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Central Park 1989
Wiseman sorta bookends Central Park with two traditional forms of performance, with the practice of Shakespeare and the making of a film, to bracket the many ways humans perform in public. here we get performance of sports, religion, music, heritage, allyship, sexual identity, political identity, political duty and surely more I'm forgetting.
the Reading Rainbow section, which shows us what looks like an organic public performance of one kind interrupted by a director yelling cut, is terrific. as is the…
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Presidential Bloopers 1999
You've heard of "hail to the chief" but after watching this movie I can respectfully say "hail to the chump!" This is a documentary about those little guys you love (and some-times love to hate!) who are called the presidents of the United States. Sometimes I forget that even they have their bad days (I have had many, and you don't have to look far to find people who can confirm this!) Deep down these guys are all human, and in the end that's what's most important.
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Manoeuvre 1979
the officer of the tank company gives a few speeches that sound eerily similar to my pathetic high school football coach (record: 5-6), yeah "let it all hang out" on the battlefield buddy, sure, whoops, you just got fucking murked; American Unexpectionalism at its finest, as only Fred can capture (and arrange)
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High School II 1994
a nearly four-hour film that gives ample space to students discussing issues important them amongst each other, teachers discussing pedagogy amongst themselves and watching students and teachers interact together -- nearly the opposite of Wiseman's first High School film, though both exist at crucial flash-points in America's recent racial history.
the film this immediately reminded me more of was Ex Libris, as in both we see sincere civic and civil discussions about learning and general appropriate citizenry. plenty else exists…
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Model 1981
a film about the many ways we use images to create meaning, which Wiseman surveys and contrasts via the agency's ads, the documentary crew's project and Wiseman's own project set at a critical distance.
the way Wiseman punctuates the whole thing -- ideas about real life, projecting real life for consumption and making art out of images of 'the real' -- with a scene of models talking to Andy Warhol about their real weekend life vs. how they play real…
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Seraphita's Diary 1982
some intriguing resonances with the rest of wiseman's work, obviously Model but generally how he emphasizes the performance inherent to labor. it's a fun little trifle but i think without knowing how it sits in his filmography this would come across as very one-note.
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Model 1981
all of wiseman's films seem to refer back to each other in various directions and across various points of reference like an endlessly complex spider's web. the strongest connection that jumped out to me here is to Meat, another story of bodies bought and sold, but i think Model also broaches some new territory for wiseman. a scene midway through in which a photographer explains that he no longer works with young women because they are too practiced in particular…
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McCabe & Mrs. Miller 1971
Vilmos Zsigmond + Leonard Cohen + the behavioral beauties of Altman's stock company = one of the better snapshots of frontier life on film. A matter of accumulated detail and actorly gestures that add to such an immense whole. I love that Altman set out to make an anti-western, but ended up romanticizing it in a complete different way. Very funny, very sad, lots of wonderful scenes and the melancholia is fully earned. Altman’s knack for choreography chao was hardly…
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