Famous Documentaries You Haven’t Seen but Should

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It is generally considered that John Grierson, the Scottish documentarian, coined the term documentary while reviewing Robert Flaherty’s 1926 film Moana. He considered that real people can depict the reality better than the stage actors and stage sets. He defined a documentary as a ‘creative treatment of actuality’. Pare Lorentz, the American film critic, defined a documentary as ‘a factual film which is dramatic’. In its current usage, a documentary is essentially a non-fiction movie meant for a video, cinema, or a television program. The first documentary, See it Now, was made by Edwin L Murrow and was televised in 1951. A documentary serves as a teacher and it is one of the most effective tools for educational purposes. From 1898 to 1906, Eugene-Louis Doyen, the French surgeon, filmed sixty surgical operations and documented them in three volumes. Similarly the Romanian professor Gheorghe Marinescu made several documentaries relating to neurology and called them ‘studies with the help of the cinematograph’.

1. In the Shadow of the Moon

In the Shadow of the Moon
In the Shadow of the Moon

Relating to the American manned missions to the moon, In the Shadow of the Moon is a British documentary which premiered at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. It was honored with the World Cinema Audience Award. The documentary also won the Sir Arthur Clark Award. It was released on September 7, 2007 in America and on October 19, 2007 in Canada. Later on it was also released on DVD in the United Kingdom. The documentary is about and includes the missions Apollo 11-17, with the astronauts Buzz Aldrin, Michael Collins, Alan Bean, Jim Lovell, Edgar Mitchell, David Scott, John Young, Charles Duke, Eugene Cernan, and Harrison Schmitt. Neil Armstrong, who was the first man to step on the moon, refused to participate in this documentary. In addition to the news released in media from 1960 to 1970, records from NASA were also used in the presentation of this documentary. The speaking role in the documentary is exclusive to the former astronauts, except for some written statements of a few journalists which have also been shown.

2. Butterfly

Butterfly
Butterfly

Butterfly is a documentary film about the amazing story of the environmental heroine Julia Butterfly Hill. She is famous for living in a 1500-year old, 180-feet tall Redwood tree for more than two years, to save it from being cut by the Pacific Lumbar Company. Julia Hill herself starred in the documentary. It was directed by Dough Wolens and it was televised in June, 2000. The real tree, lovingly called Luna, also starred in this documentary. Julia has authored a book, Legacy of Luna, and has co-authored One Makes the Difference. The documentary highlights the importance of biodiversity and sustainable development. Julia Butterfly Hill is a vegan and at a young age has set an example for environmentalists.

3. Moana

Moana
A Samoan family.

Moana is considered the first documentary film. It was written, directed, and produced by Robert J. Flaherty. The 85-minute documentary was released on January 7, 1926. The documentary was filmed in the Safune village of Samoa and is named after the hero Moana, which in Samoan language means deep water. In order to film the traditional Polynesian life, Flaherty, along with his wife and children, lived in Samoa from April 1923 to December 1924. By the time Flaherty arrived in Samoa, the western missionaries had already influenced and to some extent had westernized the traditional Samoan clothing. The hero Moana was shown undergoing the Samoans’ tattoo tradition. The documentary was not a success at the box office.

4. March of the Penguins

March of the Penguins
March of the Penguins

March of the Penguins, titled in French La Marche de l’empereur, literally meaning the emperor’s march, is a French language documentary. It was dubbed as if spoken by the penguins. The voice actors were Charles Berling, Romane Bohringer, and Jules Sitruk. The Academy Award winning documentary by Luc Jacquet was co-produced by Bonne Pioche and the National Geographic Society. The documentary depicts the migration of penguins from their oceanic habitat to their ancestral breeding grounds. The penguins have to walk many times from ocean to land and vice versa. The documentary was filmed in the vicinity of Dumont in Adelie Land and required more than a year to complete.

