Viva la vérité

>> Documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman on High School, cinematic jealousy and ignoring Survivor

by MATTHEW HAYS

Of all the documentary filmmakers in the world, Frederick Wiseman has become one of the most celebrated and highly respected. His work has come to embody the term cinema vérité, the style of observational filmmaking which has come to be read, in popular cinematic terms, as the one closest to capturing reality onscreen.

Since his beginnings in the '60s, Wiseman's mission has been to analyze, through documentary filmmaking, various institutions. His '67 film, Titicut Follies, laid bare the inner workings of a mental institution (the film was banned for years because of its highly controversial depictions of the mentally ill). In '68, he released High School, which featured devastating footage of some rather fascistic teachers being wildly insensitive to their students. And in '70, Wiseman made Hospital, an equally devastating look inside the workings of a health care system. In recent years, Wiseman's films have grown in length. His most recent film, last year's Belfast, Maine, simply focused on various scenes as they evolved in the town of a few thousand people and ran for 230 minutes.

Wiseman's technique has remained straightforward: he chooses an institution, moves in with his cameras and shoots for approximately 100 hours. Then he must edit the film down to a cohesive whole. The technique has proven controversial. Some argue that the truth cannot be told this way, because cameras inevitably alter behaviour and that the editing process allows filmmakers to create their own version of reality. Wiseman has countered that his films are entirely subjective, personal visions and that he has never claimed the mantle of objectivity.

Wiseman is being honoured with a retrospective of his work, that begins this week at the Cinémathèque québécoise and Concordia University. I caught up with him at his Boston office, where he's currently working on a film about domestic violence that will be filmed in a women's shelter.



Mirror: Do you ever look back on an old film and wish that some of what you left on the cutting room floor had made it into the final cut?

Frederick Wiseman: No, no. I sometimes wish that I'd cut a bit differently. There have been occasionally good scenes which I've had to leave out because they might have thrown off the balance of the film. Sometimes I see mistakes in old films, things I wish I'd done differently. There's a scene in Titicut Follies where I intercut scenes of a guy being force fed and his being made up for his funeral. At the time I thought it was a good idea, but in retrospect I think it would have been better to have showed him being force fed, and then a few minutes later using the sequence where he's being made up for his funeral. When I see it now I feel it's sort of too heavy-handed, editorial. What I hope over the years is that the films have become more subtle and complex and that the editing process reflects that.

M: More recently, I see films like Central Park and Belfast, Maine, and they seem fascinating to me, but they also seem less political than films like Hospital or High School, films I had read as deeply political, angry films. Do you think you've become less political over the years?

FW: I think I've become less didactic. I don't think I've become less political, I think I've become less obviously political. The films I've done in recent years, they're meant to offer a more complex analysis of the situations, and are less simple-minded.

Inspiring institutions

M: You've done films about so many institutions. What inspires you with these ideas?

FW: Whatever interests me. I don't have a precise definition of an institution, other than a place that's existed for a while, where some people have well-defined rolls, within a certain geographical framework, but that's a pretty vague definition.

M: Have you ever thought of doing a film called Newspaper?

FW: Oh yes. It would be interesting. In America, it's been hard. The funny thing is that newspapers feel that they have the right and obligation to report and write on everything and everybody, but they resist anyone reporting on them.

M: Titicut Follies has become as famous for the lengthy legal hassles around the film as the film itself, and that trouble revolved around issues of privacy and consent. Has anyone represented in your films said later that they regretted being in them?

FW: No, whether they said it to their friends or others I don't know, but not to me.

M: In High School, there's a scene where the home economics teacher seems to really be hamming it up for the camera. Do you feel that over the years you've become better at telling when the camera's affecting someone's behaviour?

FW: I do, because I think my experience making films is no different than your experience talking to somebody. If you feel someone's bullshitting you, you sort of adjust for it. Or you say, 'I think you're bullshitting me.' If I think someone's putting out for the camera, I'll stop shooting, or if I see it during editing, I won't use it. Like any profession, you can make a mistake. It's just something you get very sensitive to. If you're talking about the fashion sequence in High School, that's the way she was. I saw a lot of her when I was at that school, and she felt that was her role. She was a bit of a ham. I don't think she was hamming it up for the camera.

Budget envy

M: You've said that being a filmmaker can ruin the experience of enjoying films. Why?

FW: Because you know so much about the process and the technical issues. And you're jealous of somebody else who has a lot of money. Sometimes it's jealousy but more often it's because when you work in films, you think you're more aware of realized opportunities and lost opportunities. But that can get confused with jealousy issues, because when someone gets $40-million to make a movie and you're struggling to get a couple hundred thousand to make a documentary, the jealousy factor has got to be present to some extent.

M: I've noticed that your films have become a lot longer over the years. Is that an aesthetic choice or is it that you've become more powerful and thus don't have to cut a movie down to 90 minutes if you don't want to?

FW: I have always made the movies at the length that I think is appropriate for a certain subject matter. It may be that my interest in complexity and my awareness of complexity has led me to make longer films. My films range in length from 73 minutes to six hours. I've never made films to meet the time requirements of public television, or anywhere else. And I've fought very hard to show them at the length I've made them. So far I've succeeded.

M: You made a sequel of sorts to High School, in which you visited a different high school years later. When I watch your older films, I'm consumed with curiosity about where a lot of those people are now. Have you ever been tempted to do a Seven Up thing and go back and revisit some of those people to find out where they are now?

FW: No, I haven't, because I'm always interested in new subjects. The first High School was 31 years ago. They're in their mid-50s now. I would never get them in an institutional setting. It would be a different kind of film.

Keeping things real

M: Do you stay in touch with any of the people in your films?

FW: I stay in touch with the people from Comédie française [a film about French performers]. I have a lot in common with them. When I'm filming, I try not to give the impression that enduring friendships are being formed, because I think it's basically false. I don't like to trade on the instant intimacy thing. It's not that I'm not friendly, it's just that I know I'm not going to be back in Kansas City or Memphis anytime soon. I don't want to give people in any way the sense that I'm misleading them.

M: Is there one film that stands out, that you feel is your finest?

FW: No. Of course, you always like the last film best, because that's the one that's freshest in your mind. It's like asking which one of your children you like the best. It varies from day to day.

M: It must be asked: have you been watching the latest wave of reality-based TV, Survivor and Big Brother?

FW: No.

M: Why not?

FW: Because I'm sure it's a crock of shit. Which may sound arrogant of me, but that's the way I feel--I don't want to. Newsday approached me a couple of weeks ago asking me to write an op-ed piece about those programs. I had to say no, because I haven't seen them.

M: Have you seen The Blair Witch Project?

FW: I saw parts of it on an airplane. But I wasn't really watching, so it's not fair for me to comment.

The Frederick Wiseman retrospective begins this Wednesday, Sept. 13 and runs until Oct. 1 at the Cinémathèque québécoise and Concordia University. See repertory listings for showtimes