Documentaries to watch...

Here is my list of great documentaries worth seeing:

1. The Tank Man -- The amazing story of the iconic photograph of the young Chinese man who stepped in front of a row of military tanks in protest of the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989. The roll of film contain the photo had to be hidden in a hotel's toilet tank to keep Chinese government security people from confiscated it. The last part of the documentary is also interesting, as it deals with how the U.S. Internet companies have helped China to block images of the Tank Man from Chinese Internet users.
2. Two Days in October -- Based upon the great book "They Marched Into Sunlight" by David Maraniss (who I enjoyed meeting and working with during my brief reporter exchange at the Washington Post in 1982), it is a PBS American Experience film about two days in October 1967 in two very different places. One place was a battlefield in Vietnam, where a large number of American soldiers are ambushed and killed. The other place was the University of Wisconsin in Madison, where students protesting the campus recruitment by Dow Chemical, the maker of napalm, and the Vietnam War generally are faced with violent response from law enforcement. Great story-telling through archival film and interviews.
3. McLibel -- In the American system, a plaintiff must prove he has been libeled by a defendant. In the British system, a defendant must prove he has told the truth about a plaintiff. America has a better system concerning libel and the burden of proof, as the British system chills speech by people who are afraid they will be dragged into court by companies that can afford to carry on long legal battles. In England, the fast foods company of McDonalds had a long record of SLAPP (strategic lawsuits against public participation), forcing silence and apologies from the BBC, Linda McCartney, and others. When McDonalds tried to do it to two young activists who had no money for retaining legal counsel, the activists refused to say they were sorry for a pamphlet they had created. The case became the longest trial in English legal history. Oh, I don't want to spoil it for you. You just have to find the documentary and see who won the case, who won the public relations battle, who won the battle, who won the war. The documentary also looks at the effects of fast food on diets, advertising campaigns aimed at children, and other issues.
4. Born Into Brothels -- Another amazing story! This story is about an American photographer who gives cameras to children who are born in brothels in a red-light district in a city in India. The children take photos of the life they know and see daily. And the photographer attempts to get the children into schools and she organizes a photo exhibit. A website continues to sell photographic work by the children to help further their education and to fund a foundation that has established a school for poor children.
5. Big Dream, Small Screen, The Story of Philo T. Farnsworth -- Not many people know the name of Philo T. Farnsworth and it is a shame because he was the remarkable inventor of electronic TV. A Mormon boy born in Utah, he is plowing a field in Idaho at about age 14 when he sees the furrows of the field and realizes that's how an electronic TV could deliver a picture to a screen. He's a genius, for sure, having to drop out of school and get a job when his father dies. He works to develop electronic TV (with tubes and circuits) from scratch and ends up racing for the patent rights for electronic TV against a Russian scientist with a doctorate working for the monopoly company of RCA, which owns all the radio patents and wants to monopolize the TV patents, too. Again, I won't spoil it. Who will win? David or Goliath? And probably more often than not, the Davids--the little guys--don't win.
6. Nellie Bly and Around the World in 72 Days -- Can you tell that I like documentaries about journalism and people in media? This is another amazing story of a woman with the pen name of Nellie Bly who wants to become a newspaper reporter in the late 1800s. At the time, woman are only hired as society writers. But Nellie wants to do what the men reporters do. She finally gets the attention of an editor at Joseph Pulitzer's daily newspaper in New York City, but he challenges with an assignment that was incredibly difficult for that time period. If she can get herself committed to the horrendous women's insane asylum there on Blackwell Island and stay undercover to write about the experience from the inside, she will get a job. She's not about to show fear for her opportunity to become a reporter, so she takes on the assignment. It is the start of investigative reporting, as well as stunt journalism. Another stunning Bly story is when she's assigned to race around the world, in order to beat the time of Jules Verne's fictional character in "Around the World in 80 Days." Her adventure puts America on the map and she becomes one of the first American celebrities known worldwide.
7. Pete Seeger: The Power of Song -- Folk singer Pete Seeger just won a Grammy this past year for an album he produced at age 89. He is an icon and heroic figure of protest music, banned from TV for years because he was blacklisted during the Red Scare of the 1950s, revising the hymn "We Shall Overcome" into the version that was adopted as an unofficial anthem for the Civil Rights Movement, protesting the Vietnam War, crusading for environmental clean-up of rivers and air. He tells the story about an angry veteran who comes to one concert with the intention of killing him. But in listening to the music and then talking to Seeger after the concert, the veteran realizes there is a place for protest and dissent within society. Seeger liked singing his music with the audience. It is another aspect of the theme he lived in believing in real democracy and public participation.
