Frederick Wiseman

I like that he moves methodically from subject to subject

going through them chronologically, the next one for me is Missile (1988)

"Frederick Wiseman Goes Fictional for the First Time - After nearly 60 years of non-fiction filmmaking, Wiseman tells IndieWire why he picked "A Couple" as his first fiction film."
https://www.indiewire.com/2022/08/frederick-wiseman-interview-a-couple-1234747847/

I am about halfway through a VHS rip of The Garden, his doc about Madison Square Garden filmed from '97-98 that is apparently his only currently suppressed film. James Dolan apparently withdrew legal permission to release it due to scenes of MSG execs plotting labor negotiation strategy (more info here: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2005/04/25/secret-garden). It would no doubt have been up there as one of his most colorful and accessible films were it released, and Stone Cold Steve Austin and Mary J. Blige among others would officially be considered Wiseman vets.

A couple months back I asked one of the hosts of Wiseman Podcast (big, big recommendation for this BTW - better than all film podcasts) if they were going to cover The Garden - they will and apparently the film will get an official release next year.

Whoa, cool; thanks! I think I follow the Wiseman podcast guy on Twitter but have not checked it out yet.

If you check out any episode, listen to their interview with Wiseman himself. It's good and covers a lot of subjects that I haven't heard in any other interviews with him.

I'm in the middle of Belfast, Maine right now. Heavy, miasmic, rough road of American gothic but some of the scenes are among Wiseman's best.

(I love that he's into Down By Law)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOpRVNqOZUA

Love that clip. Going to guess he and Jarmusch know each other, but if not, can you imagine sitting there and watching this and hearing Frederick Wiseman say he loves your film and he's seen it six times?

Watching “Central Park” over the last few days.

Early takeaway: I would like to visit this park, but, um, not in the late 1980s.

We watched City Hall over the weekend and I sorta think it should have been called Mayor??

Early takeaway: I would like to visit this park, but, um, not in the late 1980s.

The Midnight Oil show wasn't that bad!

It was nice to see LeVar Burton!

And yeah, the Midnight Oil performance is great!

Damn, people seemed to love Ed Koch.

Happy 93rd birthday today Fred!

La Danse: The Paris Opera Ballet (2009), the last Wiseman joint shot on film and the first in a wide format (though interestingly 5:3 rather than 16:9 or 1.85 like the films that follow) is a good deal weirder than you might expect going into it. pic.twitter.com/Py1RQQUIBO

— arlin golden (@cerealburrito) May 13, 2023

Watching “Missile”.

worth turning on the subtitles on that just for the “bland music “ cues

Kinda electric to encounter “Planet Claire” and “Pop Music” in Model.

And … there’s Andy Warhol!

We had to pause Crazy Horse midway through because I outbursted with "this is Fredrick Wiseman's verison of the James Bond opening credits!" and then we wondered what a Wiseman James Bond movie would even be like - we made up more and more preposterous and funnier scenes. Frederick Wiseman's UNIVERSAL EXPORTS: Endless meetings with photo-interpreters, do we/do we not burn fuel on the spy satellite to get a better photo? Lots of one sided telephone calls, many pained looks into screens, others repetetively cleaning up audio transcriptions. A janitor empties the paper shredders and burn bags and night, Bond himself is never direcly on camera, we only see him through drone overheads and surveillance video.

Will never forget the critic who dubbed that movie Tittie-butt Follies.

The restaurant movie gets a title: Menus-Plaisirs Les Troisgros and a premiere at TIFF this year. It's 4 hours long too - stoked!

I hope it gets a decent run in the U.S.

sounds really good

going through all of his films in order by year I have still only made it up to High School II from 1994

There are a couple of reviews of Menus-Plaisirs Les Troisgros out - this one maybe the most considered?
https://outskirtsmag.com/Menus-Plaisirs

Tonight: Essene.

oh man, the scene with the flyswatter

watched Ballet, about the American Ballet Theater, from 1995. It is one of my favorite films of his so far. It is, as always for him, about an institution but features an amazing extended interview with Agnes de Mille before she died and many beautiful rehearsal sequences and performances

