Cynthia Rockwell has an interesting dispatch from the Silverdocs conference, in which she discusses the "revitalization" of Silver Springs, Maryland. What’s more, she respond to a serviceable documentary about midnight movies:
It’s an entertaining but straightforward film, like so many documentaries today. The subject matter is what makes the film, not the filmmaking itself. I enjoyed the film, but I’m hoping to find at least a few exceptions to this trend in the festival this week. I’m hoping there are some emerging Fred Wisemans or Ricky Leacocks out there who are making documentaries with some vision. I’ll let you know if I find any.
I couldn’t agree more. Gone is the hope for humanist, artistic documentary. Gone is the hope for the intellectual documentaries of the political modernists. Gone is a culture of reception that values anything more in documentary than quirky subjects, the tone of History, or a "correct" political stance. PBS once gave us An American Family. Today it gives us endlessly solemn repackaging of archival footage under the guise of enlightenment.
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