[Press release from the Cleveland Cinematheque.]
Frederick
Wiseman, the dean of America’s documentary filmmakers, is coming to the
Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque on Sunday, January 25, at 1:00
pm for a program entitled AN AFTERNOON WITH FREDERICK WISEMAN. The
legendary moviemaker, who has directed 40 feature-length documentaries
in a career spanning almost 50 years, and whose latest film NATIONAL
GALLERY is turning up on many Ten Best lists for 2014, will answer
audience questions after a series of clips from some of his films.
Tickets to the event, which will take place in CIA’s Aitken Auditorium
at 11141 East Boulevard, cost $25; Cinematheque members and CIA students
and staff $20; ages 25 & under $12. $25 and $20 tickets can be
purchased in advance at http://wiseman.brownpapertickets.com/
“There can be little doubt that Frederick Wiseman is the greatest American filmmaker alive,” says Cinema Scope magazine.
“He is for modern U.S. cinema what John Ford was for the classical
era.” Wiseman’s lifelong work has been to chronicle the inner workings
of American institutions—schools, hospitals, police departments,
prisons, army outposts, and art institutions, to name just a few. He
does this by visiting a place for a period of weeks, recording what he
sees there, and then editing his hours and hours of raw footage down to a
“movie” (in his words) that can last anywhere between 90 minutes and
six hours. Wiseman’s “fly-on-the-wall” aesthetic shuns voiceover
narration, interviews, explanatory titles, and graphics. He says he
seeks only to assemble individual dramatic episodes into a condensed
work that has “rhythm and structure” and is “fair” to the subjects
portrayed. Wiseman, now 85, has won numerous awards, including a
Guggenheim fellowship and a MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant.
Trained
as a lawyer, Wiseman burst upon the film scene with his very first
film, TITICUT FOLLIES (1967), an unflinching and inflammatory
behind-the-bars looks at Massachusetts’ Bridgewater State Hospital for
the criminally insane. The movie was banned by state courts for 20
years, allegedly because it violated the patients/inmates’ privacy and
dignity. But what it really did was show how Massachusetts was bullying
and abusing people in its care. TITICUT FOLLIES, which is now on the
Library of Congress’ National Film Registry, remains the only American
movie ever banned from general distribution for reasons other than
obscenity, immorality, or national security. The Cinematheque will show
it (in Wiseman’s own 35mm print) the night before the director’s
appearance, on Saturday, January 24, at 8:35 pm. Tickets to that film
(at the door only) cost $12; members and those age 25 & under $9.
More information about Frederick Wiseman and his films can be found at www.zipporah.com
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