Hospital

Acclaimed documentarian Fredrick Wiseman trains his notorious camera on the goings on of a hospital used primarily by people from a lower income bracket, and the results will likely sadden and horrify you.

Wiseman is always skilled at making you think he's being totally objective; it appears that he just turns his camera on and lets it run. However, he manages to construct a compelling indictment of how the poor are treated by the American medical industry and anyone with an ounce of warm blood in their veins will be enraged by what they see.

There are heartbreaking moments in this film, like doctors telling a woman she has only a limited amount of time to live and her complete unresponsiveness to the news. There are also moments that make you want to turn away from the screen, like the sight of a young man who's been given a purgative for a drug overdose spewing vomit all over the room, and then falling down in it. Indeed, much of this movie makes you feel guilty for watching at all. Shouldn't people's privacy and dignity be honored in situations like this? On the other hand, how would the majority of us know how the poor are treated if people like Wiseman didn't document it? The movie doesn't really pose and questions or answers, yet it manages to be completely compelling nonetheless. I saw it in a documentary film class and there was plenty of debate inspired by it.

Grade: A

In my entry on "High School", talked about how Wiseman was criticized for showing a close-up of a girl with over sized glasses. Some considered that shot to be unnesesarry and potentially embarrassing to the girl. However, are such issues really the filmmakers problem? Should he just film what he sees? Perhaps Wiseman didn't find the girl to be awkward looking at all.

But the above example is only a minor one. Here's a more problematic example. In "Hospital", there is a scene in which a nurse questions an elderly man. The old man begins to cry as he confesses his fears about possibly having cancer. In addition the doctor asks him many intimate and embarrassing questions about sores on his genitals and the condition of his urine. The first part of the scene consists mainly of a close-up of the man's face as he talks to the doctor. The second part takes place after the doctor has examined the man's genitals. Importantly, Wiseman does not show the examination, indicating a concern for the man's privacy. Even the sustained take of the man crying, despite the fact that he might be embarrassed to see it later, lets us identify with, and have sympathy for the old man. We realize that his fears are justified, and he does not look foolish for crying.

But there are still ethical questions to be asked. In his essay, "Ultimately We Are All Outsiders: The Ethics of Documentary Filming", after giving a dramatic description of the above mentioned scene, attempting to place us into the shoes of the old man (describing Wiseman and his crew as "strangers") critic Calvin Pryluck writes: "How valid would you consent be if one of the strangers tells you, as Wiseman does, 'We just took your picture and it's going to be for a movie, it's going to be shown on television and maybe in theaters… do you have any objections?' Wiseman finds, as did Allen Funt of 'Candid Camera,' that few people do object."

Pryluck then states that there is pressure placed on people to agree to be filmed in situations like that. 'The picture gets taken, and damn the consequences' he writes. Pryluck's doubt about the validity of the permission given to Wiseman to film is justifiable. It could be possible that in a situation like that, the old man would not be in the proper frame of mind to give permission to let a camera crew film him.

However, Pryluck's statement is in itself manipulative. How does he know what Wiseman says when he asks permission? How does he know that Wiseman pressures his subjects? How does he know that Wiseman films first, then asks permission? Although Wiseman has stated that he tries to remain "invisible" while filming, he has also stated that the subject knows that he is there from the beginning. As to whether he pressures his subjects, Wiseman himself stated in a 1998 interview with "The Boston Pheonix": "I try to be friendly, and I hope that I am friendly, but not phony. I try not to convey the impression that we are going to be friends for a long period of time." Pryluck's comparison of Wiseman's style to that of "Candid Camera" is also unfair in that Wiseman does try to surprise his subjects, does not use actors to provoke responses from subjects, and does not set out to make comedy.

What about comedy? If there is a situation that ends up being humorous, and a person in the scene could be made to look foolish, is Wiseman really calling the person a fool? In another scene from Hospital, one that seems to be very entertaining and amusing to audiences, a young man is brought in claiming that he is sick from pills he had swallowed that were given to him by a stranger in the park. After a long and funny scene in which he repeatedly asks "am I gonna die?" and the very patient doctor reassures him that he will not, he is placed on a stretcher and rolled into the next room. Cut to the next scene, where the patient is in the room talking to two policemen who are trying to find out more about the man who gave the patient the drugs. All of a sudden, the patient begins to throw up all over the place, splattering vomit on himself and the policemen. In between attempts to apologize, not only to the policemen, but it seems for his entire life up until that point, he continues to spew out more vomit than it would be thought the human body could contain. Finally after all is done he sits on the stretcher looking very embarrassed and says to himself, "I think I should go back with my family."

