Volume 17, Number 6 · October 21, 1971
Ship of Fools
By Edgar Z. Friedenberg
The Films of Frederick Wiseman: Titicut Follies, Hospital, Law and Order, High School, Basic Training
by Frederick Wiseman
In 1967 Frederick Wiseman released the first in a series of films he has produced and directed which have realized new possibilities in the use of the motion picture in revealing and recording the functioning of social institutions. This was Titicut Follies, which was filmed at Bridgewater State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, an enormous old institution located on the banks of the Titicut River in Massachusetts. The film takes its title from that of an annual musical review whose skits the staff and patients collaborate in producing. Since then, Wiseman has made High School (1968) at Northeast High School in Philadelphia, Law and Order (1969), a study of the Kansas City, Missouri, police department in action, Hospital (1970) at Metropolitan Hospital in New York City, and, most recently, Basic Training (1971) at Fort Knox, Kentucky.[*]
Review, 3184 words
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