Five Films by Frederick Wiseman

Barry Grant has created a monumental resource for the study of a monumental filmmaker. The transcripts of these five films have been meticulously constructed without compromising the vitality and energy that characterizes the films themselves. This book should be invaluable to film scholars for as long as the films of Fred Wiseman are viewed, discussed and dissected-which we now know will be a long time indeed.-Ross McElwee, Director, Sherman's March and Bright LeavesFred Wiseman is the perfect example of someone who has created a great canon of films. He is not just a great documentary filmmaker, he is a great filmmaker and artist. He has created some of the wildest, most personal, and oddly expressionistic filmmaking around. His origins are not in the movies but in the theater of the absurd. I imagine his smile of pleasure when the man in Welfare compares his situation to Godot. It's not life imitating art, but a strange admixture of both where the boundary lines between the two are no longer visible. Ultimately, Wiseman has showed us that the ultimate institution is life itself, and properly speaking, we should all be institutionalized.-Errol Morris