Frederick Wiseman

really loved In Jackson Heights and Ex Libris: NYPL so I decided to go back and watch all of his films from the beginning. So far have seen Titicut Follies, High School, Law and Order, Hospital, Basic Training, all released between 1967 and 1971 and all available on Kanopy

opening this thread with more and more trepidation these days!

titicut follies and law and order are hard to watch!

High School was filmed at northeast high in Philadelphia. The best scene I thought was where “The Dangling Conversation” by Simon and Garfunkel was recited and then played by the teacher, and the students’ and her reactions are shown. I also liked the sex education scenes and the letter from a former student in the military that a teacher read at an assembly at the end. It was made in the era of my older siblings. It felt like a real time capsule

xp agree

Hospital was filmed at Metropolitan Hospital Center in NY. The transgender teenager’s description of her experience in that film was moving to me, I can’t think of another film from 1970 that might have shown something like that (I may be wrong, correct me if I am)

High School is a top-10 favorite film of mine, every scene is a killer. Sometimes I wonder if it just hits me so hard only because it's the subject of his that I have the most firsthand experience with, never having been in family court, basic training, a ballet troupe, or the Idaho state legislature.

I've never been to Jackson Heights, and that's probably my top Wiseman.

i'd be happy to show you J Heights if NYC ever comes back

(or is that where yr spouse is from?)

i visited jackson heights shortly after seeing the film (a friend lives there) and it was much nicer than anywhere else in nyc

didn't think Essene (1972) was all that compelling, but liked the confessional monologue toward the end

http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=Q-i1Ee1i25M

what's up with youtube imbeds lately? does ILX not embed unless it's https?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-i1Ee1i25M

I've seen Titticut Follies and High School, probably in my documentary and propaganda class in undergrad. The Lincoln Center was streaming Ballet about a week ago. Alas, I missed it.

I feel like this clip would be more engrossing if the film had been shot on 16 like his other films. But I am an inveterate analogue loyalist.

At the same time, as happens with artists working in one mode their entire careers, the work kind of loses its flavor for having been rehashed. One can only be a maverick so many times in one's lifetime.

They still have almost all of his films on Kanopy

Last time I checked they just had High School and one other film, probably Titticut Follies

We've been watching City Hall over the past couple of days and the highlight so far has been an unusually fascinating scene with a garbage truck that can apparently eat everything.

variable, that's weird. I looked again and I still see three pages worth of his films. Maybe it depends on which library you subscribed with.

ya kanopy is institution-specific

there’s a big torrent with most of his movies on em

oh, that is weird. you'd think SAIC would be all over his filmography.

I think it does depend on the library, don't know particulars

Excellent long piece on Wiseman:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/15/magazine/frederick-wiseman-documentaries.html

Nobody talks seriously about writing the Great American Novel anymore, but Wiseman belongs to a generation that used to, and his body of work, when considered in the manner he lays out above, represents the nearest contemporary equivalent I can think of. Especially when viewed in Wiseman’s terms — as a single, ongoing project — the scope and ambition become panoramic, a national monument. Norman Mailer used to refer to his desire to write the Great American Novel in tragic-heroic terms, casting himself as an Ahab in doomed pursuit of what he called “the big one.” Wouldn’t it be funny, though, if the Great American Novel actually does exist, only it’s not a novel and has been quietly appearing in serialized form on public television for the past 50 years?

I'm going to go back to Monrovia, Indiana, probably tonight. I started it months ago, but just couldn't get in the mood.

The film, not the place--forgot the italics.

Essene and Canal Zone are both low-key mood pieces that get overlooked.

Looking forward to Canal Zone, I ordered that one along with State Legislature and Sinai Field Mission for the holiday2020 sale, which I think is still going.

caught a bunch of city hall on pbs on tv. there’s like 8 minutes of it that’s just Fred filming a garbage truck trash compactor destroying some large furniture and kitchen appliances

love that scene tbh

Garbage truck scene one of my fave scenes in any 2020 movie.

i get so excited irl to watch garbage trucks crush large furniture. how great would it be if wiseman did a garbage truck movie

Looks like PBS is making City Hall available for a couple days

https://www.pbs.org/video/city-hall-ozdubs/?fbclid=IwAR18fpau2nGVT5JGm3EtdHn4jaoQfRDETS2WhXZmDAbLl4fNq7gb9lOGbs4

Aargh--missed this!

Just watched Blind & Central Park. Both really hit the spot.

State Legislature is a very good cynical/pessimistic companion to City Hall. and Good GOD we need to fix nutrition in the state of Iowa STAT

Law & Order is my fav of the half-dozen ive seen so far. all criminals are beautiful

If you guys have library cards, join Kanopy for a bunch of Wiseman.

Um...

...did he die?

DON'T DO THAT

I’m sorry guys

Go on, James...

Meant to say my libraries stopped doing Kanopy years ago.

okay, was fearing the obit!

saw Primate, thought the statement "after a time watching it is possible to wonder which ones of these two sets of primates is the more strange" made sense

I just watched Meat, which I found several degrees less disturbing/difficult to watch than Primate. Really, really tough.

City Hall is on Kanopy now. I still haven't watched Monrovia...I was just telling a friend that I have so much movie access at home--Kanopy, Criterion, Prime, Netflix, Tubi, Hollywood Suite (not to mention the hundreds and hundreds of DVDs I've bought and filed away unseen)--that I often find I'm paralyzed; I end up rewatching some bit of fluff instead of the thousand films I should be watching. But I am going to make a concerted effort in the next couple of weeks to watch the two Wisemans.

I wonder if the Kanopy selection is different depending on your library, but all 43 Wiseman films are available in mine. I've been going through them chronologically and recently saw Meat, which was another gruesome one in the vein of Primate

yea kanopy varies dramatically by library

Canal Zone (1977) was interesting, mostly visually, but I thought Sinai Field Mission (1978) and Manoeuvre (1979) were both kind of dull

Wiseman’s four-part film series on disability - Deaf (1986), Multi-Handicapped (1986), Adjustment and Work (1986) and Blind (1987) - were all interesting.