Frederick Wiseman Spent His Career Making Films That ‘Reflect the Complexity’ of the World, Even as It Got Stranger and Stranger

There are not many initial viewings I remember so vividly as I do watching Frederick Wiseman‘s “Titicut Follies.” I was a junior in college taking a course on the history of documentary and when the professor chose to show us this film, I was immaturely prepared for the kind of slog the class experienced a few weeks before with Robert J. Flaherty’s “Nanook of the North.” What I got instead was both an intricately dynamic portrayal of an institution none hope to step inside and one of the most compassionate pleas for human understanding and empathy ever put to screen.

This is the power of Wiseman’s lens. For over 50 years, the Boston-based filmmaker has stationed himself and his camera within settings many of us take for granted or would prefer to avoid entirely. Places like hospitals, welfare offices, schools for the deaf and blind, meatpacking plants, and battered-women’s shelters. And while Wiseman may find interest in exposing the hardships faced in these spaces, his deeper obsession is in revealing how reality often features the kind of rich narratives we desperately seek out in literature and cinema.

“The subjects I choose to make films about are complicated,” Wiseman said in a recent interview with IndieWire, “and I think I have an obligation when I’ve been given permission to make a movie about a place to have the final film reflect the complexity and not just be some superficial, banal representation of the institution.”

Wiseman, however, did not come to filmmaking by normal means. After graduating Williams College in 1951 and Yale Law School in 1954, as well as two years spent in the U.S. Army and another subsequent two spent in Paris, France, Wiseman served as a professor at Boston University Institute of Law and Medicine. It was not a role he took to easily or found particularly enjoyable, but his course in legal medicine brought him and his students to Bridgewater State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, where he found inspiration for his first film, “Titicut Follies.” Following this career shift, he would make “High School,” “Law and Order,” and “Hospital,” each covering the subject its title suggests.

Though his first set of films were tight snapshots often running under an hour and a half, as his skills developed, his work began to take on a more epic, portrait-like quality. For instance, his ’70s films “Juvenile Court” and “Welfare” span well over two hours, while his last project, 2023’s “Menus-Plaisirs — Les Troisgrois,” capped off at four hours. His coverage over time also balanced out with not just serious fare, but also light-hearted explorations like “The Store” about Neiman Marcus’ flagship location, “Central Park,” “Ballet” about the American Ballet Theatre, “National Gallery,” and “In Jackson Heights.”

‘Central Park’Zipporah Films

All of these films and more will be showcased throughout February 2025 and early March with Film at Lincoln Center presenting a career retrospective entitled “Frederick Wiseman: An American Institution.” 33 of his films have received 4K restorations that will be unveiled as part of the series. Wiseman himself spent five years overseeing the process and went into detail about the experience in a recent phone interview with IndieWire, while also offering a few musings on his work, as well as the state of the world.

This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.

IndieWire: Let’s start with the restoration process. How involved were you?

Frederick Wiseman: I was very involved in the process. It took a long time because of COVID. There was a couple of years I was in France where I couldn’t come back, but I enjoyed it a lot. Both because it was fun to see the old films, and two, it’s a statement of the obvious, but you can really improve the look of the film, and the grade, and you can do much more than you could do with the old timing process. In the old days with film, I used to go sit with a grader/timer and assign a color value to each team. That would be it. But now, if you want to make the sky a little bluer, something a little blacker, you just draw a line around it and do it. I don’t change anything, but I certainly try to enhance the look.

What stood out to you most about revisiting these films?

It was interesting. It was like reviewing my life. I spent so much time shooting the film and editing the film, I remember them pretty well actually. By the time the editing of the film is over, I can recite all the dialogue by heart.

A big element of your style is developing an obsession in the viewer, but I’m curious, what fascinates Frederick Wiseman? And is your work about feeding that fascination or something else?

I am obsessed with work and working on my movies, and I work very hard on them. Each movie is close to a year’s work, 10-11 months, and I get lost in the world of the movie and I like that. I’m a workaholic and I like that. That’s the way I get it done. And I like imposing a form on the rushes that are formless — insofar as I’m successful in imposing a form on it — and in each case, I can’t wait to see the final movie. That drives me to work very hard; to reach the point where I’m looking at the final movie when I started with 150 hours of formless, chaotic rushes.

How do you go about getting permission to film in these spaces?

Curiously enough, the movie that was most complicated to get permission for was the first one, “Titicut Follies,” which took a year and a half to get permission, but for all the others, it’s been very simple. I don’t know whether it’s still true now, but when I was getting started, people liked the idea that we were sufficiently interested in their work to want to make a movie about it, so it was pretty easy to get permission. For Neiman Marcus, I just called up the president of Neiman Marcus and he said, “Send me a letter, come down and visit me.” I go to visit him and he said, “OK.”

‘The Store’Zipporah Films

Do you take time to study the setting and the subjects before you start shooting?

I maybe spend a day at the place just to get a sense of the geography and to meet the people who worked there, but I don’t like to spend a lot of time there in advance because something great may be going on and I’ll miss it. So once I get permission, I generally spend the day at the place, but I start shooting. Because nothing is repeated, nothing is staged. If I see something interesting, I like to be able to get it. I don’t wanna miss it. I get very angry at myself if I do.

