K. Austin Collins Salutes Frederick Wiseman
I think of the work of Frederick Wiseman, and my mind is drawn, immediately, to the faces. The blank stare of a monkey whose head, stem still attached, has been painstakingly severed from its body, for the sake of science, in Primate (1974). Young Black and Latino students in Harlem parsing the immediate ramifications of the Rodney King beating in High School II (1994). The sinewed despair that confronts us as the working-class people of Titicut Follies (1967), Hospital (1970), Welfare (1975), Public Housing (1997), In Jackson Heights (2015), and so many other of Wiseman’s films navigate the life-and-death intricacies […]
by K. Austin Collins on Apr 6, 2026
