King of Kong and other documentaries

The best documentary films are the ones which tell an interesting story using a compelling narrative, and without any kind of agenda. The best ones I’ve seen are ‘King of Kong’, ‘Capturing the Friedmans’ and ‘Overnight’.

KoK (giggle - 2007) has a hero and a villain, but this isn’t because the film has an agenda. During the making of the documentary the true personalities and motivations of the subjects become made clear. Steve is the hero because he’s a nice guy; Billy is the villain because he’s a self promoting wanker. By his own account the filmmaker didn’t make Billy Mitchell appear as bad a person as he is in real life.

Overnight (2003) is similar to KoK in that it was purposefully made to document the events that make up the subject of the documentary. It’s about a man who had Hollywood handed to him on a plate, and then his massive ego threw it all away. That man was Troy Duffy, who wrote the script to ‘The Boondock Saints’ and sold it to Miramax for $300,000, but then it all went wrong. Troy is protagonist and villain both at once.

Capturing the Friedmans (2003) tells the story of a family accused of abusing children and the trial that followed. It was made 20 years after the alleged events took place. The director knew all the facts of the case and was able to use new and historic interview footage to create a narrative and a story arc. This could be viewed as a deliberate skewing of the facts for the sake of entertainment, but I think it gets the balance just right. Tell an interesting story in an interesting way and you’ll make it better.

Bad documentaries tend to tell a story from start to finish without bothering to make it interesting, as if the subject matter is enough. The End of The Century: The Story of The Ramones (2003) does this and suffers because of it. However, When We Were Kings (1996) and The Fog of War (2003) are very good even though they just tell it how it happened.

The worst thing a documentary film can do is focus on the people making the documentary. This technique worked a couple of times for Michael Moore, but after Bowling for Columbine (2002) he got a bit too keen on himself.