Hospital [NTSC]

Since the 1960s Frederick Wiseman has been at the forefront of the direct cinema documentary movement. Interrogating the public and social institutions of the United States he has built up an acclaimed oeuvre which has greatly influenced filmmakers around the world. In “Hospital” he worked with the doctors, staff and patients of New York City’s Metropolitan Hospital Centre. Wiseman’s commitment to the aesthetics of cinema-verite means that there is no narration or exegesis in his film practice. Instead, the camera becomes an observer of the pressures and crisis of a public hospital in the USA. What emerges is a portrait of a public institution stretched to the limits and a damning condemnation of poverty in America. “Hospital” allows us to observe all aspects of hospital life: well-meaning but seriously over-worked doctors and psychologists; nurses and attendants; cleaners and ambulance workers. And finally there are the patients themselves. Whether their illnesses are due to drugs or alcohol, to old age and over-work, or to violence and accident, what we get to witness is the pressure of survival for people who live at the bottom of the American social order.