The Bowdoin Orient

March 2, 2001
Volume CXXXII, Number 18

Filmmaker Frederick Wiseman speaks at Common Hour

COURTESY OF OFFICE OF COMMUNICATIONS

   At last Friday's Common Hour, Bowdoin welcomed Frederick Wiseman, Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker.
   In 1967, while working as a professor of law, Wiseman made his first documentary film, Titicut Follies, a controversial portrayal of conditions at the State Prison for the Criminally Insane in Bridgewater, Massachusetts. Since then, Wiseman has made more than 30 films primarily exploring American institutions-everything from high schools to zoos to the world of modeling.
   His most recent film, Belfast, Maine (1999), about a beautiful old New England port city, documents ordinary experience in a small American city.
   Wiseman and his films have won many awards, including the Irene Diamond Life-Time Achievement Award (2000) from the Human Rights Watch. Wiseman's talk focused on the art of documentary filmmaking.

(Arnd Seibert/Bowdoin Orient)