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In Reply to: RE: "Jazz," by the Burns Bros. I've only seen #7, the Be Bop disc, but it truly is posted by no1maestro on October 22, 2008 at 09:51:50
PBS does NOT put up the money for these productions. The money comes from outside underwriters (IIRC Burns' programs have gotten a lot of money from GM). The vast majority of PBS documentaries require funding to be arranged by independent producers, not PBS, before PBS will agree to collaborate. There are a few high profile PBS producers that have an easier time because they have continuous or easy-to-acquire underwriting or because they've made a long series of popular programs for PBS. Possibly the leading non-Burns example is David Grubin.I must also disagree on the creative side. As a documentary filmmaker myself I can confidently report that a large proportion...probably a majority...of my filmmaker friends are highly critical of Burns' work. The reasons are many. For one he tends to hew to a narrowly defined point of view in his work, and in the Jazz series this is a more serious liability than elsewhere. He kept to a VERY conservative take on the meaning of jazz history, with Wynton Marsalis and Stanley Crouch as the chief commentators. Both are known for their conservative views. If they had had more interpretive commentary from a wider range of jazz artists and historians the impressions left by the film would be very different and a lot more diverse.
Also, I and many friends believe Burns's approach makes very excessive use of "voice-of-god" narration. This means that much of the interpretation of jazz history actually comes from Burns and his co-writer(s). When you write that sort of narration you can put whatever thoughts you want into "god's" voice.
Burns acknowledged that he knew almost nothing about jazz before the production started. To create such a series that projects the impression of being in some ways definitive, while the creator himself is a neophyte on the subject, is highly questionable.
In films made by me and many others, such narration is either restrained or entirely absent. My films tend to have NO written narration; the storyline is driven by interviews with people who have primary experience and long-gestating and hard-won insight into the subject and its meaning. I don't claim this means my films are objective, but with my co-director our intent is to minimize extant traces of our own personal perspectives. There are some films that can ONLY work if they're driven by written narration. But Burns' subjects, especially Baseball and Jazz, lend themselves to a more diverse collection of voices woven into a coherent, more wide-ranging, and nuanced collection of contrasting ideas. But he doesn't go there.
Also, Burns uses identical creative strategies/styles for every film, regardless of subject. Couldn't a series on jazz employ a style that feels a little looser and more improvisational, to match the spirit of its subject?
Finally, the Burns series is also fatally flawed for presenting itself as definitive while essentially IGNORING the most recent 40 years of jazz history! That entire period was pathetically inadequate, and was pretty much covered only in the last hour of the series. So 10 hours for the first 50 or so years and one hour for the last 40. Doesn't that seem strange?
I completely reject Burns' contention that he de-emphasized this period of jazz history because it's too recent to be "history." If nothing else at that point he could have segued into an exploration of recent and contemporary jazz that made greater use of input from living musicians. It could have been a way of demonstrating the truth of or exploring the limitations of what was supposedly revealed in the prior hours. And, if he felt he wasn't the right filmmaker to produce the more contemporary episodes there are any number of filmmakers he could have subcontracted for that work. Like me, for example!
Rant over.
Edits: 10/22/08 10/22/08 10/22/08Follow Ups:
Saw a real old local guy being interviewed about music. He said Big Band killed jazz. He was right, of course. The form lived on, but some part of it's essence was gone.Not that there weren't good guys since then. I am quite fond of some of them, the usual suspects like Take 5 and Devil and the Deep Blue Sea (Monk)
and some of Cyrus Chestnut's cleverer moments.I felt he sanitised it. Lose the newfanfled trumpets. I don't like them. Recreate whorehouses and the other places it was played. Like the good doctor said... " LIFE! DO YOU HEAR ME? GIVE MY CREATION... LIFE!"
Edits: 10/25/08
interesting and detailed opinion--- with reasoning to bolster it.
First off, I think you're being a bit unfair to Burns. The audience isn't meant to be the cognoscenti but the general public; remember, jazz is by far the least popular musical idiom, today, but yesteryear it was the most popular: it's edifying to look at the performers that made it so.
The narrative style is a legitimate gripe but every filmmaker has his own. One can criticize Moore, also, but he and the Burns boys are masters at communication. Neither attempts to be the ultimate word: they serve as popularizers of a viewpoint or medium. As such, their success is unmatched.
I'd also argue that it was a fairly representative group of commentators: Nat Hentoff (ignored by Jazz Inmate) prominently was used.
But, and this is a major, I've only seen the particular disc I mentioned. I certainly don't see any fatal flaws in it: the narration, the talking-heads, and the vintage performances--- visually and sonically--- were very satisfying.
Now, why don't YOU do a jazz-theme documentary?
I don't expect everyone to agree with me. I'm just offering my opinion as a contrast to the other points of view. I just think that the Jazz series could have been a lot better without being more esoteric.
