Countdown to the Oscars: Best Documentary

O.J.: Made in America is the best film of the year and is nominated for Best Documentary at the Oscars.

Welcome to Last Cinema Standing’s Countdown to the Oscars, our daily look at this year’s Academy Awards race. Be sure to check back every day leading up to the ceremony for analysis of each of the Academy’s 24 categories and more.

Best Documentary

The nominees are:

13th

Fire at Sea

I Am Not Your Negro

Life, Animated

O.J.: Made in America

The first thing that sticks out right away about this group is the presence of three nominees dealing directly with the issue of racial inequality in America. Coming off of last year’s #Oscarssowhite controversy the Academy seems to have course-corrected in a big way, not only here but with three films about the black experience in America nominated for Best Picture and with six black performers nominated in the acting categories. One year does not mean all is well on this front, and there is much more work to be done, but this wonderful group of nominees suggests that work can get done.

This is not to suggest these films are simply token nominations, far from it. O.J.: Made in America of course was my No. 1 film of the year, while both 13th and I Am Not Your Negro appeared on my list of honorable mentions. Each is a magnificent portrait of black life in America, and each comes from a distinct and memorable point of view. In addition, with Life, Animated, four of the five nominated filmmakers this year are black. I cannot confirm quickly this has never happened, but I would go so far as to guess it is incredibly rare. So, due kudos to the Academy. Keep it up. We’ll be watching.

O.J.: Made in America (directed by Ezra Edelman) – With a runtime of seven hours, 47 minutes, this is the longest film ever nominated for an Academy Award. I have seen it twice and would watch it again in a heartbeat. It is absolutely riveting from its first to its final moments. After the smashing success of the Serial podcast and the Making a Murderer documentary series, true-crime stores are more popular than ever, with everyone racing to get theirs out the door.

We have seen The Jinx from HBO already, and my understanding is there is a JonBenét Ramsey docuseries and a Menendez Brothers docuseries in the pipeline. All of these projects have had or will have varying degrees of critical or popular success. O.J.: Made in America is part of this boom but also stands apart from it, as Edelman raises true crime to the level of high art, like Truman Capote with a video camera.

No stone is left unturned, no detail is too small, and no person is above reproach in the recounting of one of the most famous crimes in American history. But this is not solely the story of O.J. Simpson and the murders of Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman. That story we know well. This is the definitive statement on the racial climate in America that created Simpson and led to the Trial of the Century. Never before have the pieces been laid out so clearly, so thoroughly and so brilliantly.

The myriad feats of this film – from the mountains of research to the gargantuan editing task – make it remarkable this film was even made. That the finished product is one of the most engrossing, fascinating, rewarding documentaries ever produced is an absolute miracle. The resurgence in popularity of the Simpson trial, with this film and the fictionalized TV series, should spur Academy members to watch this despite its daunting runtime. They will not be disappointed, and I cannot see how they could vote for anything else.

13th (directed by Ava DuVernay) – It starts with one clause in the 13th amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which outlawed slavery “except as punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.” It was so easy for all of us to miss, but it was always there, staring us in the face: Slavery shall not exist, except … How dastardly! How insidious! How perfect a way for the powerful to remain powerful by keeping the enemies to their power in chains.

DuVernay, the magnificent director who gave us Selma and Middle of Nowhere, does not miss the importance of this clause and uses her film to trace it step by step to the world we find ourselves in today. Every presidential administration, every congress, and indeed every corporate leader has in some way contributed knowingly and willfully to the widening gap between black and white life in America. From the cinema to the schools to the halls of government, no institution is without blood on its hands.

The film carefully connects the dots for the audience, constructing a richly detailed timeline of oppression. DuVernay once again proves herself to be a master filmmaker, here putting her gifts to use in crafting a visually arresting work of montage that draws direct parallels to the overt segregation of the mid-1900s to the covert segregation still in place today. If 13th has a flaw, it is that it covers too much material in too short a runtime. Another 45 minutes to an hour would have given the film more room to breathe and the audience more time to soak in its message. In truth, though, I would watch a 10-hour film from DuVernay on this subject, such is the magnitude of her talent.

