BALLET
A film about the American Ballet Theatre. The film presents the
Company
in rehearsal
in their New York studio and on tour in Athens and Copenhagen.
Choreographers, ballet
masters and mistresses are shown at work with principle dancers,
soloists and the corps de
ballet. Other sequences involve the administration and fund raising
aspects of the Company.
A profile of the work of an important classical ballet
company.
(2:50)
BELFAST, MAINE
A film about ordinary experience in a beautiful old New England
port
city. It is a portrait
of daily life with particular emphasis on the work and the cultural
life of the community.
Among the activities shown in the film are the work of lobstermen,
tug-boat operators,
factory workers, shop owners, city counselors, doctors, judges,
policemen, teachers,
social workers, nurses and ministers. Cultural activities include
choir rehearsal,
dance class, music lessons and theatre production. (4:08)
HIGH SCHOOL
The school system exists not only to pass on "facts" but ideally
to transmit social values
from one generation to another. The film documents how this social
conditioning occurs.
In a large, above-average urban high school, we witness a series
of formal and
informal encounters between teachers, students, parents, and
administrators
through which the ideology and values of the school
emerge.
(1:15)
HIGH SCHOOL 2
This is a film about Central Park East Secondary School (CPESS),
a successful alternative
high school in New York's Spanish Harlem, 85-95% of whose graduates
go on to four-year
colleges. The film illustrates the School's emphasis on "Habits
of Mind" (weighing evidence;
awareness of multiple points of view; seeing connections and
relationships;
speculating on
possibilities; and assessing values.) Sequences illustrating
the School's approach to learning
include: classroom activities in the humanities and sciences; family
conferences; discussions
of race, class, and gender; faculty meetings; disciplinary problems;
sex education;
conflict resolution by students; and student council meetings.
(3:40)
LA COMEDIE FRANCAIS
LA COMÉDIE-FRANÇAISE is the oldest continuous
repertory
company in the world,
founded in Paris in the late 17th century. This is the first
time a documentary film-maker
has been allowed to look at all the aspects of the work of this
great theatrical company.
Sequences in the film include sections of plays, casting, set and
costume design,
administrative meetings and rehearsals and performances of four
classic French plays,
Don Juan by Molière, La Thebaide by Racine,
La
Double Inconstance by Marivaux
and Occupe-toi d'Amelie by Feydeau. (3:43)
MEAT
MEAT traces the process through which cattle and sheep become
consumer
products.
It depicts the processing and transportation of meat products by
a highly automated
packing plant, illustrating important points and problems in the
area of production,
transportation, logistics, equipment design, time-motion study,
& labor management. (1:53)
MISSILE
A film about the 4315th Training Squadron of the Strategic Air
Command
at Vandenberg
Air Force Base in California which trains Air Force officers to
man the Launch Control Centers
for the Minuteman Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. Sequences
include discussion of the moral
and military issues of nuclear war; the arming, targeting and
launching
of the missile; codes;
communications; protection against terrorist attack; emergency
procedures;
staff meetings;
tutorial sessions. The film follows the trainees through the
various stages of training through
graduation and assignment to staff Launch Control Centers.
(1:55)
NEAR DEATH (1990)
NEAR DEATH (1989) is a film about the
Medical
Intensive Care Unit at the Beth Israel
Hospital in Boston. The film is
concerned
with how people face death. More specifically, the
film presents the complex interrelationships
among patients, families, doctors, nurses, hospital
staff and religious advisors as they confront
the personal ethical, medical and psychological,
religious and legal issues involved in making
decisions about whether or not to give life-sustaining
treatment to dying patients.
(6:00)
(A/A)
PUBLIC HOUSING
PUBLIC HOUSING is a film about daily life at the Ida B. Wells
public
housing
evelopment in Chicago. The film shows the work of the tenants
council, street life,
the role of police, job training programs, drug education,
teenage mothers, dysfunctional
families, elderly residents, nursery school and after school teenage
programs and the
activities of the city, state and federal governments in maintaining
and changing public
housing. The scenes illustrate some of the experiences
of people living in conditions
of extreme poverty. (3:15)
THE STORE
THE STORE is a film about the main Neiman-Marcus store and
corporate
headquarters in Dallas. The sequences in the film include the
selection,
presentation,
marketing, pricing, advertising and selling of a vast array of
consumer
products including
designer clothes and furs, jewelry, perfumes, shoes, electronic
products, sportswear, china
and porcelain and many other goods. The internal management
and organizational aspects
of a large corporation are shown, i.e., sales meetings, development
of marketing and
advertising strategies, training, personnel practices and sales
techniques. (1:58) (A/A)
TITICUT FOLLIES
Prisons and mental institutions, where recalcitrant or
ill-fitting
citizens are put out of sight,
are the dirty secrets of civilized society. As they are owned
and controlled by precisely
those who wish to keep them secret, and are also confined to
specific,
enclosed spaces,
filmmakers are easily kept out. Wiseman's achievement in
creating
this unique film
document is therefore all the more impressive: it is a major
work of subversive cinema
and a searing indictment -- without editorializing narration --
of the "system". Wiseman
(and his extraordinary cameraman-anthropologist John Marshall)
officially
gained entrance
to a state prison hospital for the criminally insane, where the
film was shot, and obtained
the co-operation of it's psychiatrists, guards, and social
workers.
Massachusetts, however,
subsequently obtained an injunction preventing the film's
exhibition,
thereby keeping the secret.
This is a gallery of horrors, a reflection of man's infinite
capacity
to dehumanize his fellow beings.
Broken men, retarded, catatonic, schizophrenic, toothless -- many
incarcerated for life -- vegetate
in empty cells, bare of furniture, utensils, toilets, or beds.
They are incontinent, they masturbate,
babble, put on a horrifying annual variety show (the "Titicut
Follies"),
beat against the bars in rage,
and scream. They stand on their heads for minutes on end while
chanting self-invented hymns,
or are force-fed through the nose while a Dr. Strangelove
psychiatrist
himself (!) pours liquid down
the stomach tube. They are taunted or patronized, drink their
own dirty bathwater while in the tub
(smilingly calling it champagne), and die, ignomiously, their bodies
shaved before burial and cotton-wool
stuffed into their eyes. The camera flinches from
nothing:
here it is, it says, and since you are not doing
anything about eliminating this, at least have the courage to watch.
Amos Vogel, FILM AS A
SUBVERSIVE
ART
(1:24) (A/A)
CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO -----> TITICUT FOLLIES
ZOO
ZOO is a film about the zoo in Miami, Florida. The zoo's
collection
includes 780 animals
representing hundreds of species. The film shows the care and
maintenance
of the animals
by the keepers, the work of the veterinarians and their staff and
the visits to the zoo by
people from all over the world. The film presents the wide
diversity of interests and activities
at the zoo and the inter-relatedness of the animal, human, ethical,
financial, technical,
organizational and research aspects of operating the zoo.
(2:10)
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FREDERICK WISEMAN
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