FRED WISEMAN RETROSPECTIVE

HIGH SCHOOL II

USA, 1994, 220 min.

Director: Frederick Wiseman
Cinematography: John Davey
Editing: Frederick Wiseman
Sound: Frederick Wiseman
Production company: Zipporah Films
Print Source:
Zipporah Films
One Richdale Avenue, Unit #4
Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02140
USA
Tel.: 617.576.3603
Fax: 617.864.8006
e-mail: info@zipporah.com
www.zipporah.com

High School II

This is a film about Central Park East Secondary School (CPESS), a successful alternative high school in New York's Spanish Harlem, 85-95% of whose graduates go on to four-year colleges. The film illustrates the School's emphasis on Habits of Mind (weighing evidence; awareness of multiple points of view; seeing connections and relationships; speculating on possibilities; and assessing values.) Sequences illustrating the School's approach to learning include: classroom activities in the humanities and sciences; family conferences; discussions of race, class, and gender; faculty meetings; disciplinary problems; sex education; conflict resolution by students; and student council meetings

Frederick Wiseman was born in 1930 in Boston, Massachusetts. He initially studied law at Yale University. A member of the Massachusetts Bar, Wiseman was a Lecturer-in-Law at Boston University and a Research Associate in the Department of Sociology at Brandeis University before becoming a filmmaker. He started his career by producing a fiction feature film about Harlem teenagers, The Cool World (1963), adapted from the novel by Warren Miller and directed by New York filmmaker Shirley Clarke.

In 1967 Fred Wiseman made his debut as a documentary filmmaker with Titicut Follies, an expose that chronicled the various ways the inmates at the State Prison for the Criminally Insane at Bridgewater, Massachusetts are treated by guards, social workers and psychiatrists. Due to its revealing nature, Titicut Follies became mired in lengthy litigation with state authorities, and the ensuing controversy resulted in Wiseman garnering the inaccurate reputation as a muckraker. Though has gone on to examine the ins and outs of hospitals, high schools, army basic training, a welfare center and a police precinct, his films have also been concerned with the institution of American culture. And though his initial films did seem to be motivated by a desire for social change, recent films lack an ardent activist drive and instead are about the film experience itself, about finding narrative themes and exploring symbolic potential in the everyday through editing. They are also longer. Wiseman’s recent films can run into the three and four hour mark, a drastic increase from the 84 minute running time of Titicut Follies.

In 1971 Fred Wiseman founded a distribution company, Zipporah Films. Though his works have been shown on PBS, Zipporah Films is committed to preserving, promoting and funding Mr. Wiseman’s body of work through rentals, screenings and lectures.

During his expansive career, Wiseman has received numerous awards and accolades including Emmy Awards, the FIPRESCI Prize at the Berlin International Film Festival, the Silver Hugo at the Chicago International Film Festival, the Grand Prix at the Marseille Festival of Documentary Film and a personal Peabody Award.

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