I Am Not Your Negro (directed by Raoul Peck) – If O.J.: Made in America plays like a grand opera and 13th like a piercing cry of protest, I Am Not Your Negro is closer to a fireside chat with one of the smartest, most eloquent, and most important figures in the Civil Rights Era. Author and activist James Baldwin died in 1987, outliving his most famous friends by nearly two decades and leaving behind a body of work that adds up to an essential truth about this country.

Peck bases his film on Baldwin’s final, unfinished work, Remember This House, which was meant to cover the lives and assassinations of his friends, Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr. Peck gives voice to Baldwin’s remarkable prose and employs a jazzy, fluid style that brings Baldwin’s ideas fully to life.

I Am Not Your Negro is unique and beautiful because it could only come from Baldwin, and Peck wisely does not impose too much directorial will on the film, allowing Baldwin to be the star. The ideas are universal and wide ranging, but their power comes from Baldwin, who saw it all, wrote it down, and had the foresight to know what it meant. It is disheartening to see how little has changed from the era when change was the order of the day. In fact, we are slipping backward. If Baldwin were here today, though, the film seems to argue, he would tell us not to lose heart but rather to steel ourselves for the fight to come.

Fire at Sea (directed by Gianfranco Rosi) – Rosi’s sumptuous film is a cinema vérité look at the European migrant crisis seen through eyes of the people on the small Italian island of Lampedusa. While their little island is one of the frontlines in the migrant crisis, the inhabitants of Lampedusa seem generally unaffected, though not unperturbed, by the international emergency taking place on their shores. They go about their lives, making lunch, listening to the radio, taking out their boats, and wandering the island much as if no migrant ever were to land there.

Rosi’s camera simply watches, though in simply watching he produces some of the most beautiful cinematography of the year in any film. The power comes from the repetition and the slowly dawning realization the people on this island stand in for all of us. There are few countries in the world untouched by the migrant crisis, yet we go about our daily routines generally unmoved. With everything going on in this nation and the world over, who has the energy to be so emotionally involved anymore?

Then, Rosi unveils his greatest coup, and we are left wondering how we cannot be involved. He tags along with a patrol sent to rescue a stranded migrant boat, and for 20 or so uninterrupted minutes, the full depth of this crisis is laid bare. Dozens dead, dozens more sick or dying, they crammed onto a boat not suited for this trip and risked everything because no matter what was on the other end of their journey – homelessness, poverty, prison, or deportation among the likeliest outcomes – it would be better than what they left behind. Yet, here we sit, here we know, and here we do nothing.

Life, Animated (directed by Roger Ross Williams) – If we were going to play a game of “One of these things is not like the other things …” this would be the one not like the others in this group. Against three vitally important, energizing films about race and one about the European migrant crisis, the story of a family’s struggle to understand autism certainly feels low stakes. That may be true for the rest of us, but for the Suskind Family at the film’s center, the stakes could not be much higher.

Based on journalist Ron Suskind’s book of the same name, Williams’ film charts the highs and lows of having a son with autism, dealing honestly and openly with a subject few people fully comprehend. The crux of the story is that Owen Suskind learns to communicate by watching Disney animated films, most of which he has memorized. We are told the exaggerated emotions and facial features of the characters in an animated film are easier to interpret for a person with autism.

The obvious problem here is the sense the whole film is some kind of pro-Disney propaganda piece, and there are times when it feels that way. However, the film does not shy away from showing us all the life events such as finding a job and navigating sexuality that have no cognate storylines in Disney. Life, Animated does not rise to the level of the other films in this category – its story is too personal and too specific to be universal – but as a wonderful piece of documentary filmmaking, it is not so out of place.

The final analysis

In all likelihood, this comes down to the three films about race in America, though I would never underestimate a film about the power of film, particularly Disney. But to confine our analysis, O.J.: Made in America has the gravitas to win and has picked up almost every major award out there. 13th has on its side timeliness, relevance, and DuVernay, whose snub for Selma stands as one of the more stinging omissions in recent Oscar history. I Am Not Your Negro meanwhile has captured the zeitgeist and set box-office records in the theaters where it is showing.

