You should check out The Up Series which concluded this year after 63 years of 7yr-interval interviews with the same people. They were 7 when first interviewed and every 7 years would come back until they were 70 (this year). All normal people but from different socio-economic backgrounds. Worth watching imo.
Because that’s generally boring
One of the most memorable documentaries I’ve ever seen was basically a guy’s zero-budget edited together home video footage of his centenarian grandmother spanning thirty years. I saw it in a pretentious artsy cinema in Beirut about a decade ago.
They exist! Limited appeal means anything with a production team will only get funded if the subject is known by audiences though.
May I point you to one of the best documentary series ever made: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strip-Tease_(TV_series)
They exist! https://screenrant.com/best-documentary-movies-about-normal-people/ These don’t all fit, but the first one on the list is about the documentarian’s parents.
I think the documentaries that we see are going to be the ones that conceptually interest enough people that they can get, like, funding for it. Or it’s just someone’s movie they made about grandpa that only people in the family see.
Oh, this question reminded me of NPR’s story corp. https://www.npr.org/series/4516989/storycorps
https://storycorps.org/about/For more radio, NPR’s This American Life also feels similar.
There was one about a group of office workers at a paper company
There was also a really good one about police brutality called Reno 911.
They… do?
People make Documentaries about normal people all the time. You’re just never going to see one produced and marketed by a big media company, because the people who green-light pictures for big companies are rich and influential, and they want to see themselves on screen. They will always assume no one wants to see normal people. That’s boring and couldn’t possibly be interesting to anyone. It certainly doesn’t interest them what the plebeians are up to. There’s literally too many documentaries about normal people to even point them out to you. You’re just never going to see them if you only watch what the industry is interested in showing you.
If you want professional documentaries, you will always be subject to the lens of the culture that was rich enough to produce it. No 2020’s production is ever going to just … show you what boring shit life is like. It’s literally boring. Tragic in the long run.
The same reason you will never see a compelling “normal” documentary is the same reason “normal” pay will NEVER be a healthy wage.
Watch ‘You Can See Everything’, and then realize that psychopath got billions of investment basically without question… The rich and comfortable are pathetic children suffering from stunted growth, and should never be allowed control of anything substantial, let alone billions. Because they’re disconnected, stunted piles of shit. All of them. (ok ok not literally all, but when it’s 90%+?)
(NOTE: Everyone pointing out smaller or alternative media are still correct. While YouTube itself is Google trash, many videos there are still wonderful productions from someones’ heart… Genuinely, tragic that google gets to profit from it…)
There’s many. The problem is what you are thinking is not a « documentary » it’s a TV report.
One people « documentary » are shot and edit exactly like a TV report and they’re shit
However real documentary talk about truths (yes plural) and could be lying.
IIRC in 1965 The War Game, a BBC documentary about the nuclear bomb and subsequent war, won the Oscar for the best documentary and was ban in the United Kingdom. None of the images are true but it talk about a horrifying truth.
There was a big movement in Quebec : Cinema Vérité (truth cinema) that bring the camera into little village, kind of the Quebec New Wave. One of the most prominent director was Pierre Perrault with his Pour La Suite du Monde (For the Next Word) and The Shimmering Beast (was unable to paste a link to this one but freely accessible on nfb.ca). Perrault put the protoganists of this movies in situations and wait for the truth to come out.
Documentary is an immense term and it was used to tag some of the most horrendous shit there is but there’s some real documentary out there that talk about people and their truth
Most people are boring?
Maybe it’s just meMost people have no choice.
No. People are interesting, but we’ve been conditioned to think otherwise and separate a select few above us.
I don’t know. I’m pretty boring.
But maybe you’re right. Lots of people seem to think Golf is interesting.
“Hey! They got the ball into the spot! Just like they were trying to! Who would have imagined that!?” - Repeat for most major sports.
Or maybe I’m just bored
I love to play golf, ball or disc.
But to watch either one? Boring as fuck.
Though watching someone throw an incredible disc shot or hit a ball perfectly is amazing (especially disc). I really enjoy a great disc shot, it’s a thing of beauty, whether it’s mine or somekne else’s shot.
