Doc Directors: Stay Out of Your Movies
Herzog: bearable in front of the camera
The Academy has shortlisted fifteen feature-length and eight short documentaries for the 2006 Oscar voters to focus on. As these films get more attention, check out how many directors put themselves into the frame, making themselves the protagonists of their films.
Nathan Rabin of The Onion has an open letter to these doc director/stars. Morgan Spurlock and Werner Herzog, you're okay. Kirby Dick, "your presence in your documentary serves as an annoying distraction that detracts from the force of your argument."
Don't blame Michael Moore (ROGER & ME) for this trend. It was Ross McElwee, whose thoughtful yet tooling-for-some-strange non fiction saga SHERMAN'S MARCH (1987) set off the trend man with a camera movies. McElwee's movie was subtitled, "A Meditation on the Possibility of Romantic Love In the South During an Era of Nuclear Weapons Proliferation"; it struck a chord with the girlfriendless and won the grand jury prize at the 1987 Sundance Film Festival.