Nobody has done this better than the living filmmaker Fred Wiseman who has made more than 40 films since ending his career as a lawyer and taking up documentary film.
Museum of Modern Art offers a chance to see many of Fred's films in a year-long film festival. ALWAYS FREE FOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS!
If you see just one of Fred's films, try to see "Titicut Follies" (1967): The Inhumane Treatment of the Mentally Ill on January 29 at 7pm. This is one of Fred's first films and one of the most famous in which he visits a hospital and shows the poor treatment of those who have been forgotten and left behind by families and communities.
If you can't make it to the screening, check out MoMA's website or find Fred's films on DVD. Most are available for rental and purchase.
From Fred's website:
Fred Wiseman is probably one of today’s greatest living documentary filmmakers.
For close to thirty years, thanks to the Public Broadcast Service (PBS), he has created an exceptional body of work consisting of thirty full length films devoted primarily to exploring American institutions.
Over time these films have become a record of the western world, since now more than ever as we approach the century’s close, nothing North American is really foreign to us.
The institutions that Wiseman examined early in his career – a hospital, a high school, army basic training, a welfare center, a police precinct – have “problems” that the filmmaker uncovers.
His approach reveals the profound acknowledged and unacknowledged conformity and inequality of American society. Wiseman’s films are also a reflection on democracy. What do his films portray, the “American dream” or the “air conditioned nightmare”? Both, but also a questioning of the world and of existence.
Here for Museum of Modern Art schedule of Wiseman's films
Here for more on Fred Wiseman on Wikipedia
Here for Fred Wiseman's website
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