Volume 37, Number 17 · November 8, 1990
The Real Thing
By David Denby
FILMS BY FREDERICK WISEMAN DISCUSSED IN THIS ESSAY
Titicut Follies, 1967
High School, 1968
Law and Order, 1969
Hospital, 1970
Basic Training, 1971
Welfare, 1975
Meat, 1976
Canal Zone, 1977
Model, 1980
The Store, 1983
Blind, 1986
Deaf, 1986
Adjustment and Work, 1986
Multi-Handicapped, 1986
Near Death, 1989
Central Park, 1990
In his most recent documentary, Central Park, Frederick Wiseman photographs homeless New Yorkers lying on the park's benches and hillsides, covered in blankets, plastic wrappers, and bits of paper—shelter that looks more like a burial mound than protection for the night. It's as if the homeless were carrying the means of their interment around with them, as if their only 'home' could be death. This is the kind of harsh insight we have come to expect from Wiseman, who has been chronicling American institutions on film for almost twenty-five years without shrinking from life's grimmer provinces. But apart from such images, the movie is mostly a record of New York exuberance, a celebration of the city's surviving lyrical and idealistic impulses. In his films, Wiseman has often questioned received ideas and images: here he questions the commonplace that American cities are moribund.[1]
Review, 5142 words
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