Documentaries and Reality TV

Documentaries are cool, but there usually isn't much money in them.

As anyone who knows me already knows, I was not impressed by Fahrenheit 911. I found it trite, unintellectual, and insulting. With the exception of the raw footage from Baghdad, it was a waste of time at best, and a manipulative trick at worst. A friend of mine suggested that even though the movie might be biased and dumb, at least it would get people interested in an important issue. I agree with this only in an abstract way. I think people had to be interested in politics/the-war-in-Iraq before they decided to buy a ticket for the movie, and all the movie really would get them interested in are made-up non-issues. However, I agree with the basic idea that it's better (but only slightly) for people to be watching a documentary, however un-intellectual, than a movie that never purports to have any intellectual component in the first place.

What my friend said did lead me to another idea, though. Maybe this movie's financial success will help bring some real, quality documentaries to the big screen. Since the Fahrenheit 911 craze began, I have heard about Control Room from lots of people and heard that it's excellent. I've also heard about this new documentary called Nine Innings from 9/11 that looks good. If Fahrenheit 911 causes a general upswing in enthusiasm about documentaries, I guess that would be a silver lining to the otherwise dark cloud that it was.