Any of the three would make a deserving winner of which the Academy could be proud. All represent the kind of achievement this category is made to recognize. In some ways, though, apart from its length, O.J.: Made in America is the most traditional of the three in its form and presentation, something that could make it more palatable to voters. I am obviously biased here by my love for the film, but I genuinely do not see how the others, as wonderful as they are, stack up, and I hope and believe the Academy will see it the same way.

Will win: O.J.: Made in America

Should win: O.J.: Made in America

Should have been here: Weiner

Tomorrow: Best Documentary Short

Year in Review: Top 10 Quotes of 2016

This is my favorite feature to write each year. Screenwriting and screenwriters fascinate me. The best scripts evoke emotions and themes it is possible even the writer did not see. A film is the sum of its component parts, among which one is the screenplay, but that screenplay is made up of its own components – lines, characters, directions – that mean so much more together than they do apart.

The Top 10 Quotes feature began with a decidedly narrow focus, attempting to identify individual lines within scripts that best summarized or exemplified the themes at the cores of their films. This approach lacks a broader context. As much as the cinema is an escape, it is increasingly difficult – although, perhaps it was always impossible – to view a film without considering it through the prism of the real world. So, while each of these lines is wonderfully evocative in its own right, each also reveals a grander emotion or theme that informs the world beyond the screen.

10. “You only have to forgive once” from The Light Between Oceans, written by Derek Cianfrance

Rachel Weisz in The Light Between Oceans

Adapted by writer-director Cianfrance from the novel by M.L. Stedman, The Light Between Oceans poses a series of devastating moral dilemmas and proceeds to follow each to its painfully logical conclusion. Every decision has the potential to destroy the lives of every person that decision touches. It is a complex and beautiful film that begins as a portrait of the lengths we will go to spare our loved ones pain but ends as a treatise on the value of forgiving those who have caused us pain.

Hannah (Rachel Weisz) loses her husband and infant daughter in a boating accident. As she attempts to put the pieces of her life back together, she is shattered all over again by the well-intentioned machinations of the lighthouse keeper Tom (Michael Fassbender) and his wife, Isabel (Alicia Vikander). They are three good people faced with awful choices who all suffer greatly because of each other.

With every right to seethe, to lash out in anger, to hold on to her grievances and grief, Hannah remembers the words of her late husband: “You only have to forgive once.” It takes her time to take heed fully of this maxim, but when she does, the disorienting blur of the film’s ethical morass comes into sharp focus. The only idea in which we can find moral certitude is forgiveness, an action of which we are all capable, no matter the slights or transgressions committed against us.

9. “You haven’t seen the rubbish” from The Dressmaker, written by Jocelyn Moorhouse and P.J. Hogan

Now, if you will permit me to swing 180 degrees in the other direction, I present director-co-writer Moorhouse’s The Dressmaker. This is a strange, cynical, angry film featuring a pair of brilliant performances in the mother-daughter pair at its center Molly and Tilly Dunnage (Judy Davis and Kate Winslet, respectively). It argues persuasively for a world in which some people and places are like trees rotten at the root that should be chopped down before their spoiled fruit can sicken anyone else.

Tilly, a London dressmaker in the haute couture industry, returns to her small hometown in rural Australia decades after an incident in which she was blamed for the death of a small boy – mind you, when she was just a child as well. She arrives initially to do penance, to have the town forgive her and welcome her back through her work. Molly, who became a town pariah in her daughter’s exile, rightly tells her there is nothing that can be done. The town will use her, judge her, and spit her back out, as it has done to Molly.

Tilly learns this lesson the hard way, over and over, but unlike in her childhood, she is no longer defenseless against this town or its people. She sets in motion her revenge, and as she leaves town on the rail – this time, by choice – the largest fire the Outback has ever seen burns on the horizon. The train steward suggests someone has overdone it with their rubbish fire. Tilly responds, “You haven’t seen the rubbish.” By this time, we in the audience have seen the rubbish. It is fiercely nihilistic, but as evidenced by the world around us, some trash needs to burn.

