In Jackson Heights

"In Jackson Heights (2015)" was edited, produced, and directed by Frederick Wiseman. Everyone who watches documentary films knows that Wiseman is a genius. As pointed out in the introduction to the film, Wiseman's style was set out in his first film, Titicut Follies, in 1967. He has stayed with that formula ever since.

Wiseman arrives, starts filming, shoots hundreds of hours of film, and then edits his footage down to movie length. (Well, three-hour movie length.) He doesn't use fades, he doesn't use voice-over, he doesn't appear in the movie, and he doesn't add music to tell us if what we're seeing is happy or sad.

We just watch what Wiseman watched, and then what decided to include in his film. The amazing thing is that people don't appear to act differently while they are being filmed. No doubt Wiseman edited out footage of people who were self-conscious, and kept glancing at the camera. Every image we see looks as if people were behaving as if the camera weren't there.

Jackson Heights, Queens is a famous neighborhood because of its diversity. One of the speakers points out that 167 languages are spoken in Jackson Heights. Ethnic diversity is definitely a strong element of the movie, but there are other factors as well. Another theme running through the movie is the interaction of the LGBTQ community with the other inhabitants of the neighborhood. A third element is gentrification, against which Jackson Heights has apparently held out so far. However, according to what we see in the movie, gentrification may actually have already started, and may be unstoppable.

I've seen many Wiseman documentaries, and I've enjoyed and appreciated every one. I believe that he's a unique genius, and we are fortunate to have so many of his movies at our disposal. We saw "In Jackson Heights" at the outstanding Dryden Theatre in the George Eastman Museum in Rochester, New York. Not only is the Dryden an excellent venue, but the film selection and the pre-film introductions are world class. We're lucky to have a theater of this quality in Rochester.

If you're not fortunate enough to be able to watch "In Jackson Heights" on a large screen, it will work well enough on a small screen. Some of the noise, color, and general excitement may be lost, but most of it will come through. If you love great documentaries, you can't miss this movie!

Be sure you know what you're getting into before you commit yourself to watching this dog of a movie. Maybe you're such a lover of Jackson Heights that anything about the place will do for you. If that describes you, then good, this will please you--it gives you anything (and everything) about the place, a random assortment of little scenes, 3 hours in total, of ordinary people doing this and that in the neighbourhood. But if an endless series of daily scenes- -a routine sermon in a mosque, an inconsequential community meeting, etc.-- doesn't sound fascinating to you, then spend your time and money somewhere else.

I came to this movie because of a NY Times piece on "The Best 25 Movies of the 21st Century So far." Well, so far, of the 4-5 I've seen, they're all a waste of time, the usual film school stuff that sniffy reviewers love to love in order to display their ineffably superior taste, pretending not to notice, or maybe reveling in, the formlessness, pointlessness, dreariness, boringness.

After mentioning there are 167 languages in Jackson Heights, the movie only concentrated on the situation of Latino and LGBT communities there. Anything was glossed over or totally missing. Very skewed view, unless you were interested in only those two features of Jackson Heights!

I watched this travesty because I live in Queens and regularly visit Jackson Heights, and I did not notice the length of the movie before ordering. What I got was over 3 hours of home video, full of endless boring community talks and small business owners complaining about gentrification of Queens, same people who buy at Costco for resale. Disproportional number of LGBT scenes. It's Jackson Heights, not Provincetown. It has its good moments - some very beautiful street shots and the best part - the taxi driver school towards the end of the film, the reason for my 5 star rating (would be 2 or 3 otherwise). Cut this disjointed mess down to 1 hour, and you can get a very good documentary worthy of 7 or 8 stars.