Frederick Wiseman, acclaimed documentary filmmaker of City Hall, Titticut Follies, High School, Hospital, and more

Frederick Wiseman has proven that, in his words, “if you hang
around long enough, you can collect enough material and cut a
dramatic narrative film out of real life.” A Frederick Wiseman
documentary has a very specific style- there is no narration, no
identifying lower-third captions, no interviews and no camera
movement. The viewer simply watches the story unfold, as a slice of
life, and the subject he chooses is usually an institution many
might consider mundane and everyday. Frederick feels his films are
not merely observational, because he makes decisions on how to
sculpt them into a narrative during the editing process. He enjoys
making documentary films because he's seen that there is enough
comedy and drama in ordinary life to match anything you'd find in
fiction. Frederick shies away from the terms “documentary” and
“cinema verité”- he thinks the term movie is good enough because
“documentary” is something that sounds like it's supposed to be
good for you. For Frederick's latest film, City Hall, he had the
idea that what happens in a city hall might make an interesting
movie and to see inside the machinery of how a city runs. Boston
City Hall happened to be the only one that gave him permission. A
staffer of the mayor had seen his films and liked the idea. Unlike
some of Frederick's other movies, Boston mayor Marty Walsh was a
central character- mainly because he is the leader of the city and
he is very involved in seeing that it runs smoothly. Before he
became a director, Frederick was a lawyer and taught at law school.
He always wanted to be a director, but had no experience with
movies. He saw an opportunity to become a producer when he optioned
a novel called The Cool World and asked director Shirley Clark to
helm it, which helped demystify the process for him. For his first
documentary, Titticut Follies, Frederick had the idea for shooting
the documentary on the Bridgewater Prison for the Criminally Insane
because he knew the warden from his years as a lawyer and was able
to get access and permission. The next logical progression to him
after shooting in a prison for the insane seemed to be a high
school, so his next film was High School. Part of Frederick's
process is to find the film as he shoots, and he goes into it
purposefully blind and with little preparation. For him, it all
emerges in the editing process. Frederick always does his own
editing and watches each piece of footage-generally about 150 hours
of it- and decides how to structure each sequence. Find Frederick
Wiseman: http://www.zipporah.com/ See Frederick Wiseman's latest
documentary, City Hall. It's available streaming through virtual
cinemas, and comes to PBS on December 22. Find a screening near
you. Paying to stream it through your local arthouse cinema helps
support them! You can see almost all of Wiseman's documentaries on
Kanopy for free with your library card. Find out even more about
this episode, with extensive show notes and links:
http://camnoir.com/ep105/ Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras:
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