A pair of docs heat up Sundance

Take your pleasures where you can get them: In the absence of any truly great movies at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, there are a handful of intriguing documentaries that are starting to generate chatter around town.

On Sunday morning, I caught the press screening of The Tillman Story, the latest from director Amir Bar-Lev, whose My Kid Could Paint That was a highlight here in 2007. This new film takes a closer look at the life and death of NFL star turned fallen soldier Pat Tillman. Bar-Lev argues that the United States military manipulated the facts of his death by friendly fire for the purposes of waging a patriotism-stoking public relations campaign. In the process, Tillman’s own wishes -- particularly, that his funeral not be co-opted by the military and politicians -- were stomped upon.

It’s a provocative story, and Bar-Lev -- who had the complete cooperation of Tillman’s family -- builds a persuasive and poignant case that a cover-up was staged that reached all the way to Donald Rumsfield. I just wish the movie didn’t feel so doggedly conventional, like an episode of 48 Hours with slightly more polish. You ultimately feel like you would have learned just as much from reading a magazine article on the same topic.

On a slightly more upbeat note was Leon Gast’s Smash His Camera, an affectionate portrait of famed paparazzi photographer Ron Galella, whose decades-long pursuit of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis led the former First Lady to file two harassment lawsuits against him.

The film works best when it follows Galella on his rounds, sneaking into parties and haranguing celebrities in pursuit of that elusive perfect shot; it’s evident that this 77-year-old man still loves his job.

Slightly less successful is when Gast (When We Were Kings) tries to reach for profundity, by arguing that Galella’s photographs are a defining art form of the second half of the 20th century. Well, maybe -- but that’s putting an awful lot of weight on a guy who mostly just seems delighted if he can get famous people to smile for him. (In a nice bit of Sundance synergy, Robert Redford turns up briefly here as one of the celebrities Galella is pursuing.)