The Documentarian

Derrida, by Kirby Dick and some other person.

Feature-length documentary on discipline-defining post-structuralist philosopher Jacques Derrida, by two unashamed fanboys (fanpeople) in turtlenecks. Marvel as they drawl phrases like “my  theory is” and “it is their condition”… Watch in horror as they actually ask him which philosopher he’d want as his mother… But, whatever you do, don’t fall into the post-snobbish trap of assuming all French philosophy is bullshit because those guys love a caveat-clause-sub-clause-caveat-clause. The obscurantism belies a genuinely rare intelligence, one that’s finessing the fuck out of a system of complexes so utterly complex you’ll want to lie down and ‘be killed’.

Rant: dunzo. 

Q: What’s better than watching a dotcom millionaire repeat the words “dream”, “causality” and “accomplishment” into a bubble-mic?

A: 1,204 dotcom millionaires repeating the words “dream”, “causality” and “accomplishment” into bubble-mics.

Somebody’s collected URLs to (and descriptions of) every TED talk since 2006 in one place. Here they are. Click through.

(Source: essayist)

Don’t Look at Me, by Guy Girard, 1988

If you don’t know who David Lynch is, and you don’t want to watch this early early documentary about him, then you were probably looking for The Sockumentarian and keyed the address in badly. This is not The Sockumentarian. Now get off my site. 

All thanks to Ben Reed. A guy from the internet.

The Incredibly Strange Film Show: John Waters, a C4 documentary made in 1988

The Incredibly Strange Film Show was a series of documentaries focusing on the world of psychotronic movies, hosted by Jonathan ‘deliciouth wing of cheethe’ Ross. Episodes focus on the lives of such diverse filmakers as Hershell Gordon Lewis, Saim Raimi, Doris Wishman, Ed Wood Jr, and Tsui Hark. Here’s John Waters for ya. 

Mad Dogs & Englishmen, a documentary following Joe Cocker’s 1970 tour of the same name, by Pierre Adidge, 1971

Feat. Leon Russell, Denny Cordell and Rita Coolidge

Little Dieter Needs to Fly, by Werner Herzog, 1997

Little Dieter Needs to Fly looks at the life of Dieter Dengler, a German-born US Navy pilot downed and captured by the Viet Cong/NLF in 1966, and the various ordeals he faced as a POW and in the jungle after his escape. This is the documentary which went on to become Rescue Dawn.

Frat House, an unreleased HBO documentary by Todd Phillips and Andrew Gurland

Frat boys at their absolute worst. Very (repeat infinite times) good.

The Police Tapes, by Alan and Susan Raymond, 1977

A double Emmy award winning documentary on the 44th Police Precint of the South Bronx. Death, drunks and shouting. The NYT called it a “startlingly graphic and convincing survey of urban crime, violence, brutality and cynical despair”.

All credit to Arthur De Borman

Around the World: France, by Orson Welles, 1955

In 1955 the BBC commissioned Orson Welles to produce a series of travel documentaries – the above concentrates on the Pyrenees and the Basque country.

Buzzcut: A Day in the Life of The Rollins Band, MTV, 1991