DOC NYC: Enquiring Minds

This past Saturday, I had the pleasure of attending DOC NYC, an annual documentary film festival hosted in three separate theaters in Manhattan. Coming across the SVA theatre, I came across the poster for Ric Burns' "Enquiring Minds: An Untold Story of the Man Behind National Enquirer".

It was probably mere coincidence that just a few days before that, I was talking to a friend while inside a local walgreens and spotted a copy of national enquirer on the magazine rack. I laughed, wondering if any one even bought the magazine anymore, knowing nothing more than the  fact that it had been hatefully called "false tabloid trash" by many. Considering that it is a well known long time staple of journalistic controversy, I figured that a documentary on the man behind the magazine would be interesting. I was right.

The documentary told the story of Generoso (Gene) Pope, Jr., an intelligent business savvy media mogul that came from not so humble beginnings, bred from birth to be a pioneer in the business of selling papers. His father, Generoso Pope, had come to the United States in the early 1900's as an Italian immigrant and while he had to claw his way up from proverty, going from working at construction sites to owning the largest sand and gravel company in the world. He'd bought an Italian newspaper that eventually became extremely successful, and once his children were born. He had the youngest, Gene, learn everything he knew from a young age, so that he'd be ready to take over the company by the time he reached 18.

Once his father died, however, Gene's resentful mother and older brothers had denied him any money from his father's estate and Gene was left to fend for himself and start from the ground up. Using possible mafia ties from connections through his late father, he bought the "New York Enquirer" newspaper with the idealistic dream for it to be the 'best selling paper' in the world. While, it sold rather poorly at first, radical changes to the contents of the paper itself over the years pushed by Gene himself, including shock stories, violence, gore, sexy spreads and then eventually celebrity gossip columns, had shot rocketed the paper's popularity by the 1950's and 60's. Then later changed to "The National Enquirer", it's staff was infamous for going to major and at most times, immoral extremes just to get a prize winning shot, in which they were usually successful. The film later goes into his later life, his work ethic and over all quirky character that had gained him all his riches and success until his death in 1988.

The film uses a lot of old video footage and pictures of Gene and his staff along with voice over narration. The footage is also interlaced with interviews of some key members of his staff and others who him well enough to speak in his behalf. According to the documentary, the headquarters for the National Enquirer had all of their archives destroyed during the anthrax scare of the early 2000's. A questionnaire had with the director and the son of Gene himself after the viewing answered the question of how he was able to get so much footage and newspapers if it was all destroyed, to which Burns laughed, simply stating 'ebay'.

In general, I think it was a very informative and entertaining film. Considering the lack of materials due to so much lost archival footage, it was very well put together and kept my attention through out. It's a film I would highly recommend.