Documentarian Frederick Wiseman's sustained gaze into the interior of Lord's Boxing Gym in Austin, Texas. There is no narrative to speak of, and besides proprietor Richard Lord, there are hardly any characters. Instead, you get a profound sense of what has to be done to a body to ready it …
Another invisibly etched documentary — this one clocking in at a platter-bowing 272 minutes — in which the king of all non-fiction filmmakers, Frederick Wiseman, once again proves himself worthy of the title. (The antithesis of the celebrity documentarian, Wiseman never once crosses paths with the camera.) This time around, …
Slender, small-breasted women, mostly naked and elegantly shot, are seen performing at the famous Crazy Horse club in Paris, although they are more Degas-truthful offstage than in their chic, vampy routines. Tourists, couples, and solo voyeurs form the audience. Found touches of humor inflect the deadpan lucidity of veteran director …
This privileged peek inside the Paris Opera Ballet — more than a peek, a thorough probe — ought to be catnip to anyone interested in classical and modern dance, or for that matter in artistic creation in any form, the process of bringing execution in line with conception. Veteran documentarian …
Andrew Carnegie envisioned a New York City with a library within walking distance of every resident’s doorstep. Frederick Wiseman’s documentary takes us on a guided tour of several. Public libraries are neighborhood oases, some of the few safe and welcoming spaces left in the world. From an intimate reading-group discussion …
With 133,000 residents speaking 167 languages, the 300-acre stretch of land known as Jackson Heights, Queens boasts the most culturally diverse neighborhood in the world. It’s also the subject of 85-year-old proudly self-professed, “non-fiction filmmaker” Frederick Wiseman's (National Gallery) 40th feature, a mammoth, 190 minute undertaking shot with his trademark …
Welcome to Monrovia, a town that voted overwhelmingly in favor of Trump. A town where Sunoco 260 gasoline is spoken of in the same revered tones one would summon when speaking of a deceased parent. Unlike 99% of Americans, Frederick Wiseman resists mixing business with politics, treating such hot-button issues …
Frederick Wiseman turns his camera on the famed art museum in London's Trafalgar Square. About the only thing we aren't made privy to is the recorded audio that plays as visitors wander from Old Master to Old Master. Everything else — from PR strategy meetings, to framemakers, to restorers, to …
The first film to shine a light inside a modern-day Bedlam, the Massachusetts State Hospital for the Criminally Insane — the sort of place that was once jokingly looked down upon as a “laughing academy” or “nuthouse.” It also marked documentarian Frederick Wiseman’s first crack at chronicling the brutalizing effects …
Based on the diaries of Sophia Tolstoy, structured as a series of monologues, the film follows a long-term relationship between a man and a woman. Directed by 92-year-old documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman (his first fictional film), starring Nathalie Boutefeu as the wife of Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy.