Frederick Wiseman

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.

I thought they expressed really well that communication is not just about speech or writing but also touch, sound, gesture, comportment

Apologies for recycling social media posts, but I've been thinking about Sinai Field Mission a lot.

But what it’s really portraying is a group who have fenced themselves off in the desert and (in the name of trying to maintain peace between Israel & Egypt) can’t even make peace among themselves. pic.twitter.com/v0aDfw21c2

— Chris Barrus (@quartzcity) October 29, 2021

It opens with a near wordless scene of a guy driving out in the middle of the desert to brush sand. Legit thought that Wiseman was making an Antonioni movie. pic.twitter.com/nXXvrh8Xcu

— Chris Barrus (@quartzcity) October 29, 2021

Some of the best depictions of boredom. pic.twitter.com/2feH2ypj3M

— Chris Barrus (@quartzcity) October 29, 2021

thought that film was inscrutable

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