NOTHING would make me happier than to make Jazz docs. I have a friend who's a major expert on the Jazz avant-garde who I've discussed this with a number of times. He has an idea he'd like to try and develop, but it's very hard to get films on Jazz funded.
I'm hoping to do a series of multi-photo portraits of Jazz artists on the photography side of my work. I'm working on some pilots for the approach and will then apply to NEA for funding to do a group of Jazz artists using a similar approach.
larger ones of course, would contribute to your jazz documentary project?
These days, with DVD distribution over the web, you can make $$ with niche subjects.
I mean, there is a very good documentary on old, 78 disc era opera divas which has been successful, moderately. Talk about a hard sell!
I doubt there's a small jazz label that isn't struggling to stay alive. I'd be very surprised if they'd be able to contribute. Who knows? Eventually I may ask them.
Just two questions to the documentarian:
Would these films be with us but for PBS?
Where are your films?
Just because something gets on the air is it beyond criticism? Is criticism the same as wishing films didn't get made? What's your point? PBS and Burns could have broadcast better films on those subjects if they'd been more discerning.
My films? My penultimate doc was distributed theatrically by Miramax and was seen in theaters in over 70 US cities. It played in heavy rotation on HBO for a year. It won over 15 awards including being named One of the 5 Best Docs of the year by the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures, a national Emmy nomination, and received a Christopher Award, which is given to films that "Affirm the Highest Values of the Human Spirit." It also won the audience favorite award in a festival at which were also shown the 5 films that were nominated for the Feature Doc Academy Award that year.
Other films have been seen on Discovery and the History Channel. My new film is about to go into festival screenings and then we'll see what happens from there...
;O)
*
Maybe I saw them, what are the titles?
...as it hasn't been officially released yet. The prior one was called "Paper Clips."
Thanks; I'll look for it!!
... from the perspective of a novice wanting to learn more and not as experienced or knowledgeable in every subject is that Ken Burns provides insight and helps create interest in subjects that can be achieved in no other way. The 'voice of god' narration as you call it is extremely useful in drawing the uninitiated in and establishing a personal link between viewer and subject; at once, it is both instructive and involving.I understand Ken's need for narrowing the subject and maintaining a more nostalgic tone by focusing on earlier roots and covering ground-breakers who may be only marginally familiar to those inexperienced in jazz history, but all too familiar to jazz aficionados. Certainly there are other approaches that a documentary filmmaker could take with any subject, but the technique Ken Burns has chosen does have merits, especially for involving folks who may not have had much interest in the subject prior to watching.
My interest in jazz music was considerably heightened by this series, as was baseball, even though I don't find the sport all that interesting, but by focusing on the sports history, key events and players Ken's documentary hit all the right nostalgia buttons so at least I now have a greater appreciation of the sport. Likewise, I find contemporary free form jazz which was only covered generally far less involving than early jazz based upon personal tastes, so Ken's historical approach which touched upon the origins of jazz and where it took root kept me involved while a different approach that focused primarily on contemporary greats probably would not have inspired me to listen further.
Personally, I view Ken Burns work on three levels: First, as an introduction for sophisticated students of history; Second, as a time-capsule of the greatest events and individuals who make up that history, and third, as a cultural narrative that doesn't answer all questions or even touch all the bases, but acts as a springboard to appreciation of specific individuals (jazz musicians, baseball players, etc.).
AuPh
Edits: 10/22/08 10/22/08 10/23/08 10/23/08
+ agree with EBerlin; this was altogether too narrow a take
Stanley Crouch ( who has long been a critic of Miles Davis, amongst others ) was given too much room for opinion + too much screen time
Needed: More input from the existing Jazz greats ( Helen Merrill, Sonny Rollins et. al. ) Burns may have still been able to get Jay McShann in front of the camera; I have another ( Japanese ) documentary where McShann reminisces about giving Charlie Parker his start in Jay's band, how "Bird" got his nickname, and what it was like playing in NY + Kansas City in the '30's + '40's
Not enough of this type of thing
And more modern contemporary Jazz players for sure, Jazz is not a dead genre
My argument is as much about what was in "Jazz" as much as what was missing
Entertaining, but lacking in the admirable balance + sweeping authority of "The Civil War"
GW
If your idea of jazz is Louis Armstrong, Duke, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker and Diz, you'll love it. But Burns' narrative is too exclusive and hindsight driven. It doesn't work for me. Part of the reason is he spends so much time on jazz's development from New Orleans music and dancehall/swing big bands. He started running out of time and budget before he even got to 1950. Like many, I think the most exciting advances in jazz came toward the end of that decade and into the 1960s. So the emphasis on earlier periods left me flat. And some who I regard as the absolute geniuses of jazz, like Bud Powell and Wayne Shorter, were given short shrift.
-------------Call it, friendo.
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