8. “A first lady must always be ready to pack her bags” from Jackie, written by Noah Oppenheim

Natalie Portman in Jackie

Director Pablo Larraín gifts us here with a biopic unlike any you have ever seen as Jacqueline Kennedy (Natalie Portman), yet to become Onassis, tells the story of the defining tragedy of her life in her own words days after the event has taken place. She is a wreck of a woman, destroyed by what has happened to her but caged by the expectations of a nation and a repressive upbringing.

Even at her most vulnerable, she cannot bring herself to say what she means, and when she does, she denies having said it. She hides her pain beneath the veneer of propriety. However, when she slips and lets out a truth, it is as though a crack has opened up in her façade, and before she can plaster over it, she has given us a brief glimpse into her life and her experience in spite of herself.

All of Jackie plays like a series of dramatic ironies. In John and Jackie’s happiest moments, we know what is to come, but so does Jackie, who is narrating the story for us. As a result, everything is tinged with the pain of hindsight. However, in saying, “A first lady must always be ready to pack her bags,” Jackie is not speaking solely of her tragedy. Such is the truth of the president and the first lady – the White House is not their home. It belongs to the people, and the people can take it back whenever they see fit. By election, term limit, or assassination, one way or another, you are leaving that home, and your mark on it will be impermanent at best – a lesson best remembered by the president, as well.

7. “I can’t beat it” from Manchester by the Sea, written by Kenneth Lonergan

As a portrait of grief and grieving, writer-director Lonergan’s Manchester by the Sea has few equals. It nails the ever-present whirlwind of pain, anger, guilt, and longing in ways other films would be afraid to engage. In its honesty and brutality, it shocks the senses, and for an audience unprepared for such raw emotion, it unnerves.

After the death of his brother, Lee (Casey Affleck) returns to his hometown to care for his teenage nephew, Patrick (Lucas Hedges). The experience is made more painful for Lee by the constant reminders of the personal tragedy that forced him to leave town in the first place, including ex-wife Randi (Michelle Williams). He fights and he claws to bring himself back from the abyss, to honor his brother’s wishes, and to find some connection, solace in family.

Finally, with the weight of the past, present, and an uncertain future crashing down upon him, he breaks down at the dinner table, telling Patrick, “I can’t beat it. I can’t beat it.” It is the most emotionally naked moment in a movie that traffics in such sentiment, and it is all the more daring for taking us to such a dark, unforgiving place. We want everything to be okay for Lee, for Patrick, for Randi, for ourselves. When a film tells us sometimes it will not be okay, it is distressing, but it is truthful. Sometimes, things are not okay.

6. “What place is there for a weak man in this world?” from Silence, written by Martin Scorsese and Jack Cocks

Andrew Garfield and Yosuke Kubozuka in Silence

To some degree, almost all of Scorsese’s films are about strong, self-possessed people, be they mobsters, comedians, waitresses, or taxi drivers. Their conviction and righteousness – as defined by their own perspective – is unwavering, and this assuredness carries them down a path, usually to their destruction. How remarkable and refreshing then that Scorsese’s best film in years explores the path of the weak, the wavering, and the wondering.

Rodrigues (Andrew Garfield) and Garrpe (Adam Driver) are Jesuit priests in a nation, Japan, where Catholicism has been outlawed. The atrocities they see force them to question their faith in a god who would allow such things to happen to his believers. They are plagued by these questions and the guilt these questions inspire. They should be pillars of the faith for a people whose every breath is belief and every action is praise.

It takes the weak-willed Kichijiro (Yôsuke Kubozuka), who sells out the fathers, his faith, and his god at every turn, to show Rodrigues the truth. His actions test the boundaries of forgiveness, but he is sincere when he asks Rodrigues where he belongs in this world as a man with no conviction. Kichijiro’s weakness calls out for a strength of faith he does not possess and which only Rodrigues can provide him. The weak have just as much a right to this world as the strong.

5. “Sometimes, we’re asked to do things that are beyond us” from Midnight Special, written by Jeff Nichols

A March release that was unfairly forgotten amid the sturm und drang of the year, Nichols’ tender ode to the early science fiction of Steven Spielberg is ripe for rediscovery. The writer-director described the film as his reflection on being a father, and those origins shine through in every second of the relationship between Roy (Michael Shannon) and Alton (Jaeden Lieberher).

