I'm drawn to making movies about contemporary life. The reason I choose institutions is because they provide a limit, a boundary.
Frederick WisemanIt's rare in a documentary film that you have a repetitive act. So when you do, you can shoot it in different ways so that you have more choices when you're sitting down to edit that sequence six months later.
Frederick WisemanAnybody whose mind is functioning at all can't be content with the way the world works.
Frederick WisemanOne's relationship to time is complicated, and sometimes a day will drag on forever and sometimes it'll be over in a flash. When you look back, "I'm old," after 40 or 60 years, I can't believe I'm as old as I am.
Frederick WisemanI think I've learned a lot about how to make movies, and particularly about how to edit movies by thinking about how similar problems are resolved in other forms. The issues in all forms are the same in an abstract sense, aren't they? Characterization, abstraction, metaphor, passage of time... Whether it's a movie, a novel, a play, or a poem, those issues exist. And each person resolves them differently.
Frederick Wiseman