It is truly amazing to consider the fact that New England, despite its impact on the history of Non-Fiction film, is not a designated voting site for the Academy Awards. Dating back to innovator Richard Leacock and stretching from Ken Burns to Errol Morris, this region has been and still is a major area for documentary film.

"New England is blessed with many high qualities and staunch art advocates. It is an incredibly rich and productive environment for filmmakers," writes Beth Harrington in THE SPIRIT OF INDEPENDENTS 25th ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION OF THE NEW ENGLAND FILM AND VIDEO FOUNDATION. Two factors are the educational resources in Harvard and MIT and the technical and marketing resources of the local Public Broadcasting Station, WGBH.

Boston, in particular, became a Mecca for documentary filmmaking in the late 1960s because of these rich resources. Before the political and social upheaval of the 60s, documentaries were created primarily to instruct rather than promote social change. The intellectual environment of Boston provoked non-fiction filmmakers to make stylistically diverse films about topics ranging from history and culture, to social or political, as well as those one might call experimental or beyond categorization.

Ever since film emerged in the 1890s, there has been an attempt to capture reality. In NONFICTION FILM: A CRITICAL HISTORY, it is written that "the birth of the non-fiction film–indeed, the birth of the cinema itself is also closely related to the diversified representations of reality in the Nineteenth Century." Both Thomas Edison in the United States and the Lumiere Brothers in France attempted to capture everyday activities. The equipment and technology to even experiment with that possibility simply did not exist at the turn of the century.

Henry Hampton, director of EYES ON THE PRIZE and I'LL MAKE ME A WORLD bridged the gap between two eras of exhibition, that of cinema and television

In post-World War II America, independent films like ON THE BOWERY (1956) and JAZZ ON A SUMMER’S DAY (1960) were clearly experimenting with what would be called "Cinema Verite" techniques. First used by the likes Dziga Vertov, Jean Rouch, Pierre Perrault and Chris Marker, Cinema Verite challenged the standards set by previous documentary films. These traditions included the interview, the biography, and narration. The whole notion of shooting "ordinary people" doing ordinary things, using minimal lighting, and editing after spontaneous filming, was practiced in Europe and Canada before it arrived here in the United States. Even in fictional works, like the Italian Neo-Realist De Sica’s THE BICYCLE THIEF, ordinary citizens were used in the background.

New portable camera equipment, in addition to tape recorders capable of synchronous sound made the "ideal" goals of direct cinema possible. In an attempt to recreate reality, the viewer could feel like he or she was actually there. The new Non-fiction film for the first time bridged the gap between art and reality. The social and political upheaval of the 1960s proved a true catalyst in the now emerging documentary scene in both the United States and New England.

The true innovators in the American Direct Cinema movement worked in this very region, particularly in Cambridge and Boston. It is impossible to have any reasonable discussion of American Direct Cinema without bringing up names like Richard Leacock, D.A. Pennebaker, Ed Pincus, Frederick Wiseman, and Al Maysles. They set the standard for new forms of documentary filmmaking, with their legacies surviving in the works of their students.

Richard Leacock grew up on a banana plantation in the Canary Islands. His first film, entitled CANARY BANANAS, was made when he was just 14. He studied physics at Harvard and worked as a cameraman during vacations. Following a brief stint as a photographer for the U.S. Army, Leacock had the good fortune of working with Robert and Frances Flaherty on LOUSIANA STORY in 1948. Robert Flaherty, famous for what many to be consider the first true documentary ever, NANOOK OF THE NORTH (1922), died just days after completing what would be his final film.

In 1960, photographer Robert Drew of Life Magazine invited Leacock to form an experimental filmmaking team that eventually included Pennebaker, Pincus, and Maysles, among others. According to NONFICTION FILM, the group made a total of nineteen films together, with the most influential being PRIMARY (1960), CRISIS: BEHIND A PRESIDENTIAL COMMITMENT (1962), and THE CHAIR (1962). PRIMARY follows John Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey as they campaign in Wisconsin, with the camera serving as a witness to the repetitious handshaking, speeches, and electioneering of a political campaign.

