The pairing of famous directors with famous subjects proved an unbeatable combo in the documentary categories at the Creative Arts Emmys.
Ron Howard’s Jim Henson Idea Man, about the late Muppets creator, won Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special, one of the marquee doc categories. And the winning didn’t stop there for the Disney+ film. It claimed a total of four trophies on the night, including Outstanding Picture Editing for a Nonfiction Program, Outstanding Music Composition for a Documentary Series or Special (original dramatic score), and Outstanding Sound Editing for a Nonfiction or Reality Program.
It’s been a major weekend for Oscar winner Howard, who unveiled his latest narrative film Saturday at the Toronto International Film Festival. The director and stars of Eden — Jude Law, Daniel Brühl, Ana de Armas, Sydney Sweeney, and Vanessa Kirby – stopped by Deadline’s Toronto Studio before heading to their premiere at Roy Thomson Hall.
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A celebrity director training an eye on a celebrity protagonist did the trick in another Emmy documentary category, as Fisher Stevens’s Beckham, about world-famous English footballer David Beckham, won for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series. Stevens, the veteran actor who stole scenes as Hugo Baker, the ethically flexible senior coms exec in Succession, has long established himself as a big force in the nonfiction space. He won an Oscar in 2010 for producing the environmental expose film The Cove.
(Coincidentally, there’s a TIFF tie-in to Stevens at Toronto this year as well. His wife, director Alexis Bloom, unveils her documentary The Bibi Files, about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as a work in progress on Monday).
The Guardian, reviewing Beckham, heaped praise on the four-part Netflix series, writing, “This absolutely star-packed docuseries is a fun, gossipy watch full of blunt, entertaining interviews. Every episode just flies by.”
Beckham similarly won approval from The New Yorker and other media outlets for its examination of David Beckham and his more-or-less equally famous wife, Victoria Beckham, aka Posh Spice of the Spice Girls.
“Posh and Becks, as the tabloids called them—nice short words, great big headlines—were a celebrity match made in heaven,” The New Yorker’s Rebecca Mead wrote. “They were also a match made in David’s fantasies, it turns out, even before the couple’s first encounter. He tells the documentary’s director, Fisher Stevens, about seeing a Spice Girls video while he and Neville [Beckham’s Manchester United teammate Gary Neville] were idly watching TV one day. ‘I turned round to Gary, I went, “See that one there? I’m gonna marry that one,”’ David remembers.”
Jim Henson Idea Man, meanwhile, offers a unique glimpse into the restless creative spirit of the titular filmmaker and puppeteer, who died unexpectedly in 1990 at the age of 58. In our review for Deadline, we wrote, “In this deft and touching portrayal, Howard expands our appreciation for Henson’s brilliance beyond ‘just’ the Muppets – though creating that menagerie of memorable characters out of felt, foam, ping pong balls, and other materials would have been more than enough to secure his artistic legacy.”
In addition to the four Emmys the film won on Saturday, Jim Henson Idea Man won a juried award, Outstanding Motion Capture, a prize announced last month by the Television Academy.
Elsewhere at the Creative Arts Emmys, it was a winning night for Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson, directors of the documentary Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project. Their film, about the renowned poet, activist and educator won the prestigious Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking Award, a juried competition. As the TV Academy points out, for this category, “All entrants are screened by a jury of appropriate peer group members and one, more than one, or no award entry is awarded an Emmy.” Also nominated in that category were Beyond Utopia, from Independent Lens, and Stamped From the Beginning, the Netflix film directed by Roger Ross Williams.
Angela Bassett’s voiceover work in the National Geographic Documentary Series Queens won her the Emmy for Best Narrator. The multi-parter examines distaff leaders of the animal kingdom, from elephants to whales, bears, and lions. Bassett triumphed over such vocal lions Sir David Attenborough (Planet Earth III), Morgan Freeman (Life On Our Planet), Paul Rudd (Secrets Of The Octopus), and fellow queen Octavia Spencer (Lost Women Of Highway 20).
The Creative Arts Emmys continue Sunday at the Peacock Theater in downtown L.A., when trophies will be up for grabs in nearly 50 more categories. On Sunday, September 15, ABC will air the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards, where winners of another 25 categories will be announced, including Outstanding Comedy Series and Outstanding Drama Series.