Frederick Wiseman, who died yesterday at the age of 96, was an American filmmaker whose carefully observed works changed documentary cinema forever, shedding light on institutions, individuals and everyday life.
Born into a Jewish family in Boston in 1930, Wiseman studied law at Yale and then taught law at Boston University. At the same time, he was fascinated by documentary cinema, producing The Cool World in 1963, a film directed by Shirley Clarke about a youth gang in Harlem.
While teaching legal medicine, he came across the subject of his first documentary: the Bridgewater State Hospital for the “criminally insane”. This film would eventually become Titicut Follies, released in 1967.
