MINDING THE GAP Criterion Review: Meaning for Ourselves

Over the past decade, there have been many documentaries that capture the heart and soul of their subjects with raw, unfiltered honesty, but perhaps none quite on the level of Bing Liu’s Minding the Gap. The film, released in 2018, documents the lives of Bing Liu (the film’s director) and two close friends named Keire Johnson and Zack Mulligan, whom Liu grew to bond with over the years through the three’s mutual love for skateboarding. Spanning over a decade, the film traces their relationships with each other and those around them in their town of Rockford, Illinois, as well as the hardships each of them face from varying sources in their lives.

Minding the Gap premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival to critical acclaim and was awarded the U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Breakthrough Filmmaking. It was later nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary Feature and eventually went on to be nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the 91st Academy Awards. It’s a heartbreaking, yet triumphantly moving portrait of people finding meaning for themselves in a life where they’re struggling to move on from their past and find footing for their future, chronicled with stunning naturalistic articulation by Liu.

Criterion has prepared for release a new high-definition master of the film, approved by Liu himself. Inside the case, a leaflet opens up to reveal a collection of stills featuring the central trio, and an essay written by writer Jay Caspian Kang titled What It’s About. On the backside of the leaflet, the release is detailed in full under the “About the Master” segment, and a “Special Thanks” section detailing those who helped bring this release to fruition. Subsequently, acknowledgments are listed, as well as the film’s production credits.

Video: 4/5

Minding the Gap is presented on Blu-ray in its original aspect ratio of 1:78:1. As noted in the leaflet, “the film was shot primarily between 2012 and 2017 on the following digital video cameras: Sony DCR-HC21, Sony DCR-VX2000, Panasonic AG-DVX100, Canon Rebel T2i, Canon 5D Mark II, Canon 5d Mark III, Canon C300 Mark I, Canon C300 Mark II.” The film was completed in a fully digital workflow, and the Blu-Ray’s digital master was approved by Liu.

This release provides a satisfactory physical component for those wishing to own the film on Blu-Ray. The lower-grade digital footage still retains a formality to it that the high-definition master delivers upon, and the higher-quality footage is beautifully crisp and refined. Textural clarity is astounding, bringing the environments of the film’s subjects to the Blu-Ray format with striking sharpness and close-ups of the subjects themselves are as raw as the film itself is. Color quality is also top-notch and all-in-all, this is a massive upgrade from the previous viewable version of the film (available to stream on Hulu).

Audio: 4/5

The leaflet included in the release also notes that “the original 5.1 surround soundtrack was remastered from the digital master audio files using Avid’s Pro Tools and iZotope RX.”.

If any one word could be used to describe Minding the Gap, it would be “naturalistic”, and this 5.1 surrounds sound audio track further establishes this. Even in its darkest moments, there’s a warmth that evaporates into the surroundings of the visuals, prominently appearing in moments where they collide with the audio in stunning fashion. Furthermore, this is a heavily dialogue-driven experience, and every line is delivered precisely while seamlessly converging into the film’s sweeping vastness. Truly an exemplary audio track that acts in a joint effort with the image quality to immobilize the viewer in this naked depiction of the lives of these people.

Special Features: 4/5

The disc comes with a lovely assortment of special features that add to the experience of the film. They include:

• COMMENTARIES: Two audio commentary tracks, one featuring director Bing Liu, and the other featuring Liu, Keire Johnson, and Zack Mulligan.
• A VERY TRICKY BALANCE: In this program, director Bing Liu, executive producer Gordon Quinn, and producer Diane Quon reflect on the evolution, ethical challenges, and personal nature of Minding the Gap. Each interview was recorded remotely by the Criterion Collection in 2020.
• NINA AND BING: Here, director Bing Liu revisits Minding the Gap with participant Nina Bowgren. This conversation was recorded remotely by the Criterion Collection in 2020.
• TONY HAWK: In the following interview, recorded remotely by the Criterion Collection in 2020, professional skateboarder Tony Hawk shares his appreciation for Bing Liu’s Minding the Gap.
• OUTTAKES: Four scenes not included in Minding the Gap are presented here with introductions by director Bing Liu.
  • Nina and Zack Go to the Hospital
  • Rick and His Son, Max
  • Keire Leaves Rockford
  • Keire in Denver
• NƯỚC: In 2010, director Bing Liu made this short film about two Vietnamese immigrants: Phương Khang Nguyễn Thân, the daughter of a former South Vietnamese army captain; and Nguyễn Văn Hải, an orphan taken in by an American family. Nước evokes fluid memories of growing up American.
• TRAILER

Overall, this disc contains a wide variety of features that heighten the film’s (already insurmountable) weight and that further the transcendent beauty in Liu’s documentation of his subjects. If you wish to take a deep dive into the film’s most synchronic elements, this is certainly the way to go, as it provides a special glimpse into Liu’s chronicles of his friends’ experiences as well as his own. The inclusion of Liu’s 2010 short film Nước is a welcome surprise, too. Criterion continues their streak of faultless supplemental features with their Blu-Ray releases.

Overall Score: 4.5/5

Minding the Gap is such a hard film to describe, so much so that I find it impossible to classify it as a documentary as some do. Over the course of ninety shattering minutes, director Bing Liu traces the journeys of him and his friends through moments in their lives that define them, whether they be either life-changing or seemingly insignificant. As Mulligan states during one moment of dialogue, “You fucking have to control the most minute, small details to make you feel normal in a world that’s not normal.”

To put it simply, Minding the Gap is an immeasurably special experience that consistently acts as an antithesis to traditional documentaries because of Liu’s ability to convey raw emotion through the framing of his subjects and their respective experiences, ones that cross paths with each other and show the staggering power of something such as skateboarding in a segment of their lives where it’s used as an escape. The new Criterion Blu-Ray release is excellent, with superb image and audio quality and a significant amount of supplements included, making this a necessary inclusion in any collection.

Will you be picking up Minding the Gap? Let us know in the comments.

Minding the Gap will be released on Blu-Ray on January 12, courtesy of Criterion.

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