There are two constants in Wiseman’s films: the world is organized by institutions –public, private, exciting, repugnant– and, at the same time, said institutions organized by groups of people congregated periodically and interminably in order to keep them afloat (it’s hard to think of a filmmaker with a better eye for recording staff meetings, perhaps the most inanimate of shootable object). Exaggerating, we could say that his is a worldview devoid of any higher orders that makes us thing of the Borgian Tlön. Thus, Wiseman’s film world “will be a labyrinth, but a labyrinth built by man, a labyrinth destined to be deciphered by man.” Yes, it’s very likely that the greatest documentary achievement in Nation Gallery, a warmly cold look on a museum-hospital where the paintings are submitted daily to implacable observing and ridiculous aesthetic surgeries (plastic, in fact), is precisely that. Presenting a world that lacks the capricious influence of nature, one that is entirely human. PM
D, G, E: Frederick Wiseman
F: John Davey
DA: Gilles Granier
S: Emmanuel Croset
P: Frederick Wiseman, Pierre-Oliver Bardet
CP: Gallery Film, Idéale Audience
Doc & Film International. Hannah Horner
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He was born in Boston, USA, in 1930. He studied Law before beginning a career in film. His first documentary feature was The Cool World (1963), and later directed Titicut Follies (1967; Bafici ‘06), High School (1968), Hospital (1970), Missile (1987), Ballet (1995), State Legislature (2006), Boxing Gym (2010; Bafici ‘14), Crazy Horse (2...