5. Hiroshima

Kinuko Laskey
Kinuko Laskey

Hiroshima is a BBC documentary, released on August 5, 2005 to mark the 60th anniversary of the Hiroshima atomic bombing. It was televised in America on the Discovery Channel. The documentary utilized the first-hand experience of the eye-witnesses of the event. It has won an Academy Award and three BAFTA awards in 2006. The five Japanese survivors interviewed in this documentary include a nurse, Kinuko Laskey, an army cadet, Morio Ozaki, a sixteen-year old tram driver, Toruko Fujii, a military hospital doctor, Shuntaro Hida, and a seventeen-year old bank clerk, Akiko Takakura. White House map room Duty Officer George Elsey, who was an eye witness to the Potsdam Conference, was also interviewed in this documentary.

6. Darfur Now

Darfur Now
Darfur Now

Written and directed by Ted Braun, Darfur Now is a documentary about genocide in Darfur. It was produced by Mark Jonathan Harris for the International Film festival. It was released in 2007 as an action call for people all over the world to help the people in Darfur. The documentary is the story of six individuals involved in the Darfur Crisis. The Oscar award-winning Don Cheadle uses his celebrity status to attract the world’s attention towards the crisis. Adam Sterling influences the Californian government, preventing it from investing in a Sudanese company. Hejewa Adam is a woman whose baby was beaten to death by Janjaweed attackers.

7. Human Apes

Human Apes
Human Apes

The National Geographic Channel commissioned the award-winning Pioneer Productions of London to produce the documentary film Human Apes. The documentary reviews the genetic and behavioral similarities and differences between the human beings and the great apes who share 99% of the genetic material of human beings. The documentary made use of computer-generated imagery in controlled experiments to see how both the species develop cognitive abilities and how they communicate through emotions. Their tendencies towards violence and sex, and their abilities to use tools were also shown.

8. Inside 9/11

Inside 9/11
Inside 9/11

Inside 9/11 is a documentary produced by Towers Productions. It covers the September 11, 2001 attack. It covers the events preceding the attack and the aftermath. It includes comments from the eyewitnesses and experts. The events are covered chronologically. It was nominated for an Emmy Award in 2006 and the documentary has been the highest ever rated program on the National Geographic Channel. It was released again with details about Zacarias Moussaoui and its third part was released after the death of Osama bin Laden.

9. The Human Body

Dr. Robert Winston
Dr. Robert Winston

The Human Body is a medical documentary which depicts the functions of an average human body from birth to death. The documentary was presented on BBC by the medical scientist Dr. Robert Winston. It is a co-production of BBC and The Learning Channel. The documentary reviews the physical and emotional development of the human body during its life span. Comprising of seven parts, the series is considered one of the best documentaries of the National Geographic. It has been nominated for several awards and has won many of them including the BAFTA, RTS and Peabody Awards.

10. The Living Desert

The Living Desert
The Living Desert

The Living Desert is the 1953 winner of the Academy Award for the Best Documentary Feature. It has been also featured in the 2006 Walt Disney Legacy Collection Volume 2: Lands of Exploration. It was written and directed by James Algar, and was filmed in Tucson, Arizona. The film depicts the lives of animals living in the desert of Southwestern United States. The documentary was inspired by a ten-minute footage filmed by N. Paul Kenworthy Jr. He was studying for his doctorate at University of California at Los Angeles. His footage showed a battle between a tarantula and a wasp. Having reviewed it Disney funded the documentary about the lives of the desert animals.

Conclusion

Box office analysts opine that the documentary film genre has become popular progressively, as evidenced by the records of documentaries like March of the Penguins, Super Size Me, Earth, Fahrenheit 9/11, An Inconvenient Truth and many other similar documentaries. The Emmy Award Board of Directors has created a new non-fiction category in 2012 under the name documentary. Many documentary television channels have gained unparalleled popularity and fame throughout the world. A few of them are National Geographic Channel, Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, Aljazeera Documentary Channel, History TV Channel, and Science TV Channel.

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