to fail. The Catholic right drowned New Line’s much lauded Golden Compass prospective franchise. Same goes with Bryan Singer's much-reviled Superman reboot (which I actually enjoyed),

So here's my top five Tent Pole flms in the 2000’s

Batman Begins (2005):

On a personal level, I actually prefer Batman Begins to TDH, less muscular and more mythological than The Dark Knight. Nolan's explorations of the Batman's past and the epic journey to embrace and channels his fears and guilt against crime took on a grand emotional quality.

The Dark Knight (2008):

As mentioned, Christopher Nolan’s Batman sequel feels more like an accompany-piece of Michael Mann’s Heat, than anything in the current Marvel/DC film universe. Special effects kept to a minimum, organic street level action and tension anchor the Gotham conflict in the real world.

Spider-man 2 (2005):

On the opposite spectrum of the Chris Nolan school of comic filmmaking Sam Raimi’s Spider-man sequel is pure popcorn entertainment – a colourful extravangza of pop culture. But Raimi exposes the emotional core of his characters with more depth than his first and third films, producing a rare combination of style and substance in the genre.

Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001):

With the benefit of hindsight, I don’t think many will complain that Peter Jackson’s first chapter of the Tolkein franchise is the best. Though it lacks the gigantic finale battle scenes of The Two Towers or Return of the King, it’s lyrical, romantic and pure literal fantasy are at its creative peak in FOTR.

Iron Man (2008):

The one-two punch of TDK and Iron Man made ’08 a glorious summer. The enjoyment of Iron Man perhaps had to do with how for out of left field its success came from - Jon Favreau was hardly a top-tier action director, with a comic franchise as yet untested in cinema or television. And so how welcome it was when Robert Downey Jr. charmed us with a great anti-heroic performance as Tony Stark. Add to that Favreau’s controlled and streamlined visuals, the simplicity of the Iron Man design and his enemy rivals seemed like an antidote to the over stimulation we got from films like Spider-man 3 and Transformers.

Over the next few weeks and months look for more articles deconstructing the themes, trends and great films of the decade, including Documentary, Social Realism, Political Trends and more. Enjoy.