Dir. Frederick Wiseman, US, 1967-1975, 554 minutes, in English with optional subtitles

Review by Colin Dibben

Five early and important films from one of the most prolific documentary film makers in the history of cinema. The films look gritty and grim but they suck you in more than most and engage you fully. The cumulative effect is overwhelming and disturbing, fully immersive and very human.

The five films collected here are: Titicut Follies (1967), High School (1968), Hospital (1969), Juvenile Court (1973) and Welfare (1975).

Frederick Wiseman’s approach is to film hundreds of hours of material then edit it into a film that gives meaningful glimpses into the public lives of people in their engagement with public institutions. The films are without explanation, narration or music: people do things and talk in a given setting.

You may not realise until you are fully immersed in one of his films, but Wiseman’s editing style builds a strong, focused story around each person you see. So, these films are more than just documentaries. They are intense dramas of human life, focusing on the conflict that necessarily occurs when individuals come into contact with powerful institutions.

The people whose stories we piece together from these films are subject to the rules that govern their interactions with the institution; but they also contend and defend and embody largely implicit claims based on their citizenship and humanity. That is the ur-drama played out in the films collected here.

Wiseman edits together disturbing, often arguably borderline exploitative footage – but his aim is always to access this ur-drama of contest. Certainly, we see bureaucrats ‘process’ people – sometimes horrifically, especially in Titicut Follies which is set in a mental institution – but most of the treatment is professionally caring by the standards of the time. Indeed, the level of integrated care shown to patients in Hospital puts our contemporary NHS to shame.

On a case-by-case basis, the viewer must ask themselves whether a line has been crossed in the treatment shown and also the representation of that treatment. Speaking of representation, one thing you notice is how little people appear to ‘play to’ the camera and yet how much almost everything they say is performative, in that it is intended to secure a positive outcome for themselves.

This is a world of public performance, but one very different from our own: the camera’s presence may make an individual more or less focused on establishing their claim, but there is no need to appeal to the camera.

Does this suggest that we have lost a certain performative power in an age where cameras increasingly mediate everything? Have we lost a facility to argue for what is right in face-to-face encounters?

Special features

Newly restored in 4K by Zipporah Films Inc and presented in High Definition
Corridors of Power, Windows to the Soul (2025): in this newly commissioned video essay, filmmaker Ian Mantgani explores the films of Frederick Wiseman with a focus on his distinctive filmmaking style and observational storytelling
2025 BFI Southbank discussion: filmmaker Andrea Luka Zimmerman and curator Matthew Barrington discuss Frederick Wiseman’s aesthetics and approach to filmmaking with programme curator Sandra Hebron
56-page perfect-bound book featuring essays by David Jenkins, Eric Marsh, Stephen Mamber, Philip Concannon and hosts of the long-running Wiseman Podcast Shawn Glinis and Arlin Golden. Also includes a 1974 essay from Sight and Sound by Thomas Atkins
Newly created English descriptive subtitles on all five films