(Frederick Wiseman interviewed by Jane Public via SKYPE technology from Paris, France)
Presented, as ever with the director's work, a doc without narration, much in the way of score, or even on-screen captions, the film picks up at something of a crisis point in the university's history: for all of their research success, state funding is at a historic low, and as a result, tuition is going ever upwards, and staff are feeling the squeeze (surprised?... thought a social worker). And over the course of 244 minutes—a lengthy stretch for sure, but it feels much brisker, and never boring—Wiseman presents vignettes of the people who make up the university community, building up a subtle narrative thread. The choice of UC Berkeley is very deliberate, though: unlike many other top colleges, it's a public university, with the emphasis on "public." By showing the wide range of disciplines, disorganized protesters and administrators involved, Wiseman's mounting a defense not of Berkeley specifically, but of the importance of higher education in general, and it's damn convincing one. It's the best kind of advocacy doc: one that doesn't feel like it's advocating for anything until you walk out of the theater and realise what it's been fighting for. Some might feel that this sort of thing is nothing new for Wiseman —he's certainly used institutions as metaphors for the United States as a whole in the past. But this feels like one of his best pieces of work to date, as fully realized and satisfying a film as he's made in the last 50 years. It's a state-of-the-nation documentary masterwork, a vitally important piece of work, and should be seen by as many lay people, film purists, Ivy Leaguers, protesters, politicos and high school drop outs as humanly possible.
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