While PRIMARY may be fair and impartial, CRISIS certainly is not. The film is clearly compassionate toward African-American students as Alabama Governor George Wallace disrupts efforts to desegregate the University of Alabama. Shot partially at the scene and partially at Attorney General Robert Kennedy’s office, the documentary raises serious questions about key principles of the Direct Cinema movement. This includes, as written in NONFICTION FILM, "The validity and reliability of nonfiction footage shot in compliance with the participants; the possibility that the camera exploits personalities and issues; the ethics of the direct, unedited recording of conversations …and the ethics of imposing a dramatic structure on non-fiction footage".

If the filmmaking team set out to prove that Direct Cinema can recreate "objective" news, then THE CHAIR shattered the idea completely. The film is about Paul Crump, who is sentenced to die in an Illinois electric chair. His sentence is commuted to life imprisonment, however, thanks to the efforts of attorneys Louis Nizer and Donald Moore. As much as THE CHAIR tries to be objective, it can’t be. Donald Moore’s emotional pleas are impressive to both the jury and the viewer, while the prosecuting attorney’s weak defense and sloppy evidence is equally unimpressive. The film makes for great theatrics, but still follows a dramatic structure that would ultimately lead to the disbanding of the Drew Associates. Its members wished to film their own subject matter.

One of the filmmakers who still lives and works in Cambridge today is D.A. (Don Alan) Pennebaker. Born in 1925, Pennebaker was an engineering graduate from Yale who moved from electronics to advertising to documentaries. Following his stint with Drew and Company, most of his works chronicled performing artists in the 1960s including MONTEREY POP (1968) and Bob Dylan in DON’T LOOK BACK (1966). Considered a true classic in Cinema Verite, DON’T LOOK BACK follows Bob Dylan on his tour of England. Shot with grainy photography, minimal lighting, and poor sound, the film stands out as a true treasure of pop culture because of Dylan’s comments before the camera. In particular, the film showcases the tension between the way he would like to be seen and the ways he sees himself viewed by the fans and the media.

Another local filmmaker who still lives and works in Cambridge is Frederick Wiseman. Like Pennebaker, he is known for a particular work, 1967’s TITICUT FOLLIES. Also like Pennebaker, Wiseman did not begin his career in film, but rather as an attorney. In the late 1950s, Law Professor Wiseman took his students on regular visits to the Bridgewater Hospital for the Criminally Insane. After repeated visits he decided, with the permission of Lieutenant Governor Eliot Richardson and Mass Attorney General Edward Brooks, to shoot a film.

Perhaps better known for the controversy surrounding it than the documentary itself, TITICUT FOLLIES may be remembered as the only film banned in the United States for reasons other than obscenity. Dubbed "The TITICUT FOLLIES Follies", the film was part of a 24-year legal struggle to keep its exhibition suppressed. The Massachusetts state District Attorney won his case in court to get the film pulled from the screen. He argued that because the inmates had not given their permission to be viewed on a public screen, TITICUT FOLLIES was an invasion of their privacy. Finally, after three decades, in 1991 a Superior Court Judge reversed an earlier ruling stating that only mental health students and professionals could view the film.

Stepping away from the Direct Cinema movement, other local filmmakers besides Wiseman attempted to address social issues, common to many documentaries of the 60s and 70s. Today, Margaret Lazarus is such an example. Co-founder of Cambridge Documentary Films with Rine Wunderlidge, she admits her naivete. "Like everyone else, we thought…or at least we hoped, we could change the world." Still, her films (including DEFENDING OUR LIVES and KILLING US SOFTLY) have won numerous awards and raised awareness about women’s issues and prejudice against gays and lesbians.

