There are many different forms of documentary, but the ones that tend to be the most fascinating are usually those that are portraits of unusual individuals. In this regard, you don’t get anyone more peculiar than Dr Timothy Leary, the world-renowned Harvard professor who abandoned his academic career to become inarguably the most notable proponent…

Death is inevitable – this is a fact we all learn quite early on in our lives, and it’s something that we all have to come to terms with in some way. However, this hasn’t stopped countless people throughout history from attempting to delay death in some way – whether through trying to prolong their…

What is love? This is a question that has challenged philosophers and artists for about as love as we’ve been sentient – the movement away from procreation for necessity towards putting value into interpersonal relationships has been one that has provoked countless individuals and produced so many fascinating interpretations. Pier Paolo Pasolini was a multi-hyphenate…

Frederick Wiseman revolutionized the documentary – in many ways, he essentially invented the modern form of non-fictional filmmaking, alongside the work done by other renegade auteurs such as the Maysles Brothers and Shirley Clarke, who sought to represent reality in a way that was honest, poignant and direct, with the results often being fascinating studies…

I’m not going to eulogize Agnès Varda in this review. Despite the fact that she’s an artist who means a considerable amount to me, and considering this is her final (and perhaps most personal) film, it seems inappropriate to use this space as one to lament her dying – not only because I’ve already written…

“It’s very difficult to keep the line between the past and the present” I have a very strange relationship with Grey Gardens. Documentary filmmaking has always been a passion of mine, and some of the most profound moments in my life as a film-lover have come from non-fiction filmmaking in various ways. Grey Gardens was…

Over the past few decades, the private lives of some individuals have become increasingly public with the rise of reality television and more intimate documentaries. We can point to two specific early examples of personal life being public entertainment. The first is An American Family, the PBS documentary series broadcast in the early 1970s that…

Towards the beginning of American Boy: A Profile of Steven Prince, before the arrival of the eponymous subject, a young Martin Scorsese looks at his cameraman and asks how much film they have left. The answer is roughly two minutes, and Scorsese asks “can we fit a Steven Prince story into two minutes?” and he…

Let’s Get Lost is a standard biographical documentary, approached in quite an unconventional manner – and considering it is a film about Chet Baker, one of the most unusual and folkloric figures in the history of jazz music, it seems oddly appropriate that director Bruce Weber approaches his story in a way that is unusual…

2018 has been an exceptional year for documentary filmmaking, and any lover of non-fiction filmmaking has been spoiled with a panoply of diverse and audacious works on a variety of subjects this year. From the warmth of Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, to the enigmatic love letter to cinema in Shirkers to the thrilling mystery…