Shannon is typically excellent as a father trying to help his young son escape a religious cult that believes he is a prophet of god. Despite all the fantastical science fiction elements, at its core, this is a chase film. Roy and Alton are fugitives, looking for help wherever they can get it. At one point, they trust the wrong man, who tells Roy, “Sometimes, we’re asked to do things that are beyond us.”

His failure costs all of them deeply, and this is his manner of explanation. However, it is undeniably true as Roy and Alton can attest in the middle of a plan for which they are ill-equipped. At some point, most of us will be asked to perform a task beyond what we think is possible, either because of means or motivation. Some will succeed and some will not, but the only failure is not pushing ourselves beyond what we think we are capable of, which is how Roy and Alton end up where they do.

4. “No one ever listens to him, so why should he listen to them?” from I, Daniel Blake, written by Paul Laverty

Dave Johns, Hayley Squires, Dylan McKiernan, and Briana Shann in I, Daniel Blake

Director Ken Loach’s Palm d’Or-winning drama is a deeply infuriating investigation of the ravages of austerity and the failure of governments to care for their citizens. It functions as a primal scream against a system built to lock people out, and yet, it strikes a deeply human chord in its depiction of good people who simply want to do right by each other, the bureaucracy be damned.

Daniel (Dave Johns) is a carpenter who is not medically cleared to return to work in the wake of a heart problem. However, the government physician – who is not a doctor – contradicts this, and in the eyes of the system, he is not entitled to his medical benefits. As he fights for his benefits, he befriends a single mother, Katie (Hayley Squires), and her two small children, Daisy and Dylan (Briana Shann and Dylan McKiernan, respectively).

One afternoon with the children, Daniel tries to get Dylan’s attention but cannot. His sister observes, “No one ever listens to him, so why should he listen to them?” This is astute. The world has no time for the Daniels and Katies and Daisys and Dylans. It does not want to hear of their plight nor consider its role in creating it. The world consumes. It roars. So, why shouldn’t they roar back? Why shouldn’t we?

3. “There ought not never have been a time called ‘too early’” from Fences, written by August Wilson

Fences, Wilson’s original Pulitzer Prize-winning play, is one of the greatest things ever written in the English language. It sings the lyrics of everyday life more crisply and clearly than anything that came before or has come since. It is a musical without songs, a dance without steps, a rhythmic flow of emotion and truth and beauty.

Denzel Washington brings it to the screen, and as a director, he mostly gets out of its way. As an actor, however, reprising his role from the recent Tony-winning Broadway revival, he leans back and rips into the material like a slugger on fastball. Though not written for him, the role of Troy Maxon feels like it was just waiting for Washington to come along and play it. The perfect marriage of actor and part.

Of course, it all begins with the character Wilson put on the page – the embittered ex-baseball player Troy, who feels the world owes him more than he ever got and knows he missed his chance in life because of racism, a poor upbringing, just plain bad luck, or a combination of all three. When he is told his playing career went nowhere because he came along too early, before Jackie Robinson and the Civil Rights movement as a whole, he lashes out. Why should there even have been a time of such inequity? Why, indeed.

2. “If I go, there’s just no telling how far I’ll go” from Moana, lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda

Pardon if so far this has been a dour list, but it was that kind of year, wasn’t it? What little hope there was to be found seemed to flash in and out of existence, like the flicker of a candle in a downpour. Miranda offered us two – his Broadway sensation Hamilton and the soundtrack to Moana. Much of the soundtrack is a series of collaborations among Miranda, Opetaia Foa’i, and Mark Mancina, but the film’s signature song, “How Far I’ll Go,” is a solo composition by Miranda, and it is glorious.

The same can be said of Moana, a Disney princess movie that has the courage not to be a princess movie, as stated even by the titular heroine (voiced by Auli’i Cravalho) throughout the film. She is a wanderer, an explorer, which is similar to other Disney princesses, but unlike so many before her who journeyed to find love or to realize they were happy at home, Moana journeys because it is a part of her. She must, and the only question is right there in the title of the song: How far will she go? The answer is in the lyric: There is no telling.

