Fire in Babylon - Take Three
Russ Degnan, in responding to my wondering about the lack of good cricket documentaries, brings up the question of paying for archival footage. Indeed. Permissions for archival footage are perhaps the single biggest stumbling block in any documentary maker's work. The unfortunate extension of copyright terms in the US has made this business even harder. I remember attending a documentary on Sacco and Vanzetti a few years ago at the CUNY Graduate Center, and was struck by the filmmakers' frustration: they had spent more time navigating the thickets of permissions and rights than in editing and writing. This is an occupational hazard in that business and thanks to "intellectual property" talk having gone completely batshit in the US, its become worse.
But I don't think the problems in Fire in Babylon were due to lack of archival footage; they were due to bad storytelling. Matching up the wrong footage with the voice-over narrative; misrepresenting the facts; letting a story emerge that is considerably at odds with a narrative familiar to most cricket fans; these are what I would indict Riley of, not the lack of archival footage. The superiority of Burns as a documentary maker is not due to his having access to more footage; for the Civil War series, he had none. But he is a conscientious historian, one who makes sure he isn't compromising it in order to do justice to a feel-good agenda. And best of all. he manages to tell a crackling good yarn. I found the footage in Fire in Babylon compelling; the story that was being told about it suffered in comparison.
Incidentally, one interesting reaction I had while watching Fire in Babylon in an American theater was that of pride. Somehow, strangely, I felt vindicated. After years of listening to Americans talk nonsense about how cricket was a genteel game, meant for landed layabouts on village greens, here was the fire and brimstone of willow, leather and the cricket pitch. Thank you West Indies.
But I don't think the problems in Fire in Babylon were due to lack of archival footage; they were due to bad storytelling. Matching up the wrong footage with the voice-over narrative; misrepresenting the facts; letting a story emerge that is considerably at odds with a narrative familiar to most cricket fans; these are what I would indict Riley of, not the lack of archival footage. The superiority of Burns as a documentary maker is not due to his having access to more footage; for the Civil War series, he had none. But he is a conscientious historian, one who makes sure he isn't compromising it in order to do justice to a feel-good agenda. And best of all. he manages to tell a crackling good yarn. I found the footage in Fire in Babylon compelling; the story that was being told about it suffered in comparison.
Incidentally, one interesting reaction I had while watching Fire in Babylon in an American theater was that of pride. Somehow, strangely, I felt vindicated. After years of listening to Americans talk nonsense about how cricket was a genteel game, meant for landed layabouts on village greens, here was the fire and brimstone of willow, leather and the cricket pitch. Thank you West Indies.
Labels: cricket documentaries, cricket in the US, Fire in Babylon
posted by Samir Chopra at 4:12 PM
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