This scene elicits big laughs from the audience. In the previously discussed scene, we get the impression that because it is dramatic, we can identify with the patient, and therefore it is not exploitative. Here however, a point could be made that it is exploitative, because we are not encouraged to identify with the subject, but laugh at his situation. A case could be made though, that because his situation was not life threatening, we could afford to laugh at it. Perhaps that young man, now middle aged, would laugh at that footage as we do were we to see it today. Still the fact that Wiseman chooses to focus on it so graphically could give credence to those who would call it sensationalism. Then again the graphic nature of the scene could help to illustrate what hospital workers have to go through every day.

Frederick Wiseman really set a new standard in regards to the Direct Cinema and the Cinema Verité movements. This is a very jarring experience for people who aren't used to watching documentaries. Once you see the part where the man starts puking all over the floor, one realizes the power of the moment reflected in this film. One of the best early documentaries, if not the best.

Hospital is the third Frederick Wiseman picture I've seen, as I slowly but surely peruse through his unbelievably checkered and well-rounded filmography. His first film I saw - his controversial debut documentary Titicut Follies, which focused on the poor treatment in an insane asylum in Massachusetts in the 1960's - is required viewing to say the least, in its deeply disturbing, eighty-four minute glory. The second film I saw by him was Belfast, Maine, a somewhat somber but beautifully detailed portrait of a quiet Maine town built up of a largely older population with a conservative, old-fashioned work ethic.

I emerge from his film Hospital with great news once more. Wiseman carefully documents the daily occurrences inside the Metropolitan Hospital in New York City using his trademark "let-the-events-do-the-talking" way of documentation. I hesitate to use the term "observational" as I did in my reviews of his two other films because Wiseman has stated again and again that unbiased, objective filmmaking is impossible. I've come to agree. The director of the film chooses what to show, what not to show, what to include in the film, how to edit it, and so forth. You decide on everything, from a narrative and a thesis, to a message and maybe a piece of social commentary. That is biased filmmaking; there's nothing else refuting it. However, one can't blame mistaking Wiseman for seeming like an objective filmmaker. His style of filmmaking is not intrusive at all and his documentation of an institution, an event, or a specific place isn't burdened by title-cards, descriptions, or personal input. He turns the camera on and let's it roll; I'm not sure I could remain silent during my own film.

And so Wiseman zealously films the Metropolitan Hospital, its waiting rooms, operating rooms, outpatient procedures, surgical rooms, front desks, its patients, those already admitted, and so forth. Some patients we get to hear speak directly to the camera and others we examine for a lengthy period of time. The most unforgettable is probably a young man who has ingested far too many pills that have could possibly justify his jittery, nervous behavior and his constant neurotic attitude that he may die. He talks to the doctor, often repeating, "am I gonna die," to which the doctor is calm and very assuring. The doctor gives him some liquid that makes him vomit up the pills before sending him to psychological therapy, as he is clearly unstable, even before he took the pills.

Some scenes involve the doctors talking over medical procedures or deciding how to treat a specific case. One of them isn't a medical one at all, but a kid who is brought in who is found with no adult supervision whatsoever. Several doctors converse, trying to decide whether to keep him there for a while or send him over to the child services. This shows unconventional decisions that don't come with a rulebook occur with doctors every day. Many of us know this, but I doubt we've thought very hard about it. This is where the concept of personal ethics come into play in a very serious job setting. Wiseman captures the anxiety and the uncertainty beautifully.

I feel I could talk about a Wiseman film forever, but I purposefully try to keep them concise and vague, so you, the potential viewer, lacks a biased mindset when entering a film like this. Hospital is a documentary that shows that there are extremely interesting and significant things to see and show all around us, but they go unnoticed because the public demands a more extravagant, gossipy story. Wiseman scales back and allows the ordinary to morph into the extraordinary.

Directed by: Frederick Wiseman.