Documentary

Afternoon of a Faun: Tanaquil Le Clercq

First Hit:  The opening dance scene sets the stage for telling the story of the amazing and short career of Tanaquil Le Clercq.

I love watching films that give the audience a focused view of someone that creates from the inside out.

Whether it’s intellectual creativity (See “Tim’s Vermeer”) or visual creativity, like we have here, I think these films are worth seeing. Tana’s performances are amazing. When she is lifted, she knows exactly when and how she will be place down and in knowing this makes the entire lift ethereal. You feel her fly.

Her relationships with George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins are deeply explored and the angst that Jerome felt is very palpable. Seeing Tana dance on The Red Skelton show was so interesting because she made ballet so much more accessible to others. She also walked her own path.

Tragically, she was struck down with Polio early in her career. The film also shows how she re-engaged her career as a successful teacher.

Nancy Buirski wrote and directed this excellent little documentary.

Overall:  Well cut and edited documentary of some wonderful old footage of an amazing dancer.

Particle Fever

First Hit:  Amazing story about people who are committed to learning about our universe.

This documentary is about the building and launching the Large Hadron Collider in Cern, Switzerland. The goal of the collider is to find the building blocks of the universe and isolate Higgs Boson which is the block from which all other particles are derived.

The first part is about how they sent light through the tube for the very first time. Then there was a problem that caused a year or so delay. Then comes the highlight the first collisions and the data it brings. The immensity of the dedication of the 10,000 people who came from 100 different countries was up-front and center. It was great that I didn’t have to be a scientist to “get” what they were talking about and this is to director’s Mark Levinson credit.

Levinson did an amazing job of piecing together enough information to make this interesting to all audiences.

Overall:  This was an inspiring film.

Tim's Vermeer

First Hit:  An amazing film about an intelligent quirky guy who has come up with a plausible story for the amazing light and detail in Vermeer’s paintings.

I left the theater wanting to paint the way Tim Jenison learned to paint. Tim is an inventor and has invented many things having to do with optics.

His inventions are used in television and films. He’s smart, focused, and extremely pragmatic. Tim was always fascinated by Vermeer paintings because they are so realistic and are almost camera like in quality. Their shadows, details, and proportions are all amazingly lifelike.

While researching this he reads a couple of books that suggest that Vermeer used some sort of technology to assist him in painting his artwork. Tim gets hooked on the idea of figuring this out and after he discovers the different use of a mirror, he amazingly paints a picture of his father with alarming accuracy and having never painted before in his life.

To attack painting a Vermeer he recreates Vermeer’s second floor room – the result of his experience after years of work was absolutely remarkable.

Tim Jenison was just so much fun to watch, especially how he dealt with this long, enduring, and rewarding task. Interviews with Penn Jillette, Martin Mull, David Hockney, Colin Blakemore were perfect. Teller directed this effort with deftness while combining humor, science, and shear focus.

Overall:  After seeing this film, I’m convinced that Vermeer used technology to assist him in his paintings but it also adds to his brilliance.

The Armstrong Lie

First Hit:  The longer I sat there, the more flabbergasted I became at the total arrogance and lack of forthcoming honesty by Armstrong.

It isn’t often that I want someone to suffer for their arrogance, Lance Armstrong is someone that I hope, loses every penny he made from cycling. I mean every penny.

He worked hard at fooling his friends, family and us, the public. I would find it difficult to ever believe anything that comes out of his mouth. His responses are always calculated, measured and for his best interest. He is a serial liar.

This film uses his comeback ride (2009) in the Tour as a basis for viewing his past history of doping and the impact he had on doping and cycling. I really feel for the teammates he hurt and chastised.

Alex Gibney wrote and directed this film and for him it was a way to exercise some anger and sadness towards Lance.

Overall:  This is a hard film to watch because it shows how many bike riding athletes will cheat and will lie about their performance. Most all of the Tour podium standers in the 2000’s got there by cheating.

Blackfish

First Hit: Extremely powerful film about why we need to stop using animals, in this case Orcas, for our amusement and profit.

The story starts with a tragic event of Orca trainer Dawn Brancheau being killed by Tilikum an Orca in an Orlando, Florida Sea World show.

Tilikum had a history of being a little aggressive towards humans (out of frustration?) because of the constant attacks (scraping) he received from other female Orcas he was penned up with.

The film also notes that this frustration may have also derived from the life it had to live. One of the worst parts is that with a history of behavior no trainer knew of how how many times penned Orcas have attacked humans. 

An interesting additional note is that in the wild there are no reports of Orcas being aggressive towards humans. The film explores the possibility that Orcas have a unique and powerful social system, feelings, and are extremely intelligent.

The story of how captive Orcas are captured as small babies, ripped away from their mothers, and made to live in small pools of water is simply disastrous and heartbreaking. Many of the people featured in this film are former capturer’s of these mammals and trainers of the fluid black beauties and help to make this film come alive as their regret and shame for not seeing the truth earlier, drove the film’s point home.

Everyone thinking of going to a trained Orca or porpoise/dolphin show needs to see this film and then decide whether they want to promote this cruelty. A bit of information from the film that startled me:  Less than 1% of all wild and free male Orcas have a bent (flopped over) dorsal fin while almost 100% of captured male Orcas have this problem.

Gabriela Cowperthwaite and Eli B. Despres wrote this powerful exposing film while Cowperthwaite directed this perfectly. I also want to applaud the interviewees for sharing their truth.

Overall:  A must see.

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