BAMPFA is honored by a visit from Wiseman, whose incisive, wide-ranging explorations of complex institutions have set a standard for nonfiction filmmaking.
Read full descriptionThis study of the University—which clocks in at more than four hours—presents the complexities of the campus from multiple angles and is "a summation of sorts of Frederick Wiseman’s exceptional career” (Variety).
A beautiful portrait of ordinary life in a New England port town, Belfast, Maine is “an immensely rich and immeasurably valuable microcosm of American life at the end of the twentieth century [and] a microcosm of Wiseman’s art” (The Nation).
Wiseman’s documentary on a large urban high school in Philadelphia got to the core of American conformity and conditioning; seen as an antiestablishment indictment in the Vietnam War era, it has only gained resonance with age.
Frederick Wiseman in Person
In this lecture illustrated with clips from his films, Wiseman talks about the intellectual, aesthetic, and practical decisions involved in making a documentary. Don’t miss this chance to hear a great filmmaker speak in depth about his work.
Frederick Wiseman and Michael Fox in Conversation
Wiseman’s latest documentary provides welcome confirmation of the survival of intelligent life in discouraging times, following the work behind and beyond the books at the New York Public Library.
Wiseman “haunts the stairways, rehearsal rooms, and watery subterranean corridors of the Palais Garnier. . . . It’s a joyous experience to see an institution in full flower” (New Yorker).