Although his name is virtually synonymous with cinéma vérité, Frederick
Wiseman disavows the notion that he adopts the perspective of the
impartial “fly on the wall”:
All aspects of documentary filmmaking involve choice and are therefore
manipulative. 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. I think what I do is make movies that
are not accurate in any objective sense, but accurate in the sense that
I think they’re a fair account of the experience I’ve had in making the
movie. (from Wikipedia)
I saw “Titicut Follies” in 1967, the first documentary Wiseman ever made
at the age of 37. Now 83, the director came to filmmaking relatively
late in life, having started out as a lawyer. The film was an indictment
of the treatment of inmates at Bridgewater State Hospital for “the
criminally insane” that allowed the doctors to be hoisted on their own
petard through their callous treatment of their wards. Viewed as the
ultimate dregs of society, the patients were the Guantanamo prisoners of
their day, putting up with forced feedings and the like.
full:
http://louisproyect.org/2013/11/11/at-berkeley-birth-of-the-living-dead/
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