PopCult Reviews

Juvenile Court (1973)
Directed by Frederick Wiseman

Frederick Wiseman’s seventh film, Juvenile Court, came after producing at least one documentary a year from 1968. High School & Law and Order each contemplated how American institutions subjected people to forms of control. The former sees how we teach children as wrapped up in authoritarian ends, while the latter is about how authoritarianism is exercised in the community. It makes sense that Wiseman would make Juvenile Court as it is where these two paths converge, the place where young people are brutally institutionalized to “get them in line.” In a film that foresees Wiseman’s magnum opus, Welfare, he constructs tighter narratives, following a small number of young people and families through the court process.

Law and Order (1969)
Directed by Frederick Wiseman

The police are not your friends. They are, in fact, an occupying force planted by those in positions of power who have tremendous wealth. The police are actually state-sponsored gangs, as you can see from their origins and the ongoing criminal money-making schemes so many of them have going on the side. Many articles on the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s deputy gangs and their activities can be found if you want to know more. This is standard practice when you give a select group of people in a society permission to commit nearly unaccountable acts of violence under the guise of “protect and serve.” In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the police have no obligation to protect any person from harm. The police exist solely to protect the interests & investments of the ruling class. They would easily kill any one of us in service to that duty.

High School (1968)
Directed by Frederick Wiseman

While the asylum featured in Frederick Wiseman’s debut documentary Titicut Follies is not an institution most of us would ever experience firsthand, America’s education system is far more universal. Asylums and schools are strangely similar. They house people who would otherwise be deemed a danger to themselves and others if they roamed the streets unattended. They are run by rigid rule followers under the guise of caregivers. While the individual nurses and teachers at each respective institution may be doing their best, those higher up on the chain of command who control the purse strings often overlook great suffering that they could otherwise alleviate. In 1968, the American high school was a powder keg on the frontline of growing cultural discontent, making it a fascinating environment.

Titicut Follies (1967)
Directed by Frederick Wiseman

These days, you wouldn’t be blamed for thinking the documentary is purely a vessel for true crime. The media landscape has become saturated with docs that are akin to a segment on Dateline NBC about spouses becoming homicidal or people joining cults. While those things happen, they are far outside the norm of human experience. This is why I gravitate to the documentarians of the 60s and 70s when the form flourished and we got some incredible films. Few filmmakers in this corner of cinema do it better than Frederick Wiseman. During the first half of March, we will look at six of his most highly regarded works, which turn his eye towards the institutions and offices of authority that direct life in the States.