Ex Libris: Die Public Library von New York

This documentary is extraordinary! Inspiring! Educational in a profound way. Not just about culture and history, but about humanity and our contemporary world with its complexe histories and fast coming future. Somehow, it achieves what I think the New York Public Library sets out to do for all its patrons: Open our minds, our hearts, give us hope and enthusiasm and bring us closer as a human community. I live in Edinburgh but felt so connected to everyone in this film. And without the use of a single interview! I love New York and now I realise that part of the soul of the city lies in this incredible institution. Man it is good to see powerful people who care! And people from all walks of life who care! I commend the filmmaker and the New York Public library for their incredible work. I would work for either in a heartbeat! Thank you thank you thank you for this beautiful documentary.

I was surprised and delighted to learn of the various services and facets of the NY public library, especially how they are trying to ensure everyone has an opportunity to access services and information. I wish our library services in the UK were as diverse and well funded. Only criticism of the film is the running time. I felt I could have understood the intended impact of the film in half the time.

This is possibly the worst movie I have ever seen. It is a seemingly endless series of scenes that are only related in that they take place at the New York public library. There are so many wonderful stories that could be told of the NYPL; it is truly sad that this movie tells none of them.

I've been following Fred Wiseman's career since 1966, when I was in college at MIT, where he previewed his yet to be released debut movie "Titicut Follies". I've watched many of his subsequent works, including the hard to sit through (in an uncomfortable Alice Tully Hall screening) 5-hour "Hospital", and on the occasion of his look at NY's venerable library system I have some structural matters to discuss.

Wiseman differs from most documentary directors in refusing to use voice-over narration, or on-screen commentary, or even any superimposed identifiers to show the identity of players on screen. This is a defect of "Ex Libris", though he gets all the brownie points imaginable for purity of his approach. Clarity, however, is sacrificed.

Instead, it is both editing and the selection of which material (I'm sure he accumulated many hours of suitable footage to sift through here) to use that gives Wiseman his style. The tedium is usually worth the wait in terms of learning something.

This reminds me of Cinema's worst self-imposed limitation movement of all time, the stupid (and hopefully dead as a door nail) Dogme manifesto of a couple of decades back. In the same search for some phony notion of purity, Lars von Trier and other misguided advocates eschewed all sorts of things like artificial light, special effects and many camera techniques - a horrible experiment. Cinema should be about using and discovering whatever will enhance the finished film, not tying one up in knots to adhere to some regimented akin to Puritanical belief.

Simlarly, the Nouvelle Vague directors in France at the end of the 1950s created a still influential revolution cinema, but also through out plenty of "babies with the bath water" in the process. Besides disparaging the classic work of the '30s and '40s romantic greats like Autant-Lara, Carne, Delannoy and Prevert, led by Godard they abandoned many a basic element like reverse-shot set-ups and cutting that are fundamental to quality cinema. Watching the swish-pans from face to face that Godard & his followers would use instead of tried-and-true reverse shots was a painful experience for me (akin to sarcastic extreme camera moves in close-up coverage of a ping pong or tennis match) to endure. Net result is many a brilliant French movie made during the '40s left unknown to a couple of generations of film buffs thanks to the New Wave emphasis (especially in film schools), and so many current hacks, even lauded ones, unaware how to edit properly - e.g., the frequent and jarring cutting across the center line that folks untrained in proper reverse shot procedure commit regularly. (Hint: watch the heads jumping back and forth on screen during a simple conversation in many a bad TV show or indie feature.)

New York's various library branches are visited in all boroughs in this documentary. It includes various segments highlighting free lectures, job fairs, community gatherings, school classes, help to the needy, and library business meetings.

The variety of the segments and their subjects are as well chosen as are the variety of people in each of them. For those of us who love New York and New Yorkers, the people alone make much of this film an enjoyable experience.

Many of the lectures were fascinating but some seemed intended for the few with either a higher level of academic intellect and/or a great knowledge of the subject at hand. While this might have been something to overlook, it is harder to overlook the movie's biggest liability: its length of three-and-a-quarter hours. The movie could have been reduced by at least one-third.

Though most of the segments were a reasonable length of time, this was not the case for the library staff meetings that were too frequent and too long - much like staff meetings for those of us in our real lives. While some moments in these scenes were interesting, they had a tendency to remind us of the occasional auditory, mental torture of our own lives - something we'd rather forget when watching a movie. - dbamateurcritic