wise man say
discovering a favorite filmmaker over six brutal hours.
Happy birthday to my friend Sascha. Back in January, I saw him shortly after he watched a three-hour-long documentary called Central Park (1999). He emerged looking shell-shocked and like he had been crying (he had). This was the first I heard of documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman. Whatever Sascha had just experienced, I wanted IN.
Luckily, there is a yearlong retrospective of Wiseman’s work by American Cinematheque currently on at the Los Feliz 3 Theatre. I looked up the next screenings and saw… Domestic Violence (2001) and Domestic Violence 2 (2002). OK, stay with me. The two films are more of a companion piece, than a two-parter. The first film shows police in Tampa, Florida responding to domestic violence calls but primarily focuses on the work and the residents of The Spring, a local shelter for women and children. The second film takes place in the Tampa courts hearing the DV cases. I saw the films on two consecutive weekends totaling almost six hours of Wiseman. The screenings were pretty empty- mostly I was surrounded by solo, white men- turns out twenty-year old documentaries about DV are not everyone’s cup of tea on a sunny, Sunday afternoon?
The victims of patriarchal violence in the first film range from 5 to 80 years old. The language of these women and children is not the overly therapized speak from Instagram infographics that we are so familiar with today. The women describe true "gaslighting" and "love-bombing" and "toxic behavior" and being "triggered" but never use those words. No violence is shown, only the aftermath- some physical, largely psychological and emotional. Wiseman, with a deft hand, takes on the harrowing subject matter and asks us not to look but to listen and our attention is rewarded.
Seeing them in the theater, I have strong and detailed associations with the work because my full attention was engaging with it and not pausing every ten minutes to do a deep-dive on Wiseman or check if ‘The Spring’ is still open or do a “where are they now” on the women and children. Also rare- being introduced to Wiseman in an untarnished way with the work speaking for itself. I was able to give myself time and space to deeply think about my own reactions to the films with no inputs- from the internet or reviewers or others.
I asked Sascha (who is an editor) about this, “Wiseman is such an extraordinary editor that there’s a compounding effect the longer you remain in the world of the film - everything is so carefully juxtaposed and sequenced that your idea and understanding of the subject and/or space he’s exploring keeps expanding and complicating, even if it’s totally subconscious. With every film of his I’ve seen, as they go on, there are moments where you realize that you are filling in context that you’ve built solely though your own engagement. Even though it’s never explicitly given to you. It’s miraculous.”
A good chaser to watching his movies is the Wiseman Podcast where the two co-hosts analyze his work film-by-film. The podcast did lead to me falling down a Wiseman wormhole- the thing that I happily avoided before the two screenings. His films are chiefly studies of American social institutions, such as hospitals, schools, or police departments. He works four to six weeks in the spaces with almost no preparation and spends the bulk of the production period editing the material. It feels particularly apt to be immersed in his work at this time when many of these institutions appear to be being dismantled (see: Public Housing (1997), Welfare (1975)). A distinctive aspect of Wiseman's style is the complete lack of narration, interaction and reflection. He says-
[My films are] based on unstaged, un-manipulated actions... The editing is highly manipulative and the shooting is highly manipulative... What you choose to shoot, the way you shoot it, the way you edit it and the way you structure it... all of those things... represent subjective choices that you have to make. In [Belfast, Maine] I had 110 hours of material ... I only used 4 hours – near nothing. The compression within a sequence represents choice and then the way the sequences are arranged in relationship to the other represents choice. But the ethical ... aspect of it is that you have to ... try to make [a film that] is true to the spirit of your sense of what was going on. ... My view is that these films are biased, prejudiced, condensed, compressed but fair.
Domestic Violence is the thirty-first of Wiseman's documentaries. It’s so thrilling to find a filmmaker with a vast back catalogue that I can slowly work my way through. His films are available on kanopy through the public library- but you know, lock your phone is a safe- undivided attention etc. Next on my list, some lighter fare (maybe??)-
HIGH SCHOOL (1968) shows a typical day for students and faculty at a Pennsylvanian high school. It was shot over five weeks between March and April 1968 at Northeast High School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In 1994, Wiseman released HIGH SCHOOL II, a second documentary on high school, based on Central Park East Secondary School in New York City.
THE STORE (1983) is a film about the main Neiman-Marcus store and corporate headquarters in Dallas.
BELFAST, MAINE (1999) is a film about ordinary life in a beautiful old New England port city with particular emphasis on the work of lobstermen, tug-boat operators, factory workers, shop owners, city counselors, doctors, judges, policemen, teachers, social workers, nurses and ministers.
HOSPITAL (1970) explores the daily activities of the people at Metropolitan Hospital Center, a large-city hospital in New York City, with emphasis on its emergency ward and outpatient clinics.
MODEL (1980) shows male and female models at work. The business aspect of running an agency is also shown: interviewing prospective models, career counseling, arranging portfolios, talking with clients, and planning trips.
I’m sorry I didn’t know you until a few months ago, Frederick Wiseman. You will always be famous.