What's Up, Documentary?

Cinematically speaking, 2003 was all over the map. Who'd have thought, for instance, that Sofia Coppola, spawn of larger-than-life Francis Ford, would make a small, intimate picture ("Lost In Translation") reviving a quality we thought lost in American filmmaking: subtlety.

In your wildest dreams, did you ever think that a movie about a guy trapped in a phone booth ("Phone Booth") could rake in $46 million at the box office?

And who could have predicted that an animated fish ("Nemo") would capture the nation's heart?

Perhaps less surprising is that Hollywood virtually gave up pretending it had any original ideas, and seeking proven story material, dove deeper than ever into the bestseller pile. "Cold Mountain," "Mystic River," "Under The Tuscan Sun," "Seabiscuit," "In the Cut," "House of Sand and Fog," "Master and Commander" and "Girl With a Pearl Earring" were all movies adapted from books; some for better, some for worse.

But by far the year's most striking cinematic feature was that for the first time, documentary films put fictional films to shame -- in excellence, if not at the box office. From Errol Morris's portrait of Robert McNamara, "The Fog of War," to "Capturing the Friedmans," "Winged Migration" and "Spellbound," nonfiction movies were of a higher quality and were seen by general audiences in greater numbers than ever before.

Astonished mainstream and indie movie critics alike tripped over one another proclaiming 2003 the year of the doc.

"This was a rah-rah Year of the Documentary," wrote Gerald Peary of the Boston Phoenix, noting that one week last fall saw an unprecedented nine different documentaries showing on Boston area screens.

Documentaries "came into their own as feature films this year," declared Marjorie Baumgartner of the Austin Chronicle.

"It was a banner year for documentaries, which made most Hollywood fictions look anemic," said David Ansen of Newsweek.

Much of the credit for the public's enthusiastic reception of documentaries should undoubtedly go to the phenomenal success of Michael Moore's "Bowling For Columbine" and its win for Best Doc at last year's Academy Awards.

"'[Bowling For Columbine]' opened up the possibility that documentaries could be much more entertaining than people once thought," said Sean Welch, co-producer of "Spellbound."

Some industry observers also credit the painful turmoil of world events like 9/11 and the war on Iraq with making factual narratives more compelling. "There are things that happen to real people that are more painful, more dramatic, more dynamic than fiction," HBO vice-president Sheila Nevins told the LA Times.

Documentaries weren't the only underdogs that got more attention than usual. "It's worth noting that the movies of 2003 signaled a modest triumph for women on both sides of the camera, as well as a wave of terrific films about children that make you tremble for the prime casualties of our quarrelsome, broken world," wrote LA Weekly's Ella Taylor.

Listmania

Documentaries placed prominently on the Top 10 lists that everyone and their brother-in-law makes during the end-of-year film feeding frenzy. (Film critics are required by law to file a Top 10 Movies list along with their tax returns.)

This year's lists revealed the increasing difficulty of fitting today's diverse movies into a tidy little hierarchy.

"Whereas once a critic could cobble together a decent list of Hollywood, indie and foreign pictures, today entries from the fields of animation and documentary also force their way onto most critics' lists," fretted Kirk Honeycutt of the Hollywood Reporter. Honeycutt hinted darkly that soon documentaries may require their own top 10 lists.

But let's face it: Top 10 lists have multiplied into a baffling fog of quixotic opinions that have little or no meaning to the average moviegoer. These lists are no longer meant to be useful to readers, but to reflect the critics' attempts at broadcasting their own uniqueness and individuality.