On Stop Making Sense, I'd say if you don't think it is a doc, don't put it on your list.
That's probably the best way to handle it, leave it to the individual.
To illustrate my personal line on the stand-up/concert aspect, I have Believe: The Eddie Izzard Story on my list because it very much is a document of his life (with scenes from stand-up) but I don't have Eddie Izzard: Circle or The Definite Article because I feel the video capture doesn't really add anything beyond what I'd experience sitting in the crowd.
Hmm, I haven't seen either of those Eddie Izzard films, but I do know that
Richard Pryor Live on the Sunset Strip is shot and assembled in such a way that it creates something separate from the live experience despite only being a concert film; that in conjunction with the performer, the filmmaker has created something that is possibly similar to attending the event (I can't say, I wasn't there), but is nevertheless a distinct document. Or let's look at it another way, if the filmmaker has in fact captured what it was like to be there (the atmosphere, the energy, the excitement...etc.) that is also documentary filmmaking. Including "bio-docs", but not "event-docs" seems too narrow to me.
I dunno, I haven't seen Last Waltz. But like I said, it's tricky. I'm worried about opening a huge can of worms regarding the definition of documentary. I guess I could say a documentary should impart some kind of information, but someone could respond with "Stop Making Sense tells you what a Talking Heads concert is like". It does document an event (actually two or three, because it wasn't all from one show) so I dunno. Then we get into stuff like "What about Eddie Murphy: Raw?" (Ver Schmer made his post as I was typing this)
I guess I'm not certain what that can of worms is, particularly in this case. For me
Stop Making Sense is an artful treatment of an actual event, a rock concert, and that's enough for me. If somebody wanted to put
Raw on their list, I don't see how that's a problem either.
I didn't realize before how strict I can be about genre boundaries, but between this and the Noir-vember thread, I guess I'm kind of a tight-ass about it.
I can relate. For the Best of the Decade lists (were you around for that?), I abstained from putting
My Winnipeg on my documentary list, but did put it on my best films list. All of the arguments for its inclusion now have me questioning that decision and make me wonder if I was just too close to the subject matter. I may have to revisit it and my thoughts on how it relates to documentary, but for now I'm leaving it off any doc lists I might make.