Wiseman, Confrontation no. 1
The American film director Frederick Wiseman shot his debut documentary Titicut Follies in 1967. This film can still be considered a milestone in American documentary cinema, a film that embodies the social rebellion of its time. Titicut Follies is not just a film that opens some of the most important ethical questions in documentary filmmaking, it also became a legal test case during which the distribution of the film was held back for 24 years. The article looks back at the problems that occurred during the making of the film and discusses its narrative and aesthetic strategies from the perspective of the director’s recent films.
The integral version of this article can be found in the printed KINO!