"They used to tank cod from Alaska all the way to China. They'd keep them in vats in the ship. By the time the codfish reached China, the flesh was mush and tasteless. So this guy came up with the idea that if you put these cods in these big vats, put some catfish in with them and the catfish will keep the cod agile. And there are those people who are catfish in life. And they keep you on your toes. They keep you guessing, they keep you thinking, they keep you fresh. And I thank god for the catfish because we would be droll, boring and dull if we didn't have somebody nipping at our fin."
Recently, More4 showed the 2010 documentary Catfish as part of its True Stories season, which is also featuring, among other films, Waltz With Bashir, Burma VJ and the recent documentary Tyson -which has interviews with the man himself - and the Oscar-winning documentary (which I think is about dolphins), The Cove. Here's the link for all of the films in the True Stories series, and some of them are still available on 4OD, but Catfish isn't one of them: http://www.channel4.com/programmes/themes/true-stories
Now the fact that Catfish has been screened by More4 along with these other factual documentaries (which is obvious, otherwise they wouldn't be factual in the first place), I'd reckon that puts the argument over whether the film's fake or not to bed. Because I went into watching the film knowing that there had been a lengthy debate over the film's authenticity for some time, I often found myself throughout the film trying to cross-reference parts of the story and making sure that it all added up, which annoyed me. Granted, there's nothing I could do about this, since I couldn't exactly forget what I'd heard, but it didn't really make any difference. I'm utterly convinced that what happened in Catfish is real, all of it. The only thing I can see that might call the film's authenticity into question is that things develop very quickly and everything seems to come into place a bit too well, but who cares? Are we so concerned with things going wrong or taking ages to happen that when things DO happen with relative ease, it's so difficult to accept? Now I'm not going to spoil any of the film, because luckily no-one spoiled it for me, so it'd be harsh for me to do the same. On that note, I can't remember who did it, but I'll never forgive the person who spoiled Empire Strikes Back for me, even if it was just a passing mention on the TV. Everyone should see that film.
Now, back to Catfish. There are events in this film that will astound you. Astounding because you have no idea what's going to happen, and when it does, you didn't expect it at all. Yes, it was marketed on the premise that "are people who they say they are?", but MY GOD! Seriously, I can say nothing without spoiling the film - which I, again, have no intention of doing, but you just need to find a way to watch it. It's out on DVD if it's not repeated on More4 again, so give it a look.
While I'm sure it's definitely a documentary and not a scripted film, it seems to be part of a trend that's been happening in cinema over the last couple of years: Found-footage/documentary-style films. Another prime example, and the film that's attracted the most comparisons to Catfish, is I'm Still Here, the Casey Affleck-directed "documentary" about Joaquin Phoenix's short-lived rap career, which gave all the impressions of being real before its release, but all notions of that quickly faded after it came out, when I'm sure Affleck pretty much said it wasn't real. After Phoenix's appearance on David Letterman, you'd think he was being serious enough:
I haven't seen it yet, and to be honest, probably never will, but it's an intriguing concept. But having Phoenix say on Letterman a year and a half later that it was a critique on the media's reaction to celebrity and reality TV, or something like that anyway, seems a bit pretentious, especially when the film made less than half a million dollars, given its wide release. Unfortunately, Paranormal Activity's definitely part of that trend as well, and with a third instalment on its way this year, it seems to be a very profitable trend indeed.
And on a bigger scale, J.J. Abrams' Super 8 is being released on June 10th in the US, but it's not coming to the UK until August 5th, which is annoying. The addition of Steven Spielberg as a producer will undoubtedly help its chances at the box office, since Cloverfield, a very similar found-footage monster movie - directed by Matt Reeves, with Abrams receiving a producer's credit - made $170million worldwide over a $20million budget. I can imagine that because Spielberg's on board, the studio behind Super 8 might expect a fair bit more. I had envisioned myself writing about Cloverfield's box office grosses not expecting much, but $170million is a massive amount of money for a film like that! But then again, it got some heavy marketing behind it...
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