It is as uplifting a message as you are likely to find this year: try, fail, try again, keep going, stretch yourself, and do not wonder about the destination, just go. I would say it is refreshingly progressive for a Disney movie, but in fact, it is a progressive message for any movie. So much of life is learning limitations, banging our fists against walls and our heads against ceilings. This should not be the case. Just go, and if you do, there is no telling how far you will travel.

1. “We made a legend out of a massacre” from I Am Not Your Negro, written by James Baldwin and Raoul Peck

James Baldwin in I Am Not Your Negro

The history of the United States is a modern history of atrocity. From the natives who were already here to the slaves who were brought here to the immigrants who came here, the white European ruling class has used its power and influence to dominate, oppress, and terrorize. If we cannot agree on this fact, we will not agree on much else. That there is even debate is the sick result of a guilty party unwilling to admit guilt or even to admit there is something for which to be guilty.

Peck’s documentary, made from activist Baldwin’s unfinished book, is a deeply personal view of the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, its implications for the world today, and its roots in the past. It is honest, unflinching, and unafraid to call racism what it is – a malevolent scourge that ignores what is human in all of us. To deny its existence is to reinforce its power. To deny its influence is to be influenced by it. It tears at the fabric of American life, making life impossible to live for Americans.

Schools cannot even agree today on what to teach about slavery. It is not brought up in polite society, lest we remind some sensitive soul of the indignities suffered by an entire people at the hands of someone else’s forebears. No, most want to believe slavery was the past. It was the Civil War. It was the Underground Railroad. It was a few songs to pass the nights on the plantation. “Swing low, sweet chariot.” It is a story. It is a legend. But in truth, it was and remains a massacre.

Check back tomorrow for more of Last Cinema Standing’s Year in Review as we count down the Top 10 Performances of 2016, and check back each day this week for continued Year in Review coverage.

Year in Review: Best & Worst of 2016

In year three of this annual Year in Review series, it occurs to me perhaps “best” and “worst” represent an inadequate way to analyze trends in cinema. To a degree, it is a matter of formatting. It was my initial mistake to try to bifurcate the film landscape in such a manner, to pass judgment by way of a subjective pro/con list.

With that in mind, this entry called out for a different approach this time around, a new format. In the interest of becoming more open-minded and considerate of other viewpoints – a condition sorely lacking in so much public and private discourse – here is the proposal: Point/counterpoint. Not a new idea, by any stretch, but with this twist – it’s just me.

I have assumptions and preferences like anyone else. Perhaps by challenging my own prejudices, I can come to a new understanding and point of view. That is the hope anyway, and not a bad goal for life outside the cinema as well.

Point: Home distribution models threaten the nature of the cinema

You do not need me to restate the mission statement of this site, which I have done a dozen times before, including yesterday in the introduction to this Year in Review series. A film is meant to be seen on the biggest screen, heard through the loudest speakers, and felt in the darkest room. The cinema is a transporting experience, allowing you to walk through dimensions, envelop yourself in new worlds, and leave behind the grievances of real life. Show me the living room that encompasses all of these and make it available to the masses, and I will tell you that is called a movie theater.

This is not a new problem, but it is an expanding one. The rise of Netflix and other video-on-demand services has made it possible to see new releases in the comfort of your home sometimes the same day as they become available in theaters. Being reasonable, I see the allure of a comfortable couch, a big-screen, hi-definition television, and surround sound. No one can be blamed for blanching at the cost of a movie ticket, the price of concessions, or any of the dozens of nagging annoyances that plague the theater-goer’s experience.

However, this devalues the medium. Going to the movies once was and still can be a glorious night on the town. There is no better way to spend an evening than with a good film, and the ritual of the cinema is as important as any other aspect of it – the sound of a ticket being torn, the smell of freshly popped popcorn, the feeling of sinking into a worn-out old seat, and the moment the lights go down and the image begins to flicker on that big, white screen.

Counterpoint: This model democratizes cinema, making it available to anyone, anywhere

Around March every year, once the Oscars have passed and release schedules firm up, I sit down and make a list of every upcoming movie I want to see in the next calendar year. I have spreadsheets with lists of films, directors, and release dates (as well as check marks for those I have seen) for every year going back to 2006.

