McSweeney’s Books: McSweeney’s and Broadway Video Present: Documentary Now! (Fourth Edition, Revised and Expanded)

Hitchcock/Truffaut.

Cahiers du Cinéma.

Documentary Now!

The best film texts touch our lives and leave an indelible imprint on our shared cultural experience, deepening and enriching our relationships with this most universal of modern artistic genres.

In this new, fully revised and expanded edition of Documentary Now!’s seminal 1975 text, the curators behind the beloved long-running Documentary Now! program invite us to celebrate the craft, legacy, and minutiae of some of the most brilliant works of nonfiction ever put to celluloid. This remarkable book presents unique access to stills, posters, scores, and archival materials from some of the most celebrated documentaries in film history, alongside essays from some of the greatest cultural luminaries of the last fifty years, including two new introductions by series host Helen Mirren and critic Matt Zoller Seitz, and the classic introduction by original host Burt Lancaster. Plus, classic essays by Tom Wolfe, Peter Bogdanovich, David Foster Wallace, and others.

From the medium’s beginnings in Kunuk the Hunter to its all-time masterpieces Sandy Passage and Original Cast Album: Co-op, this book seeks to shine a spotlight on Documentary Now!’s past, revel in its present, and look for signposts guiding toward its future. Take a look inside:

Praise for Documentary Now!

“When I started directing documentaries, one of my dreams was that I would one day have a film featured on Documentary Now! While I wait, I’ll think about how great the series is, and how great everything associated with it is, including this new edition of its excellent literary companion.”
—Questlove, musician and director of Summer of Soul and Sly Lives! (aka The Burden of Black Genius)

“I don’t think I would be the filmmaker I am without this book. I found my first copy in a used bookstore in college, and it opened the window to what was possible in nonfiction film. It’s the documentary Bible.”
—Morgan Neville, Academy Award–winning director of 20 Feet from Stardom

Presented by McSweeney’s and Broadway Video, this over-six-hundred-page comprehensive companion book, made with the assistance of series directors Rhys Thomas and Alex Buono, includes new writing by Seth Meyers, a foreword by Pulitzer Prize-finalist Matt Zoller Seitz, Tendency writer Will Bareford, the complete sheet music for John Mulaney and Eli Bolin’s Co-op: The Musical, and much more.

To preorder Documentary Now! (Fourth Edition, Revised and Expanded) please visit our store. The book will be released in May of this year, with copies shipping prior to its release.

Images courtesy of Broadway Video. This book is a work of parody, all celebrities are impersonated unless specifically mentioned.