Jordan's production company co-produced the series; Burns says that violates cardinal rules of documentary ESPN's documentary series on Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls has been a hit with viewers so far, but Ken Burns is not a fan. The veteran filmmaker tells the Wall Street Journal he hasn't watched The Last Dance, but considers it fundamentally flawed because Jordan's production company, Jump 23, is among the producers of the series. "I find it the opposite direction of where we need to be going,” Burns told the Journal, adding he would "never, never, never, never” consent to an arrangement where the subject of a documentary had a role in the production. It's certainly not the way you do good history. “If you are there influencing the very fact of it getting made it means that certain aspects that you don’t necessarily want in aren’t going to be in, period,” Burns explained. “And that’s not the way you do good journalism ... and it’s certainly not the way you do good history, my business.”
Burns' comments came in the context of a Journal "What to Watch" feature that highlighted Baseball, the director's own sports-related docu-series that was originally released in 1994. The article noted PBS has made the Burns series available to viewers to stream for free through PBS.org and the PBS Video app. In his WSJ interview, Burns noted one of the salient features of life during the coronavirus pandemic "is the absence of sport and the absence of that abstract, ritualized warfare that feels so good." The start of the baseball season has been delayed indefinitely and NBA competition was brought to a halt in the middle of the season. ESPN, recognizing the deficit of entertainment for sports fans, moved up the premiere of The Last Dance. The 10-part series, directed by Jason Hehir, was supposed to debut in June, but the network switched the premiere to April 19 after the pandemic emptied the airwaves of live sporting events. The decision has paid off with handsome ratings. "The opening two episodes... snared an average of 6.1 million viewers on ESPN and ESPN2 in its primetime premiere," Deadline.com reported Monday. "The Last Dance drew a total of 5.9 million viewers across its third and fourth episodes Sunday, only a slight downtick from its premiere episodes last week."
Esteemed writers' organization calls the efforts "censorship, plain and simple"
PEN America is coming to the defense of Michael Moore and Jeff Gibbs, blasting attempts to quash their controversial new documentary Planet of the Humans.
Opponents of the film, which argues the "clean energy" movement purveys false hope of saving us from environmental catastrophe, have mounted a campaign to pull the film from distribution, claiming it's full of false and misleading information. In just over a week Planet of the Humans has recorded upwards of five million views on YouTube, where Moore released it for free. “Calls to pull a film because of disagreement with its content are calls for censorship, plain and simple," wrote Summer Lopez, senior director of free expression programs at PEN America, the venerable writers' organization founded in 1922. "Those who take issue with the film have every right to make their concerns and arguments heard, but first and foremost, the public also has the essential right to view Moore’s film and make their own judgements.” It is shameful and stunning that any artist, filmmaker or academic would join calls for silencing our free expression.
In a lengthy statement, Moore praised PEN America for taking a stand on the issue.
"I'd like to thank PEN America for forthrightly denouncing and condemning all efforts underway to ban the public from viewing our new documentary, Planet of the Humans," Moore wrote in part. "We have spent the past ten days trying to fight back censorship attempts led by an Oscar®-nominated documentary filmmaker, plus certain leaders who are unhappy with our film’s revelations regarding how the fight against climate change has been co-opted by corporate interests. "These individuals have pressured websites carrying the film to 'shut it down,' calling the movie 'dangerous' and succeeding in getting one site to block the public from viewing it."
The Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker Moore referred to is Josh Fox, director of the anti-fracking film Gasland. A week ago Fox posted a letter on Twitter that called Planet of the Humans "shockingly misleading and absurd." He added, "We request that the film be retracted by its creators and distributors and an apology rendered for its misleading content."
The letter was addressed to Moore, Gibbs, "all associated with Planet of the Humans," as well as Films for Action, a website not affiliated with Moore or Gibbs that had posted the film from YouTube. Apparently ceding to that pressure, Films for Action removed Planet of the Humans from its site for "half a day," before reversing course. "When Josh Fox first contacted us to discuss the problems with the film, we were initially convinced by his argument to 'retract' the film, as a journalist would do for a misleading article," Films for Action wrote. "Ultimately, we decided to put it back up because we believe media literacy, critique and debate is the best solution to the misinformation in the film." Related:
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AuthorMatthew Carey is a documentary filmmaker and journalist. His work has appeared on Deadline.com, CNN, CNN.com, TheWrap.com, NBCNews.com and in Documentary magazine. |