Frederick Wiseman, the American filmmaker, producer and theatre director who made some of the most acclaimed documentaries of the past 60 years, has died, aged 96.
According to a statement from his family and his Zipporah Films company, Wiseman, who had homes in Massachusetts, Maine and Paris, France, died on Monday (February 16).
Born in Boston in 1930, Wiseman graduated from Williams College and Yale Law School. His distinctive documentary style of films shot with available light and without narration was established by his 1967 directing debut Titicut Follies, about a hospital for the criminally insane.
The more than 50 features and TV projects that followed, all produced as well as directed by Wiseman and Zipporah, included 1968’s High School, 1975’s Welfare, 1997’s Public Housing and 2002’s Domestic Violence.
His most recent film as a director was 2023’s Menus-Plaisirs - Les Troisgros, a four-hour documentary about a celebrated French restaurant.
Wiseman won an honourary Oscar in 2017, three Primetime Emmys and prizes at festivals around the world: a career Golden Lion at Venice in 2014 as well as the festival’s FIPRESCI prize in 2017 for Ex Libris; the Cannes Carrosse d’Or in 2021; and Berlin’s FIPRESCI prize in 1990 for Near Death.
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