I love docs. I love that there are so many fantastic stories out there in the world -- stories that may never find their way to a newspaper or Hollywood screenwriter but that a documentary filmmaker finds fascinating enough to focus on entirely, nonstop, and is able to cut-down into an absurd 90 minute timeframe.
I hate manufactured documentaries where it becomes apparent that the filmmaker had the direction planned before the footage was gathered, and yet I'm completely attracted to two filmmakers in particular who have no qualms with interacting with the subjects. Like National Geographic filmmakers, documentarians have to be detached; if the lion is going to kill the baby hyena, so be it.
Werner Herzog puts the screws to that method. He is a filmmaker who seems constantly entertained by his characters, which he tells us through a narration that silences a subject for whom he feels his summary is better than their words. The subject may perfectly describe a process, but he will insist that the subject act out a task in the manner for which Herzog envisioned it. Herzog breaks all the rules, and that completely endears me to his work.
Albert Maysles is not so invasive, but his love for his subjects is obvious. Initially working with his late brother David, they remain the cinematic godfathers of direct cinema (read his own 400-word life summary). They've followed artists of all habits and the everyman, from salesmen to train travelers, recording both the large and forgotten moments of their lives so that we may feel more connected to strangers familiar and unknown. Brilliant.