Documentary Filmmaking

Frederick Wiseman, a documentary filmmaker, grew up in Boston, went to Yale Law School and then served in the Army. When he got out, he lived in Paris, and got involved with filmmaking there. He moved back to the United States and taught at Boston University. He took law students on tours of the Bridgewater State Hospital, part of the state corrections system, which was to become the setting for Wiseman’s first documentary film “Titicut Follies.” Made in 1967, it was banned for years because of its frank and shocking look at patients at a Massachusetts prison hospital for the “criminally insane.” He has gone on to make some 40 films, many taking a long look at community and cultural institutions, including “High School” in 1968, “Hospital” in 1969, and “Welfare” in 1975.