#mondo documentaries

[princealigorna]

I am schocked there hasn't been a shockumentary about the shockumentary before.

There is the classic book, Sweet and Savage, that is a good overview of the genre. It was originally published in the mid-80's, but has been updated since then. But I don't think I've ever seen a movie that's tackled the subject. And that surprises me. There's so much area to cover, from the history of the documentary as a whole, to Disney unwittingly setting the stage with the whole faking the lemming suicides and convincing us all that that was all real and Nat Geo with their no-intervention, keep the cameras rolling policy, to the evolution of the genre from the anthropological studies of Mondo Cane and Women of the World to the true gore stuff like Faces of Death, Traces of Death, Executions, Banned From Television, and Junk Films, to the influence on Gonzo/New Journalism, to the influence on Found Footage horror, to Errol Morris bringing the reenactment tactic to "legit" documentaries in The Thin Blue Line, to reality TV (especially stuff like Cops and Trauma: Life in the ER) basically being it's direct continuation, up to the rise of LiveLeak and the narrative free gore compilations like MDPOPE.

@iamcinema You don't no of anything i that, do you

[princealigorna]

How do you prefer your mondo documentary narrators? Actually informative or at least able to explain the set-up for a segment, like the narrator of Mondo Cane or Banned From Television? Or do you like something a bit less serious and a more goofy?

Basically, do you prefer Dr, Gross in Faces of Death, or Dr, Van Gore in Faces of Gore. Because aside from the alleged brutality of that series (allegedly, worse than Traces of Death or Banned in America, and possibly the most disgusting thing ever put to tape prior to the explosion of internet gore sites in the early 2000's), I've heard really horrible things about Dr. Van Gore. Like, the quotes I've seen are just really unnecessarily mean spirited and just make me feel icky. Yes, for something like this, trying to break up the brutality with a pun or using the clip as a punchline for a joke can work. That's basically what I call "Joker humor". Humor that makes you laugh at something really dark, and then feel like shite for it later. Freddy Krueger is beloved as a character precisely for that kind of humor.

But...first of all, this is still supposed to be a documentary. It's still theoretically supposed to be educational. Which is something Jon Alan Schwartz remembered when making Faces of Death. For as hokey as it seems now, especially in light of knowing that up to 40% of it was faked, and despite clearly being made for the shock value, Dr. Gross at least seems like he's there to try to teach SOMETHING. What he's trying to teach, who the fuck knows. But he's trying to teach SOMETHING. Van Gore's dialogue, from what I've seen, seems to consist of nothing but implying medical examiners are necrophiliacs and openly mocking and roasting the dead. For the lolz. And it's like...do I really want to put up with that? Like, that's funny to someone for sure, but it's not me. What's going to be worse? The most brutal true life accident and suicide footage committed to mass market distribution? Or this fucking twat not treating any of it with any sense of gravitas or common taste?

Basically, Faces of Gore sounds less like a documentary and more like a giant visual shitpost created by 4chan trolls, for 4chan trolls. And I can't fucking stand 4chan trolls.

[princealigorna]

I watched some of Banned From Television earlier today and that was...I don't want to say a mistake, but for the "tamest" of the post-Faces of Death mondo documentaries I did see something that was probably going to make sleeping impossible.

So, let me ruin your sleep too! 😈

So, it's the conclusion of a multi-county chase. Apparently after a burglary. Cops have this car pulled over, guns drawn. There's about 20 of them. This older white gentleman of about 60 or 70 comes out, no pants on, shotgun in hand. (You know if it were a black man, he'd have been killed on the spot, but that's a different story). The cops continue trying to talk to him and trying to get him to surrender, as he opens the trunk, pulls out some shells, and loads. At this point, I think the cops would have been in their rights to start shooting. The man was armed and loaded. But they don't. If they would have, it wouldn't have bothered me because there were a few police shootings already in this thing before (one of questionable validity, one of abso-fucking-lute validity) and I can normally take that. No. Instead, he has the shotgun pointed up. I think he's still loading shells in, when suddenly it goes off. I hadn't realized that he had put it under his chin...and blown his whole damn face off!

Luckily we don't get to see the aftermath. But believe me when I say that in less than a second, but a second that felt like it took forever...I saw a man go from having a face to having no fucking face at all! Just an explosion of red and nothing, before crumpling to a heap.

That was rough. That was the first time I can say in watching that film that I felt genuinely bad. Like...in my guys, queasy bad. Covering my mouth in disbelief bad.

And I know that's not the worst thing to see on that tape yet. I know how it ends (if this is the first one), and for the story behind that one, look up Mary Wojtyla. Happened in Downer's Grove, so not that far away at all.

That's gonna be a big yikes moment. Glad I took a break before getting there. Now I'm kinda wondering if I should go back to the start and do a reaction video though. Not sure how much I could even show with Youtube being what it is right now, unless it's just filming my face reacting to it. I don't know. But I kinda feel like if I'm gonna suffer, everyone else needs to suffer with me