I think there’s a very similar sensation as an audience member watching your films, even the extremely long ones. The more you watch, the more you realize how much you might miss when you look away. It makes me think about how younger generations consume media via TikTok and YouTube and how we’re losing the ability to focus for long stretches. Do you think that length holds a particular importance in terms of how your work is presented?

I think so, because the subjects I choose to make films about are complicated, and I think I have an obligation when I’ve been given permission to make a movie about a place to have the final film reflect the complexity and not just be some superficial, banal representation of the institution. I have no idea when I start the editing how long the film’s gonna be. Whatever length it comes out at is a consequence of working on the editing for 8 or 10 months. Some films are long and some films, 73 minutes, but I tend to pick fairly complex subjects, and it interests me to try and deal with them and create something that gives a sense of what the place — which is the subject of the film — is like.

As a thought experiment, say your films were cut up into 30 to 40 minute episodes, like a miniseries, or say they were chopped up into clips to be circulated across social media, would it change the nature of what you’re trying to show?

Well, it would change the meaning. Because they wouldn’t see the subject matter, they wouldn’t see the form that was imposed on the subject matter and the relationship between the sequences. Or how the 1st 10 minutes of the film is related to the last 10 minutes of the film. It’s not up to me to say whether or not the structure works, but I worked very hard on the structure of every film and there’s meaning attached. The movie is made up of thousands of choices. There’s meaning attached to each of those choices.

Your longest work, “Near Death,” rounds out at about 6 hours. Why do you think more needed to be seen of this space than any other?

Because the issues are more complicated. Basically, the film follows 4 people who are dying, and each of them is in a different state of consciousness. And the way they’re treated is different and it’s the way they’re treated by the doctors and the nurses — the way the doctors and nurses talk to the family is different in each case. So I wanted to show those differences because they’re subtle. I was struck by the fact there was no rush to let the patient die. It became almost a metaphor for democracy and the true meaning of democracy because the sick person, if he or she was conscious, or the family made the decision. The doctors didn’t make the decision.

A lot of the time these people aren’t even in the right head space to handle a decision like that, which is also a compelling aspect to the piece.

Well, the doctors gave explanations, for instance, the third case in “Near Death,” he was a 32 year-old man and he had incurable cancer. Well his wife couldn’t adjust to the fact that he was going to die, so they kept him alive for six weeks by artificial means until she could accept his death. That’s a very responsive thing to do. They didn’t say, “Oh, well, your husband’s gonna die. I’ll pull the plug.” They waited, so she could accept the fact that he was gonna die before they pulled the plug.

‘Near Death’Zipporah Films

This kind of gets into why you call your films “reality fictions” versus direct cinema or cinéma vérité, right? Because it’s so filtered by what you want us to see and the ideas that build in our minds.

I made that up one day because the interviewer was pressing me on why I didn’t like cinéma vérité, so as a joke I made up the term reality fiction. 

I think it works though. I get what you’re trying to communicate in these films being crafted and not purely observational.

I think it does work. I think you’re right. 

Is there any subject you’ve wanted to cover, but haven’t been able to?

The White House. … That’s a joke. I pretty much got permission for everything I wanted to do. Of course, I would have liked to have done the White House, but nobody would ever give permission for that.

Did you ever ask any administration?

No, I never asked. I assumed that permission wouldn’t be given. 

That actually makes a good segue to my next question. As an observer of American institutions throughout the years, where should people be looking for hope right now?

I don’t know that I have a great wisdom on that issue. I can only tell you what I’m trying to do is do what small things I can to alleviate the situation. In a more general sense, there are a lot of state governors who are opposed to what Trump is doing and a lot of institutions. He’s so cruel and so stupid.

Not to speak for you, but my answer would be go to this retrospective because I think it will remind people how vital all the things are that those in power are trying to take away from you.

That’s a great response. It’s too self-serving coming from me.

Are there any projects you’re currently working on that you’d be willing to tease?

No, for the last year I’ve been sick on and off, and at the moment I don’t have the energy. Doing one of these films requires an enormous amount of energy both during the shooting and during the editing, and I just don’t have it. I also have to reconcile myself to the fact that I’m 95. I’ve always had tons of energy, but the last couple of years since I finished “Menus-Plaisirs,” which was a couple years ago, my energy level has been down and I have a couple of illnesses that drag it down.

Not to get too morbid, but your wife, Zipporah — the namesake of your production company — she passed a few years ago. Can you talk at all about what she meant to your work or still means to it?

We were married for 60 years and she always understood and supported me, and what I wanted to do. I wasn’t away from home, but I spent a lot of time in the editing room, which was not in my house, and she always basically took the point of view, “Go to it. I like what you’re doing.” She was always very supportive.

What do you hope audiences get out of seeing your films during this retrospective at Lincoln Center?

I hope they like the films and they see more than one film, and I hope — just as when they read a novel, they think about what the writer is trying to say — I hope they think about what the film was trying to say, both in a literal and an abstract way.

“Frederick Wiseman: An American Institution” runs from January 31 to March 5 as part of Film at Lincoln Center.