Riding the ever-growing sensation of “This Is Spinal Tap” (1984) and freshly inspired by a chance encounter with an amateur production of “Annie Get Your Gun,” Christopher Guest cemented his filmmaking voice in the mid-1990s. With “Waiting For Guffman” in 1996 and then “Best In Show” (20 years old this week), the “Saturday Night Live” alum strung together an unlikely wave of bone-dry ensemble comedies. Crucially, they all deal with insular communities and the completely manufactured stakes around small-town community theater, dog shows, folk music reunions, or acting awards buzz.
This week on Be Reel, we revisit four Christopher Guest-directed movies all streaming on Hulu (if you’d like to watch along): “Waiting for Guffman” (1996), “Best in Show” (2000), “A Mighty Wind” (2003) and “For Your Consideration” (2006). Deploying his veritable stage troupe—including Catherine O’Hara, Eugene Levy, Michael McKean, Fred Willard, and dozens more—Guest hones a style of “mockumentary” that the director notably doesn’t like to call “mockumentary.”
Still, the faux-interview format Guest deploys in most of today’s films raises fascinating questions about the past and future of the documentary form. In a time when streaming audiences routinely grow obsessed with other people’s obscure obsessions—see: “Cheer” or “Last Chance U” or “The Vow” or even “Tiger King”—how did Christopher Guest invent little worlds that can feel more credible and cared for than the allegedly real thing?
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