Documentary films and their directors are generally not known for their star power. Most Academy Award-winning directors emerge with a unique vision for their subject and just as quickly retreat from the spotlight. But something changed in the early 2000s: Michael Moore won in 2003 for “Bowling for Columbine” (and accepted the award with an incendiary speech), and in 2004, it happened again when veteran innovator Errol Morris earned his first nomination. to the Oscar and his first victory. , for “The Fog of War.”
Morris, who had been making documentaries since 1978, changed what was possible in the medium. His “The Thin Blue Line” (1988) popularized the “reenactment” of factual scenes and ended up helping his imprisoned subject be released from prison. (And, since no good deed goes unpunished, the freed former prisoner ended up suing Morris for the rights to his story.) So when Morris took the stage at the Kodak Theater on February 29, 2004 and said, “I'd like to thank the academy for finally recognizing my films,” well, it was hard to begrudge him a bit of ego.
He accepted the award from presenters Alec Baldwin and Naomi Watts, and then thanked his film's star: Robert McNamara, who served as U.S. Secretary of Defense during the Vietnam War. “If he hadn't done it, there wouldn't have been a movie,” Morris added. “Forty years ago, this country fell into the rabbit hole of Vietnam and millions died. I fear we are falling down a rabbit hole again. [with the War on Terror]. And if people can stop and think and reflect on some of the ideas and themes in this film, maybe they've done something very good here.”
Morris's recognition demonstrated that mass interest in documentaries had reached new levels; During the 2003-04 Oscar season, all five nominees had extended theatrical runs for the first time. The competition was important, with three films dealing with politics and war, and two investigating very personal family connections.
“Balseros,” which focused on Cubans who escaped their country in 1994 and sailed to Florida on everything from homemade rafts to a hijacked ferry. It was the first and only nomination for writer-director Carles Bosch and co-director Josep Maria Domènech.
“My Architect: A Son's Journey” told the story of the late American architect Louis Kahn and was directed by his son, Nathaniel Kahn. The story focused not only on Louis's career but also on the three families he created, none of which knew anything about the other. It was his son's first nomination and he shared it with first-time nominee Susan Rose Behr. Both would be nominated again in 2007 for the short film “Two Hands: The Leon Fleisher Story.”
“The Weather Underground” showed the beginning and end of the radical Weather Underground organization, which did everything from breaking Timothy Leary out of prison in 1970 to bombing government buildings in the early years of that decade. It provided the first and only nominations for co-directors Sam Green and Bill Siegel.
And while “Fog of War” took home the top prize, the last film up for consideration, “Capturing the Friedmans,” appears to have had the longest tail. Andrew Jarecki (co-founder of Moviefone) left the ballpark with his first effort, which focused on the investigation of Arnold and Jesse Friedman (father and son) in the 1980s for child abuse. Arnold died in prison, but Jesse, who was 19 when he confessed, spent 13 years in prison and continues to fight to clear his name. This film earned producer-director Jarecki and producer Marc Smerling their only nomination to date.
