The Academy has winnowed the list of documentary feature contenders to 15:
“Art and Craft”
“The Case Against 8″
“Citizen Koch”
“Citizenfour”
“Finding Vivian Maier”
“The Internet’s Own Boy”
“Jodorowsky’s Dune”
“Keep On Keepin’ On”
“The Kill Team”
“Last Days in Vietnam”
“Life Itself”
“The Overnighters”
“The Salt of the Earth”
“Tales of the Grim Sleeper”
“Virunga”
Music documentaries have won the Oscar for best feature documentary the last two years, but the shortlist announced today suggests the streak will not continue. Only one of the contenders, “Keep On Keepin’ On,” about the jazz musician Clark Terry and his mentoring of a young piano prodigy, has a musical theme, and “I’ll Be Me,” a box office and critical success that focuses on the country music star Glen Campbell and his struggle with Alzheimer’s disease, was passed over altogether.
Of the remaining contenders, chosen from 134 eligible films, the clear favorite has to be Laura Poitras’s “Citizenfour,” about the whistle-blower Edward Snowden and the secrets he spilled to Ms. Poitras and others. Not only is her film dramatic, it also shows almost in real time the process by which Mr. Snowden made his dramatic revelations about the United States government’s surveillance of American citizens and foreigners alike. In addition, this is an issue that is easy for Academy voters to take a stand on. The film has already picked up Gotham Independent Film and New York Film Critics Circle awards this week.
If there is a second film that can hope to challenge “Citizenfour,” it is probably “Life Itself,” an affecting portrait of the film critic Roger Ebert that does not shy away from the pathos of his final days. Ebert loved the movies and did a lot to help promote the best that Hollywood and the rest of the world had to offer, so there may be a sentimental factor at work for Academy voters. “Life Itself” captures Ebert’s passion, and also introduces viewers to his wife, Chaz, who emerges as a strong and dynamic, perhaps even heroic, figure.
Three other documentaries that made the shortlist look at the lives of artists and the creative process. One, “The Salt of the Earth,” concentrates on the celebrated Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado, and features footage of him looking at some of his best-known images and discussing them with Wim Wenders, who directed the film with Mr. Salgado’s son Juliano.
The other entries about artists focus on more obscure figures. “Jodorowsky’s Dune” is an examination of the eccentric Chilean filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky and his failed quest to make a movie of the Frank Herbert science-fiction saga “Dune,” which nonetheless influenced younger filmmakers, while “Finding Vivian Maier” recounts the curious career of a nanny who only now, long after her death, is emerging as one of the most skilled photographers of street scenes in the 20th century. (An argument might be made that “The Internet’s Own Boy,” about the programmer and information activist Aaron Swartz, who committed suicide at the age of 26, is also a documentary about a sort of artist.)
The rest of the field is composed mainly of documentaries devoted to political and social issues. The subjects are diverse: two films, “The Kill Team” and “Last Days in Vietnam,” examine war and its victims, while “The Case Against 8” focuses on the campaign to legalize same-sex marriage, “Citizen Koch” portrays the billionaire Koch brothers as the maleficent patrons of conservative causes, and “Tales of the Grim Sleeper” investigates the lackadaisical police response to a serial killer who preyed on poor black women in Los Angeles.
All have their merits, but it is going to be hard for them to compete against “Citzenfour.”