"Most striking might be the sounds Wiseman captures, not just of the music, hardly at all of the music (there isn't even an orchestra at the Athens performance: Wiseman gives us a close-up of the giant tape recorder filling in for the band), but rather the grunts and thuds and squeaks of the dancers' shoes on the surface of the stage. The sound of gravity in an artform that aspires to weightlessness."

https://theendofcinema.blogspot.com/2014/09/on-frederick-wisemans-ballet.html

this goes about exactly how you'd expect fred wiseman appearing as a talking head in a documentary called "cinema verite: defining the moment" might. pic.twitter.com/hiZR7s4irT

— arlin golden (@cerealburrito) February 3, 2024

(last bit of it) pic.twitter.com/FJE5IHuAOD

— arlin golden (@cerealburrito) February 3, 2024

Man, the judge in “Juvenile Court”… what a job

Apparently you can watch the latest film here

https://www.pbs.org/video/menus-plaisirs-les-troisgros-rbfnou/

we just watched that -- it was very long and medium enjoyable imo. i enjoyed the kitchen scenes and seeing the chefs foraging and clowning around, but it was definitely bougie Wiseman (not my favorite)

i did like that it was an entry into the behind-the-scenes kitchen films/media that did not portray the kitchen as a chaotic/abusive/stressful place. everything was extremely placid.

I’m sure i will eventually get around to it and probably enjoy it, but even as a Wiseman buff i’ve had a hard time working up much enthusiasm for it just based on the subject

After years of having it on my watchlist i finally got around to Near Death a couple weeks ago and it completely rocked my world, i havent been able to stop thinking about it since, might be his masterpiece imho. It wasnt as disturbing or difficult to watch as i’d always feared, but just unbelievably rich & complex.

Such a great film--my second favourite (seems like a weird word to use) after Welfare.

His new film is not as good as "Near Death", however, it is still worth checking out. Wiseman has great rhythm to his films. This latest one is no exception. The 4 hours zoom by really quickly.

Going through his films in order - after Ballet (1995) I had a hard time with La Comédie-Française (1996), I just couldn't relate to it.

Public Housing (1997) is about the Ida B. Wells housing project in Chicago (which was torn down in the 2000s). It is pretty great.

I am watching Belfast, Maine (1999) now and loving it. It is over 4 hours long though, so I'm taking my time

I’m watching “Welfare” in chunks of 15-20 minutes. Just really painful to watch

(The family kitchen documentary was … it was pretty good, not my favorite. It’s playing on a one night basis here in June and I have to think about whether I’m committed enough to spend four hours watching it on a week night.)

Painful riveting, though, right? As I've said many times, I think his greatest film.

which one?

Welfare.

Frederick Wiseman’s Filmography Has Been Restored and is Coming to Theaters

Zipporah Films is pleased to announce that, for the first time, all Frederick Wiseman films are now available in digital formats. The process, which took nearly five years, involved the restoration and digitization of 33 Wiseman films from 1969 through 2006 that have not previously been available, except in film. Now 45 Wiseman films are available in digital formats, removing barriers so that these films can reach a wider audience, as many were only available in 16mm prior to the restoration.

I am enormously grateful to the individuals and organizations whose support made possible the digitizing and restoration of my films, which will now provide new access to the films. ~ Frederick Wiseman

This project involved the Library of Congress delivering the original 16mm negatives for 32 films and one 35mm negative for the narrative THE LAST LETTER along with the Harvard Film Archive sending the sound elements to DuArt Laboratory and then to Goldcrest Post Production, after the historic DuArt closed. The negatives were scanned, conformed, color graded and then matched with the original sound to create the 4K restored digital versions. Colorist, Jane Tolmachyov, who has worked with Wiseman for decades, handled all the grading, while Wiseman personally reviewed and approved all 33 films.

Beginning in the fall of 2024, the Wiseman films will be exhibited in retrospectives starting at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the American Cinematheque in Los Angeles and at Film at Lincoln Center in New York, in addition to many other exhibitions around the world. Also, the restored 4K version of LAW AND ORDER will premiere at Cannes Classics this month. The films are available for additional programming worldwide at Zipporah Films.

No one ever posted about this--wish I were there, I'd be all over it.

https://www.filmlinc.org/series/frederick-wiseman-an-american-institution/#films