When I first moved to New York City three years ago, I thought of those lists of release dates and how so many of the best films came with the same disclaimer: New York and Los Angeles only. I hated that disclaimer because it meant I would have to wait or, worse still, miss out entirely because I lived in a small, secluded college town, four hours from the nearest metropolis, let alone New York or Los Angeles. Moving here was a permanent reprieve from having to wait or miss out.

This is not true of most people. Large swaths of the population of this country live nowhere near a movie house even, never mind the kind of screens that might show the independent and foreign films that nurture an appreciation of cinema. Some of the best films of this year such as The Lobster, 13th, and Under the Shadow never played near many of my friends back home, yet they are experiences that cannot be missed. The theater remains the best place to watch a movie, but if the choice is at home on your television or not at all, then there is no choice to be made.

Point: It has been a great year for African-American representation and movies exploring black life in America

After enduring two years of #oscarssowhite controversy, the Academy has a chance to course correct in a big way, and not through some benevolent tokenism but rather due to the quality and volume of black voices and black stories in theaters this year. From Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight to Denzel Washington’s Fences, as well as documentaries such as Ezra Edelman’s O.J.: Made in America, Ava DuVernay’s 13th, and Raoul Peck’s I Am Not Your Negro, powerful, comprehensive stories about the black experience in America found their way into cinemas.

Denzel Washington and Viola Davis in Fences

Each stands as a damning document of struggle and oppression, a radical call for change and re-evaluation, and even in times as bleak as those we now face, an inspiring message of hope, survival, and transcendence. The central question of movies like these, as well as Loving, directed by white southerner Jeff Nichols, is whether we can do better than the generations that came before and whether we can leave a path for future generations to do better than we have.

Counterpoint: And yet, we still have not come far enough

Not one of those wonderful movies has made more than $32 million (Fences), which is good for 82nd at the domestic box office in 2016. The rise in strong black voices on screen and behind the scenes is a wonderful development, but it means little unless we can pack theaters and show financiers and distributors these stories are not only profitable but fill a gaping hole in the marketplace. Put plainly, audiences need to want these movies more or risk losing them.

Point: Documentary films this year provided a powerful, necessary lens through which to view our world

We already touched on O.J.: Made in America, 13th, and I Am Not Your Negro, which address issues of race in America. In addition, Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg documented the folly of our political system with Weiner, Josh Fox showed us a new outlook on an environment teetering on the brink of disaster with How to Let Go of the World and Love Everything the Climate Can’t Change, and Kirsten Johnson showed us the world as a set of puzzle pieces, waiting to be put together in a portrait of humanity, with Cameraperson.

In Newtown, Kim A. Snyder delivers a poignantly human take on the gun violence epidemic, while the prolific Werner Herzog gave us a pair of films (Lo and Behold: Reveries of a Connected World and Into the Inferno) that made us question the very nature of human civilization and demonstrated how tenuous the grasp of society truly is. All of these are vital works that taken individually or as a whole, shine a light on who we were, who we are, and who we could be, answering questions it has never been more important to ask.

Counterpoint: To what end, the truth

Angela Davis in 13th

As a journalist, it has been clear for some time you cannot tell someone something he does not want to know. Throughout the 2016 election and certainly since, it has become fashionable to refer to this as a post-truth society. The proliferation of fake news and propaganda online and elsewhere contributes to a world in which facts are meaningless in the face of belief.

This is a country in which people believe the Sandy Hook massacre was a government plot to confiscate guns. This is a country in which the fact of global warming is debated while the planet rapidly dies. This is a country in which racism is denied as it is perpetuated and a history of systemic oppression is seen as just the way it is.

Powerful as these documentaries are – and many of them are perfectly constructed artifacts of a world gone mad – they lack the power to change hearts that have hardened and grown cold. In this, however, the fault lies not with the films but with us. Our blindness, apathy, and self-regard mean we will not notice when we are being led off the cliff but will grow ever more confident as we take the plunge.

Check back tomorrow for more of Last Cinema Standing’s Year in Review as we count down the Top 10 Quotes of 2016, and check back each day this week for continued Year in Review coverage.