Film Forum

Following the Friday, April 21 8pm show of Titicut Follies, director Frederick Wiseman will appear in person for a Q&A, moderated by Film Comment Editor Nicolas Rapold. 

“Fred Wiseman is probably one of today’s greatest living documentary filmmakers. For close to thirty years, thanks to the Public Broadcast Service (PBS), he has created an exceptional body of work consisting of thirty full length films devoted primarily to exploring American institutions. Over time these films have become a record of the western world, since now more than ever as we approach the century’s close, nothing North American is really foreign to us. The institutions that Wiseman examined early in his career – a hospital, a high school, army basic training, a welfare center, a police precinct – have ‘problems' that the filmmaker uncovers. His approach reveals the profound acknowledged and unacknowledged conformity and inequality of American society. Wiseman’s films are also a reflection on democracy. What do his films portray, the “American dream” or the “air conditioned nightmare”? Both, but also a questioning of the world and of existence.” - Philippe Pilard, “Frederick Wiseman, Chronicler of the Western World” (Originally published in La Sept/Arte)

Nicolas Rapold is editor-in-chief of Film Comment magazine. He has written extensively for The New York Times, as well as Artforum, Sight & Sound, The Village Voice, and elsewhere.

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