The Cinematheque

“Maybe his greatest work, a relentless shape-shifter.”

Matt Prigge, Village Voice

Frederick Wiseman’s cinema reached new heights in the 1990s, beginning with this expansive vision of that rare thing in any city: common space both for and beyond human use. One of the first speakers in Central Park applies the mythic framework of the Garden of Eden, in which nature predates and exceeds human comprehension; another reminds that ​“it’s a man-made park and man-tended.” The film refuses a choice between these views; in fact, of all the communities seen in Wiseman’s filmography, this one comes closest to the utopic—as one bureaucrat observes, many people seem to have no idea the park has any rules, yet the constant labour on its grounds maintains it in a state of beauty and readiness for travellers, park-bench sleepers, picnickers, and political organizers alike. Whether Shakespeare, birdsong, concerts, debates, memorials, or the wind in the trees, Central Park is an outdoor library of sights and sounds, and one of Wiseman’s most invigorating visions.

The opening-night screening of Central Park will be preceded by remarks from Programming Associate Michael Scoular and a video introduction from Frederick Wiseman.

“A cubist-like vision, superimposing many perspectives of Central Park onto the same canvas … [Wiseman’s] creative imagination gives us the freedom to come to terms with our emotions and, in modernist fashion, to translate our deepest concerns and greatest fascinations into artful narrative.”

Richard A. Schwartz, Film Quarterly