SXSW REVIEW: FICTION VS. NON-FICTION IN “WOODPECKER” AND OTHER FILMS

Late last night, after jumping from IFC’s My Morning Jacket / Yo La Tengo concert to the wide-open SXSW Closing Night party and finally onto Joel Heller‘s birthday, I wound up at the Magnolia diner, eating scrambled eggs and discussing scrambled documentaries. I was there with Dan Nuxoll from Rooftop, Joel, and Alex Karpovsky and Eric Bruggermann, the director and editor, respectively, of “The Hole Story” and 2008 SXSW selection “Woodpecker.”

I brought up the fascinating dialogue about the distinctions of fiction and non-fiction filmmaking that I had heard surrounding some of the films here at SXSW, including Alex’s film(s), Daniel Stamm‘s “A Necessary Death,” and even films as different as Nanette Burstein‘s “American Teen,” Morgan Spurlock‘s “Where in the World is Osama bin Laden?” and Josh Safdie‘s “The Pleasure of Being Robbed,” where categorical definitions would appear pretty straightforward. We’d heard a rumor that when “A Necessary Death” played one European festival, it was in the documentary section, and the crowd was incensed.

Why is it that people get so mad about films that blur these distinctions or even deliberately mislead the audience? Do these distinctions matter? And if so, how should we be defining these films?

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