Frederick Wiseman

Producer, Director, Editor, Writer, Actor, Additional CreditsBorn January 1, 1930 (95 years)

Frederick Wiseman is an American filmmaker, documentarian, and theatre director. Documentarian Frederick Wiseman has been noted for his ability to capture the nuances of life in American institutions such as prisons, hospitals, welfare offices, and high schools. He started out in 1963 by producing a fictional feature film, The Cool World, an examination of the lives of Harlem teenagers. In the beginning, Wiseman was a staunch social reformist, and his films were calls for change. Titicut Follies, his first documentary, is an exposé of life in a prison for the criminally insane in Bridgewater, MA. It was controversial and left Wiseman with the reputation of being a muckraker. His four subsequent documentaries were all exposés of other tax-supported institutions designed to show the ineffectiveness of the bureaucracy that not only threatens to destroy them, but also dehumanizes the people they were meant to serve. Wiseman toned down his message and began focusing more on American culture to point out the symbolism of daily activities in his film Primate (1974). In the ‘80s, he began examining institutions as they relate to ideology. Unlike other documentaries, Wiseman’s work does not progress chronologically; rather, the segments are arranged thematically, like an essay, and are linked via rhetorical devices such as comparison and contrast to create a patterned structure. His films are never narrated, thereby forcing viewers to make connections between the sequences themselves. Wiseman has occasionally returned to fictional films, albeit in a non-fiction performance style, as with Seraphita’s Diary (1982) and La Derniere Lettre (2002).

Movies & Shows on Plex

Other People's Children
My Sole Desire

Known For

Titicut Follies
Ex Libris
High School
National Gallery
At Berkeley
Hospital
City Hall
Crazy Horse
In Jackson Heights
Welfare
The Cool World
La Danse: The Paris Opera Ballet
Monrovia, Indiana
Menus-Plaisirs - Les Troisgros
Law and Order
Boxing Gym
Near Death
The Store
Juvenile Court
Domestic Violence
Belfast, Maine
Public Housing
Primate
Basic Training