Another woman who has made significant contributions to the documentary film scene in New England is writer, director, editor, and producer Michel Goldman. Goldman helped found both the Boston Jewish Film Festival and the Filmmakers Collaborative. She has made such films as UMM KULTHUM, A VOICE LIKE EGYPT (1996), about the great Arabic singer, and A JUMPIN’ NIGHT IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN (1987), a theatrically released feature about the revival of Klezmer music in America (also broadcast on PBS). Two women who have been part of the Filmmakers Collaborative include Laurie Khan Leavitt and Marlene Booth. Formerly with Blackside, Leavitt produced THE MIDWIFE’S TALE (1996), the story a midwife’s Nineteenth century diary. Booth’s YIDL IN THE MIDDLE (1998) looks at growing up in middle-America and the split between her Jewish and American identity.

Two other legendary men who used the documentary to address social issues were Richard Broadman and Henry Hampton, both of whom have unfortunately passed away within the last two years. Broadman was best known for MISSION HILL AND THE MIRACLE OF BOSTON (1978). On NewEnglandFilm.com, friend Ted Reed said that, "Richard had a unique ability to make social commentary without a specific political bent…and that sometimes pissed people off. He was very influenced by people’s struggles, by the contests between bureaucracies and people."

Henry Hampton not only made films about social history, but helped bridged the gap between two eras of exhibition, that of cinema and television. At the Boston Film/Video Foundation Awards Program, scholar Gerald O’ Grady called Hampton "the most important public historian of our half-century. He made 486 Shawmut Ave (Blackside’s present location) the new world headquarters of an authentic new kind of secular evangelism." Born in 1940 in St. Louis, Missouri, Henry began his work in Boston as an editor and, later, executive at the world headquarters of the Unitarian Universalist Church. As a protester on the Selma Bridge to Montgomery in 1965, Hampton realized the historical significance of this event and the movement, in general.

His vision of a filmed chronicle of the struggle would finally be realized nearly twenty years later with a two-part 14-hour documentary series entitled EYES ON THE PRIZE. The series was followed by THE GREAT DEPRESSION, AMERICA’S WAR ON POVERTY, BREAKTHROUGH: THE CHANGING FACE OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA, and at the time of his death, I’LL MAKE ME A WORLD: A CENTURY OF BLACK ARTISTS IN AMERICA. Speaking of EYES at the 2nd Boston Film/Video Foundation Awards, Louis Massiah said, "the use of interview, archival material, and narrative structure to attempt to tell a ‘people’s history’, is an absolute innovation in American television. It has enabled the filmmaker to share a complex history with a broad, diverse audience."

If Hampton began a new approach to history on public television, than Ken Burns has perfected it. Regardless of what the audience (or critics, for that matter) think about his body of work, Ken Burns has become the franchise of Public Television. His series on the Civil War (1990) was watched by an unheard of number of viewers, resulting in a large multiyear contract with General Motors. Time Magazine has reported that Burns "has been invited three times to the White House, received honorary degrees from eight colleges and turned down several offers from Hollywood and the Networks."

Upon graduating from Hampshire College, Burns and fellow classmates formed Florentine Films in the late 1970s. Since then, the company has split into an association of producers including New Englanders Buddy Squires and Lawrence Hott and Diane Garey of Western Massachusetts. While Burns himself resides in Walpole, New Hampshire, longtime cinematographer Buddy Squires lives in Conway, Massachusetts. Squires has been nominated for an Academy Award and won an Emmy and produced and directed the critically praised LISTENING TO CHILDREN (1995). The team of Hott and Garey, who live in Haydenville, have made THE PEOPLE’S PLAGUE (1995), NIAGARA FALLS (1985), and KNUTE ROCKNE AND HIS FIGHTING IRISH (1993), among others.

Further strengthening the region’s talent for nonfiction are the resources available. In 1968, because of their technical background, Pincus and Leacock began a program in film at MIT. Several of their students, including Rob Moss and Ross McElwee, went on to make reputable documentaries (Both currently teach at Harvard). Another student, Steve Ascher, even co-produced a film that was nominated for an Academy Award (TROUBLESOME CREEK: A MIDWESTERN, with Jeanne Jordan).