8. Sick Around the World -- This PBS Frontline documentary looks at the health care systems in Britain, Singapore, and other democracies of the industrial world, all of which have better coverage for their people and better systems than the lousy health care system in America. Why can't Americans get the same kind of health care that other countries enact and that people in other countries enjoy. My students from Canada are delighted with their health care system, and they are covered from birth to death. In America, people can't afford medical costs, some go bankrupt with medical debts, and then we have Congressional leaders who must be the worst group of leaders in the free world because they seem to prefer to cater to the insurance industry rather than to the citizens. So why does our idiotic Congress make it hard? One thing is definite. Don't ever vote for Republicans or those blue-dog conservative Democrats. Don't ever!
9. Sicko -- The Michael Moore documentary also looks at the problem of health care with much the same information and conclusions as the previous documentary. I think it is Moore best work yet. "Bowling for Columbine" is also good. Moore has really raised the quality level for documentaries.
10. Half-Past Autumn -- The story of Gordon Parks, New Deal photographer and later one of the first African-American film directors in Hollywood. Parks wrote a great book called "Weapon of Choice." His weapon of choice is the camera. When he first went to work as a newspaper photographer in an Eastern city, the editor tells him on his first day of work to put down his camera and instead go eat a local restaurant, go to a movie, and go shopping at a clothing store. Parks finds that he can only enter the restaurant from the back of the building, he's not even let into the movie theater, and he is ignored and encouraged to leave at the clothing store. When he comes back to the newsroom, he sees the editor, who asks how it went. Parks replied that the editor probably knew very well how it went. In fact, the editor did. But then the editor said to him, "Well, what are you going to do about it?" That's where the camera as weapon against discrimination and poverty comes in. That same evening, Parks takes the iconic photo of the building's cleaning lady, a black woman with a mop and broom in front of a draped American flag, in a pose that satirizes the Grant Wood painting "American Gothic." I tell my journalism students all the time--If you see something you don't like in society, what are you going to do about it? After all, you have some power as part of the media, with your cameras and your words.
11. Rivers and Tides -- The quiet, slow (to the point of intriguing) story about a Scottish artist who creates artwork by use of nature. His artwork might be composed of stones, leaves, flowers, twigs, ice, even impressions in sand or from shadows. The work is often washed or blown away on the same day he creates it. But he saves the work with photographs. The documentary was beautiful to watch.
12. One Bright Shining Moment -- This documentary is about the season of the 1972 campaign of Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern, a man who was so much better than the one who was elected (Nixon), but lost in a landslide to Nixon, who less than two years later would have to resign in disgrace.
13. Ralph Nader, An Unreasonable Man -- In this documentary, "unreasonable" is a positive quality, revealing the lifetime of Nader's advocacy work in trying to make a better society. Nader took on GM and the car industry about unsafe cars (and cars without safety belts) when a big industry was rarely challenged. There is a bewildering moment when Nader, who has a ticket to enter, is nonetheless kept out by security guards of an auditorium where Bush and Gore will be debating, at the order of the biased Presidential Debate Commission. I couldn't help saying aloud, "How can that happen in America?"
14. The Conscientious Objector -- A documentary about Desmond Doss, a devoted Seventh Day Adventist who wanted to serve his country in the military during WWII but refused to carry a gun or use weapons. He serves as a medic, though even most medics carry guns. For his refusal to carry a gun, he is harassed and tormented by commanding officers and fellow soldiers, who think they know how to define "patriotism." Some called him a "traitor" and wanted him thrown out of the military. He then was sent into battle at Okinawa and ended up rescuing 75 wounded American soldiers by carrying or dragging them to safety during Japanese gunfire. Doss was later awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor by Truman. I think the documentary noted that he was the first "conscientious objector" to receive the honor. Fascinating story.
15. Steal Me A Pencil -- This is a Holocaust documentary about a couple who are Jewish prisoners in a Nazi concentration camp during WWII and who fall in love. They attempt to keep their love alive through inventive messages sent in any way they can to each other.
16. Religulous -- Is this documentary or is it feature entertainment? Bill Mauer's caustic look at religion worldwide is funny and interesting. I didn't know about the mythical Horus and that's certainly interesting for discussion. I laughed every time Mauer, in his unabashed cynicism, would confront someone of a highly religious dogmatic nature, all of whom, without a shred of humility, thought they were absolutely and completely right...and looked foolish because of it.