Let the Viewer Decide

Documentarian Frederick Wiseman on free speech, complexity, and the trouble with Michael Moore

Jesse Walker from the December 2007 issue

(Page 3 of 4)

Reason: The military has let you make several films about it, so I’m guessing they weren’t particularly disappointed with what you put together.

Wiseman: I had to agree to show all the military films I made at the Pentagon before they were released publicly, so they could see whether there were any violations of national security. The old shibboleth of national security.

I didn’t think I was taking any kind of a risk. When I made Basic Training in 1970, something like 40 million people had gone through basic training since 1939. It was hard to imagine that there was anything to do with national security in the first eight weeks of basic training. I had gone through basic training myself in 1955. There was certainly nothing secret about how to fire an M16.

Reason: When Basic Training was screened here in Baltimore a few months ago, I saw it with an anthropologist who has done fieldwork in a military community. When I asked him what he thought about it, he said he liked it but didn’t find it “shocking.” I thought that was interesting, that he would feel he was being cued to be shocked. Did you see yourself as making a shocking picture?

Wiseman: No. That’s interesting, because one could argue that the thing that’s most shocking in Basic Training is the ease with which civilians can be turned into soldiers prepared to kill in the service of the state. It’s a form of education, and the Army is very good at offering that form of education. And most people are willing participants.

Reason: Early in your career, you said a central theme of your work is the gap between the stated goals of institutions and their actual performance. Do you think that’s still true?

Wiseman: There’s a difference between what we do and the way we talk about what we do—between ideology and practice. It’s a rather common gap, not just for the subjects of my films but for all of us. For those of us who are less than perfect, in any case.

That’s played out in a number of the films. In High School, the dean of discipline is constantly making statements about what’s required to “be a man”: take punishment, do as you’re told, etc. That’s a statement of value. It may be presented in comic form in the movie, but it’s an abstract statement of the way the dean of discipline thinks people are supposed to behave. And then one can measure both the ways the students behave in relation to that value and the way the dean of discipline behaves in relation to that value.

Reason: A lot of your documentaries, especially the ones about state institutions, deal with the way power manifests itself in our lives. If you watched all those films back to back, are there particular observations about power and liberty that would keep emerging?

Wiseman: I resist that kind of generalization because, one, I’m not very good at it. And two, my experience in making the films is such that I tend to question any general statement.

It’s more likely a failure of mine, but I’m not capable of making generalizations about the exercise of power. The great cliché of Lord Acton is as good as any. “Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

Reason: It’s sometimes suggested that your later films tend to be less harsh than your earlier films. Do you think there’s any truth to that?

Wiseman: It depends on what’s meant by “harsh.” I understand what you’re referring to, but I think whether the films are “harsh” is in part related to the subject matter. Titicut Follies is a harsh film because the situations were harsh. Ballet is not a harsh film. Dance is a very complicated art form, and the film tries to show how people both learn and perform it.

I suppose my interests have changed to some extent, and my experience is different as a result of getting older and being in a lot of these different places, but generally speaking I don’t think I’m that different a person than I was in 1967.

The final film is a reflection of what I find. I think it’s just as important to show people doing a good job as it is to show them doing a lousy job.

Comments

|11.16.07 @ 4:27PM|#

Is Titicut Follies available on DVD?

|11.16.07 @ 4:28PM|#

his company, Zipporah Films, is preparing to release his movies on DVD

Serves me right for not RTFA carefully.

SxCx|11.16.07 @ 5:12PM|#

A sincere thanks to Jesse and Reason for bringing this man to my attention. I checked out my local library shortly after reading the piece and discovered they have around seven of his films on VHS, including Titicut.

On the other hand, I'll be patronizing a wasteful public institution...

JBinMO|11.16.07 @ 5:17PM|#

What a different world we live in today. That was just 50 years ago.

|11.16.07 @ 5:23PM|#

What a different world we live in today. That was just 50 years ago.

You must have missed the part where Jesse drew the comparison of Titicut with Abu Ghraib.

Or did you mean how we treat the mentally ill? God, I hope we're still not doing that stuff.

LarryA|11.16.07 @ 6:24PM|#

Or did you mean how we treat the mentally ill? God, I hope we're still not doing that stuff.

Na. Most of them have been "released," quit taking their meds, and are now homeless. My hometown has a wonderful new program for them, as we've been blessed with state funding for a couple of new bridges and a recent flood keeps the city diligent on keeping brush and trash cleared out of the riverbottom.

In addition, when it rains they send a cop around to warn everyone about flash flooding.

|11.16.07 @ 7:45PM|#

For more recent MH goofiness, see "The Satanic Panic" and "repressed memory syndrome".

I work at a Mental Health Center. I do manage to keep my mouth shut for the most part.

|11.16.07 @ 9:11PM|#

No human being should be treated in such a manner.

Massachusetts instead of modernizing facilites for the chronic ill, mentally ill, and schools fo the retarded literally destroyed them.

The state became a buyer of services instead of a provider of services establishing an out of control Human Service Industrial Establishment riddled with waste, fraud, and abuse containing little or no accountability or oversight.

Vendors, providers, and consultants continue to ply their poor services or no services to those in need and continuing to rip of taxpayers.

The time has come for a factual updated documentary of what has and is happening in Massachusetts.

Investigative journalists, documentary filmakers, and research collaboratives, consider yourselves invited.

BakedPenguin|11.16.07 @ 9:57PM|#

One of the great innovators in documentary film making. Film History by David Bordwell & Kristen Thompson has a great discussion of his works. Unfortunately, it's a textbook, and really pricey.

|11.17.07 @ 6:58PM|#

Michael Moore has never made a documentary. He makes socialist propaganda, and he's the best director in that field since Leni Riefenstahl.

-jcr

The Libertarian Guy|11.18.07 @ 10:33PM|#

"Michael Moore has never made a documentary. He makes socialist propaganda, and he's the best director in that field since Leni Riefenstahl."


But... but... what about the children???

stephen the goldberger|11.19.07 @ 5:26PM|#

I'm not a huge fan of Wiseman. He makes movies for intellectuals, films that are more interesting to talk and write about afterwards than actually watch. Hence why this article was infinitely more interesting than any of his works (especially "Zoo" wow that was boring).

|11.21.07 @ 9:14PM|#

Oh, the "but what about the children?" thing has so become a favorite sarcastic interlude of mine as well.

People fear monger on the left and fear monger on the right. Just because you believe in one side more does not negate the fact that it is a detriment and not the way education should be spread.

And all movies are for intellectuals. I learned more from old school disney than any documentary I ever saw. And plus, if it pleases you, many movies can show you what idiots people are. But that wouldn't be too intellectual I guess.