Anecdotes

In interviews, Wiseman has emphasized that his films are not and cannot be unbiased.

Often doesn't know anything about a subject before the filming begins. For him, with his own words, "the shooting is the research".

While producing a film, Wiseman often acquires more than 100 hours of raw footage.

Served in the U.S. military.

Openly admits to manipulating his source material to create dramatic structure, and indeed insists that it is necessary to make a movie.

In 2014 Frederick Wiseman received the 'Lifetime Achievement Award' at the '71st Venice International Film Festival'. It was only the second time that this honor was given to a documentary filmmaker after Joris Ivens had received it in 1988.

Graduate of Yale University.

Has made approximately one documentary film a year for the past fifty years, some with run times as long as six hours.

Has received the Honorary Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement from the Venice Film Festival, a Gugenheim and a MacArthur Fellowship.

His films are, in his view, elaborations of a personal experience and not ideologically objective portraits of his subjects.

Wiseman works four to six weeks in the institutions he portrays, with almost no preparation. He spends the bulk of the production period editing the material, trying to find a rhythm to make a movie.

Trained as a lawyer.

Dislikes the term observational cinema, or cinema verité.

Took a position teaching law at Boston University in the late 1950s.

The editing process is for him a careful craft that occupies a year of intensive work.

Named his production company, Zipporah Films, after his wife, Zipporah Batshaw, who is a fellow Yale Law graduate of his.

All his films have aired on PBS, one of his primary funders.

Describes his filmmaking style as "reality fiction".