Bud Greenspan, whose award-winning documentaries on the Winter and Summer Olympic Games made him synonymous with that quadrennial event, passed away December 25 at his home in New York City. He was 84 and had been struggling with Parkinson's Disease. According to an obituary in The New York Times, Greenspan sold his first documentary, a short about a Gold Medal-winning African-American weightlifter entitled The Strongest Man in the World, to the United States Information Agency. While making commercials for an advertising agency in the 1950s and '60s, he worked on a 22-hour series called The
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When Bob Dylan met DA Pennebaker in 1965, the singer/songwriter had earned acclaim as the forerunner of the folk genre, with four groundbreaking albums to his credit and a seemingly inexhaustible supply of songs in his head. To his contemporaries he was both the heir apparent to Woody Guthrie and the wise and mischievous little brother of the Beat Generation. Pennebaker had been making films for over ten years, working first with such pioneers as Shirley Clarke and Willard van Dyke, then as part of the legendary Drew Associates team that included Robert Drew, Albert and David Maysles and
War—and editing documentaries—is hell. What editors won't tell you about, however, are those moments of ecstasy they experience in the privacy of their cutting rooms, when they lay down a new piece of music and it completely transforms and uplifts a montage with which they've been struggling. It's heaven. Mike Majoros and Bestor Cram experienced this happy phenomenon a few years back, while working through a large body of black-and-white footage of a Vietnam veterans’ protest that took place in Lexington, MA in 1971. They used a part of Henryk Gorecki's 3rd Symphony, and it happened: this
If ever there was a film festival that reminds us of what it is to be human, it is the Cinéma du Réel festival of ethnographic and sociological films. As a meeting place for visions of how we see the world, the ten-day festival, held at the Pompidou Centre in Paris, shows documentary films from “all corners of the earth.” A common thread running through all of the films is the focus on the human element of life—where and how people live, how we resist, what we do under duress and how we move on. Founded in 1979 by BPI, Bibliothèque Publique d’Information (the public library network), and
From the treasure of documentary riches at the Berlin Festival, celebrating its 52nd year this past February, six films merit special acknowledgement, in terms of originality, social commentary and the passionate self-expression of the film artist. Those terms apply particularly to Jonas Mekas, the foremost proponent of the American cinema avant garde. At Berlin, Mekas screened his five-hour personal journal film, As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty. The film seems casual, but it is studied and controlled. "My film,” he maintains, “is a record of subtle feelings
With much regret, I write this farewell to Tim Lyons, dear friend and former editor of International Documentary. I was one of his writers, specializing in foreign and domestic documentary film festivals. Our working relationship lasted about three years, until his departure, which I protested vigorously, but in vain. After that, until his death, we kept in touch by phone and letter and by exchange of materials, at times. He was a special bloke. I miss him now and will remember him for that special comradeship between writer and editor. Often the writer is impulsive and extravagant, the editor
With Jack, it was a friendship that went back over 40 years. I had been working as an independent film researcher in New York when David Wolper persuaded me to come out to Los Angeles, and join his “huge” organization. I still remember my shock at entering the touted headquarters of Wolper Productions, which consisted of two rooms in a beat-up building on Sunset Boulevard. Wolper had the larger office. The smaller room contained a desk, which I would share with Jack. Sensing my disappointment, he put me at ease with a few irreverent remarks about Wolper. Talented, buoyant, carefree, blessed
Every good documentary has its own compelling story, concept and point of view. Writing documentaries on historical subjects carries an additional challenge—the filmmaker must tell a visual story, but he or she can’t just take a camera and record what happens in reality. On a March morning at the Writers Guild of America West office, Joan Owens-Meyerson gathered together five award-winning WGA writers for a lively roundtable discussion to explore the creative challenges of writing historical documentaries. Lyn Goldfarb’s credits as a writer, producer and/or director include the Academy-Award®
Dear IDA Members: The big news at the IDA is that we have a new Executive Director: Sandra Ruch. She was selected as the final candidate at a special board meeting held April 26 at IDA headquarters. Over 150 applications were received and reviewed. Two committees worked on the search. First. Barbara Leigh Gregson and Steve Poster headed a search committee that included Richard Wells, Cara White and Rick Trank. They worked for months laying the foundation for the final search, headed by Larry Cate. Richard Propper, Mitch Block and Lyn Goldtarb rounded out the committee. Lynne Littman, Sven
Dear Readers, It is never an easy task to salute the passings, in each issue of ID, of so many dignified members of the documentary community. But when we lose members of our own IDA family, as we did one weekend in April, the task is onerous, indeed. In this issue, former IDA President Mel Stuart reflects on Jack Haley, Jr., and Gordon Hitchens, a longtime contributor to these pages, recalls his 20-year association with Timothy Lyons. Jack Haley, Jr., was an IDA Trustee for many years, and was very generous and gracious with his time, emceeing many of the Oscars® receptions, IDA Galas and