NCTATNY. Frederick Wiseman.

Leo Goldsmith introduces a special feature at Not Coming to a Theater Near You that'll be updated daily throughout June: "For over 40 years, with a career comprising more than 35 films, Frederick Wiseman has been insinuating his camera into seemingly every facet of modern life, from the Bridgewater State Prison for the Criminally Insane in 1967's Titicut Follies to the State Legislature of Idaho in his 2006 film.... Roughly a contemporary of DA Pennebaker, Richard Leacock and Jean Rouch, Wiseman is generally cited as a pioneer, if not a patriarch, of so-called 'direct cinema' or cinéma vérité.... But his relation to these terms - and to contemporary documentary filmmaking in general - is famously oblique, and he has consistently distanced himself from designations that seem to boast of the objectivity of his filmmaking practice....

Updated through 6/9.

"In their stead, Wiseman has proposed the term 'reality fictions,' itself perhaps something of a red herring, but one that nonetheless suggests the complex and extensive process of filming, shot selection, editing, and sound design in which he engages.... [H]e seems not so much the father of the modern documentary..., but rather a precursor to the contemporary art-house film, with its long-take aesthetic, aversion to melodrama and telegraphic narration, and seeming (or partial) remove from the interiority of its subject. In many ways, comparing a film of Wiseman's to, say, one by the Dardenne brothers or Hou Hsiao-Hsien is indeed a good deal more illuminating than tracking the lineage between Wiseman and Barbara Kopple or Errol Morris."

Updates, 6/3: Today it's Rumsey Taylor on Titicut Follies.

Meanwhile, at DVD Talk: Stuart Galbraith IV on High School, Domestic Violence and Law and Order; and Chris Neilson on Meat and Welfare; and David Cornelius on State Legislature.

Update, 6/4: Beth Gilligan on High School.

Update, 6/5: David Carter on Law and Order.

Update, 6/6: Cullen Gallagher on Basic Training.

Update, 6/7: Rumsey Taylor on Juvenile Court.

Update, 6/8: Leo Goldsmith on Primate.

Update, 6/9: Katherine Follett on Welfare.

Posted by dwhudson at June 2, 2008 9:33 AM