State Legislature

4K Digital Restoration

  • Introduction

    Greg Hahn was covering the Idaho Legislature for the state’s largest newspaper in 2004, when Frederick Wiseman arrived with his crew, giving this then-young storyteller an immersive three-month course in Wiseman’s documentary style. Hahn studied film and anthropology at UC Santa Barbara and earned a master’s degree in journalism at NYU before embarking on his career of journalism, university administration, and nonprofit management. 

What do the members of a Republican state supermajority do when, as State Senator Dick Compton proclaims, “less government is good?” In State Legislature, the seasonal, part-time, “law-abiding” citizen members of the Idaho State Legislature are forced to legislate—or, at least, debate—in the face of a rapidly changing world. Perennial matters of water rights, homeschooling, and separation of church and state are mixed with more immediate challenges, such as e-waste, diseased cattle, and video voyeurism. Frederick Wiseman is less concerned with the results of the back-and-forth and more interested in the comic, quaint, infuriating, and—at times—oddly inspiring process. 

Jeff Griffith-Perham
FILM DETAILS 
Cinematographer
  • John Davey
Print Info
  • Color
  • DCP
  • 217 mins
Source
  • Zipporah Films

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