Frederick Wiseman on His Style & Having a “Psychopath as President”

Few (if any) filmmakers have chronicled American institutions and public spaces like Frederick Wiseman. Ever since the 1960s, the director has provided invaluable insight into the programs and institutions that are integral to American society in many ways. The very succinct titles of his documentaries detail all that he’s explored — High School, Welfare, Hospital, Basic Training, Central Park, Zoo, Public Housing, State Legislature, City Hall, National Gallery, At Berkeley, Ex Libris – The New York Public Library. These and his other documentary masterpieces collectively form an alternative history of the United States defined by the systems and structures that its people rely on, the very systems which are currently being dismantled by the Trump administration and Elon Musk’s DOGE.

Does this upset Wiseman, whose professional life has largely been spent documenting these systems? “It doesn’t worry me [professionally], it worries me as a citizen,” the director told MovieWeb in a recent interview, “because I think what’s going on is idiocy and craziness, and we have a psychopath as president.“

Much of Wiseman’s extensive filmography has been newly restored in 4K and is screening as part of Film at Lincoln Center’s series, Frederick Wiseman: An American Institution. So when MovieWeb spoke with him, we were naturally looking back on his American career with this retrospective, but also wanted to glean Wiseman’s thoughts about America’s future. We asked Wiseman if — at age 95 after a lifetime spent studying American institutions and people — our current moment feels different from others he’s experienced, and how grim he thinks things may get. Wiseman, as straightforward and matter-of-fact as his film titles, simply said:

Oh, it’s hard to make a generalization like that. I’m not Nostradamus. I resist predicting what’s going to happen, but the next four years obviously don’t look good.

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It’s interesting that in the final two decades of his career, Wiseman looked outside America for institutions that weren’t being erased, that had the kind of longevity that’s simply impossible to find in the relatively young U.S. of A. “The films I made in France are about subjects that exist in very different forms in America. There is no American theater repertory company the equivalent of the Comédie-Française, which has existed for over 300 years, or The Paris Opera Ballet, a company that’s existed for over 300 years,” explained Wiseman, adding:

“French restaurants like Troisgros are unique to France. The Crazy Horse is also a different night club than exists in America. […] The films that were made in France are films that I couldn’t make in America. I never had an interest in duplicating or repeating in France the subject matter that I did in America.”

Wiseman’s presumably final film, the masterpiece Menus-Plaisir — Les Troisgros, presents an almost idyllic world in France that feels like a paradise compared to the state of American institutions today.

The Frederick Wiseman Process

A few unvarnished notes on the way Wiseman made films, spoken by the director with simplicity and conviction. After digitizing and restoring dozens of films dating back to the 1960s, did Wiseman notice anything about his work that he hadn’t before? Would he do anything differently?

“I saw things that I might have done differently now, but I wouldn’t change anything now,” said Wiseman. “The more you work, the more experience you get. I have learned most about how to make a film from editing my films. When I see some of the early films I see cuts I would now do differently but I didn’t change anything, since that is what I thought best at the time.”

Wiseman is known for capturing hundreds of hours of footage for many films, editing them down into a narrative that marries text and subtext while accurately reflecting his experience of making the film itself. With all of that unused footage, did he ever want to go back and construct an entirely new film? Wiseman’s answer feels reflective of his personality:

I have never thought about going back once I have finished. All the rushes are carefully preserved at the Library of Congress. I feel I’ve done the best job I could with the material at the time that I made the film, and that’s it. And on with new projects.

When capturing so much footage and spending so much time in places and with subjects, when does Wiseman feel like a production is finished and he’s done filming? “It’s completely subjective,” explains Wiseman. “If I have 150 hours of material, I think I can probably cut at least a 15-minute film. I may just be tired or may want to go home to my own bed. It is the result of a combination of impressions, I just have a feeling that I’ve got enough material, or things start to feel repetitive.”

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When Is It Time to Stop Filming & Start Editing?

Zipporah Films

Once he has begun the editing process, has he ever realized he’s missing something and gone back to get more footage? Or is filming done when it’s done? “Most often, I consider the filming done. I work with what I have,” said Wiseman. “There were a couple of times when I went back.” He elaborated:

“For Law and Order, I returned for about 10 days after about three or four months of editing because I felt I didn’t have enough in the station house; for the first round, I was in the cars all the time. For the Deaf and Blind series, my original intention was to make one film, but when I started editing — and even during the original shooting — I realized I had to go back and make separate films. It was too complicated to combine the different schools in one film. The problems of the deaf are different from the problems of the blind, similarly they are different from the problems of handicapped adults. So I went back for a couple of weeks and shot the material that I didn’t have to make the four separate films.”

Making Long Movies & Thinking About the Audience

Zipporah Films

Wiseman’s films can be elaborate, meticulously detailed studies that last three or four hours. Does he worry what the shortening attention spans of audiences might mean for cinema, and does he ever edit with the audience in mind? “I don’t think about it. I don’t know how to think about an audience. I like to make movies. I have been lucky enough to make a lot of movies. I make them whatever length I think is appropriate, and so be it,” said Wiseman, adding:

It’s not just that I can’t — I don’t know how to take into account an audience. Anyone that says they know how to think about an audience is just giving expression to the creation of a fantasy about the least common denominator.

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Frederick Wiseman’s Favorite Documentary Director

Zipporah Films

Finally, for such a prolific director whose work has helped define American documentary filmmaking over the past 60 years, does Wiseman have any favorite directors of his own? “I don’t see many movies at all, so it’s hard for me to answer that question. I’m a big fan of Errol Morris’ movies, but he works in a style completely different than mine. He makes very good movies.”

Like Wiseman, Morris also speaks the way he films, diving into the abstract and looping through multiple ideas in a loquacious fashion. Wiseman is direct and quite literal; every bit of his brevity is believable and meaningful. When we asked what particular films of his hold a special meaning, he told us, in part, “Strangely enough, I tend to like them all.” Believe us, we think you might too.

Organized by Florence Almozini and Tyler Wilson, Frederick Wiseman: An American Institution is screening the documentary master’s films through March 5, 2025, at the Walter Reade Theater in New York. You can find the upcoming schedule here.

You can view the original article HERE.