Violence, drugs, poverty, police, the words and the facts are sadly the same. In 1999, in “Carnet Nomade”, the American documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman recounts the shooting of his last film, Public Housing. He deciphers sequences from this documentary filmed in Chicago, in the heart of the large “Ida B. Wells Homes” social housing complex. Built in the early 1940s, expanded in the 1960s, then completely demolished in 2011, it is a city adrift, a veritable social and racial ghetto consumed by problems of drugs and violence.
“Ida B. Wells Homes” in Chicago, a drifting city filmed by Frederick Wiseman
Frederick Wiseman talks about his working method at Irène Omelianenko’s microphone. He never interferes in the situations he films and refrains from any discourse overlooking a reality whose complexity he wishes to restore. Its organization is simple: a team of three people who listen and film.
Find the entire archive program “Frederick Wiseman, like an American novel”proposed by Albane Penaranda.
- By Irene Omelianenko
- With Frederick Wiseman (filmmaker) – Serge Renko Readings
- Director: Vincent Decque
- Excerpt: Nomadic notebook – Frederick Wiseman for his film “Public Housing” (1st broadcast: 03/12/1999)
- Web edition: Radio France documentation
