Cinema Verite (2011)

	Patrick F.

1 out of  1  people found this review helpful

The film is decent, a good look into early reality tv and how not much has changed with manipulating for ratings.

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	Oscar P.

0 out of  0  people found this review helpful

I don't remember the program back in the 70's of course I was too young, but this docudrama was very good. Diane Lane and Tim Robbins do a good job living back in the 70's and Lane is just perfect in her looks.

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	Keith G.

0 out of  0  people found this review helpful

Surprisingly successful HBO film, which takes on the tricky multi-layered task of making a fictionalized docudrama about the making of "An American Family" a 10 hour PBS documentary that was the direct forerunner the surreal and semi-real world of 'reality television' we know today. James Gandolfini plays James Gilbert, who has the brilliant idea to study a typical American Family on film, almost as if it were an archaeological document. But of course no family is typical, particularly the upscale Loud family, and all sorts of sticky moral, ethical and cinematic walls are crashed into. How objective can a documentary really be? What is, or should be off-limits of a prying camera? How much do the personalities and needs of the film-makers effect the behavior and choices subjects, subtly or sometimes very dramatically? It also explores questions about family, as did the original series, but with the value of the passage of years to give context and distance.

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