Another development to foster film in New England was the creation of the Boston Film and Video Foundation in 1975. Now, for the first time there existed a non-profit institution created for the purpose in helping educate the public in the art of filmmaking. Not only was there an opportunity for an education in film, but access to previously unavailable expensive equipment.

The technology has changed since the early Sixties with the advent of digital video and computers, and so has the format of documentary films. Cambridge filmmaker Errol Morris has experimented with genres, often combining documentary and feature film techniques. Unlike the Cinema Verite filmmakers who sought an objective "reality", Morris has rejected the notion outright. The filmography has been as eclectic as the man himself: A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME; FAST, CHEAP AND OUT OF CONTROL; THE THIN BLUE LINE; and most recently, MR. DEATH.

There are far too many filmmakers from New England who have made and are making significant films to do justice to. Ultimately, it is the sense of community and sheer joy of sharing each other’s work with colleagues that makes the region such a remarkable place to make documentary films. Margaret Lazarus sums it up this way in THE SPIRIT OF INDEPENDENTS: "People in New England are passionate about ideas and more importantly they are passionate about rigorously analyzing ideas…I am tremendously fortunate to have people like this as my friends. They are my inspiration."

PAUL AMIRAULT: CAPTURING THE BIG DIG By Scott Anderson Paul Amirault is not your average television producer. He was in Boston for ten days in early April, working on two documentaries – a special on JFK Jr. (An American Tragedy), and an episode on The Big Dig for The Learning Channel series THE GREATEST. LMNO Productions had allocated just five days to get the footage for the Big Dig episode, and Paul spent a lot of time trying to convince his bosses they needed a sixth day in the field. He is one of a new and growing breed of documentarians, and he is from Boston. Cable networks like The Learning Channel have increased the demand for high quality but on-time-on-budget documentaries. Budgets are tight, and production schedules even tighter. The pressure to produce is intense, but Mr. Amirault thrives on it. Paul admits this is not what he set out to do, but that does not diminish his passion for, or his love of the work. He was born at St. Margaret’s Hospital in Dorchester in 1963 but grew up in Norton, Massachusetts. With Great Woods as his back yard, he and his friends named every hill and tree, and conquered imaginary worlds to the strains of summer outdoor concerts. In 1985 he graduated from Emerson, with a degree in film and a minor in TV production. After paying off the loans he took out to make a student film, he moved to LA with visions of becoming the next Steven Spielberg, but quickly went to work in television. In 1990, he began working with LMNO, and has worked for them on a wide variety of shows as a researcher, writer, and producer. "Film is a director’s medium, but television is a producer’s medium, and being a field producer suits me. My only regret as a field producer came while working on a special on the Golden Gate Bridge. I chose to stay on the ground and stayed in contact with the crew via cell phones and walkie-talkies. I may never have a chance to get to the top of that bridge again, and I’ll never again ask a crew to do anything I won’t do myself." He told this story standing 300 feet in the air on the swaying scaffolding atop Boston’s newest bridge. "The original proposal for the Big Dig episode showcased the spectacular new technology being used on the Big Dig; what it does, why it is necessary, and how it works. The Learning Channel, however, wanted the show centered more on people. As a consequence, we shot a lot of interviews, and those take time. We’ll still show the "Wow’s and How’s," but we’ll show the personalities involved, and the people and communities affected by the Big Dig." The fact that a government audit showing massive cost overruns was released during the production did not deter him or change the show’s positive view of the Big Dig. "The main thing is to deliver on the promise that was sold. The show you deliver has to be what they want and what you promised." Incidentally, he got the extra shooting day. The JFK Jr. special is scheduled to air in July, and the Big Dig episode is scheduled for mid November.

Scott Anderson is co-director, with Steve Gianino, of Harvard Square Scriptwriters