It seems only germane to Frederick Wiseman's directorial approach to specific institutions, shady industries, and widely-discussed fields that he'd explore the University of California, Berkeley let alone a massive, renowned college campus. Wiseman's approach to the subjects of his films could almost be called passively observational in the regard that he seems to just turn the camera on, sit back, and listen, resisting all urge - or lack thereof - to throw in his opinion of the main focal point of the film or the people he has chosen to observe (not interview). His filmmaking tactics are on a grandscale, despite the vague titles of his films such as Belfast Maine, Hospital, Welfare, and Zoo just to name a few, and what better way to compliment his style of filmmaking (or even vice-versa) than to capture a year at one of the top colleges in the United States?
Frederick Wiseman's At Berkeley is a four hour long documentary that is all-encompassing in its desire to include many aspects of the school, extensive in the way it lingers on certain settings for up to twenty-five minutes at time, well-rounded in its attempt to capture all fields from engineering to liberal arts, and exhaustive in its runtime. The documentary mirrors the qualities of a college course - it's frequently enlightening, provides for a once-in-a-lifetime experience, feels as if it makes you a better person, it can be quiet riveting, it can sometimes be boring, but the impact it leaves on you may potentially never be erased.
The documentary concerns the 2010 school year for UC Berkeley from a number of different perspectives, such as the Board of Education, the administration that makes all the key, pressing decisions, the faculty, and, finally, the students, as they each possess dreams of furthering their education in numerous ways. Right off the bat, the film puts us in what appears to be a contemporary American issues course (Wiseman doesn't use title cards, names, or dates in his documentaries) where the topic of discussion is poverty on a macro-scale, from domestic income inequality to impoverished third-world countries. A female student who grew up in the Caribbean recalls the people back home being provided with an education that was paid for, regardless of its quality, and although it lacked in areas, it was almost as if it was the thought that counts. She states that in America she tells people about her time in the Caribbean and their education, and is troubled by stories from her friends saying their schools lack adequate music and art programs as well as appropriate, up-to-date equipment necessary to adapt in today's hectic world.
She goes on to say that America seems much more harsher, and while we see our success measured in a dollar amount and our ultimate goal to get the most money (adding to the long-running debate about how materialistic American society can be), while other countries rely on personal enrichment and development once school has passed. Another female student talks about how she, growing up from immigrant parents, saw poverty up close while the mainstream media and overall public didn't seemed fazed that people in heavily-populated urban areas were experiencing hardships. Only recently, in a time where poverty affects every race, every state, and almost every community does the mainstream population now care and make it a big deal. The latter student talks about how she questions frequently if she should care now if we didn't care then. The twenty minute discussion ends with the truthful statement that America is a place where the only thing you're promised is an opportunity to achieve success rather than the heavily-misrepresented guarantee of success that seems to plague the mindset of hardened patriots.
With that the film goes on, often entering in on what would rather be bulletins in the school newspaper with the administration dealing with budgetary concerns, the response to furloughs, how to deal with the state of California's economic problems and the lack of funding, and so forth. These closed-door conversations are the core of a Wiseman film. Despite some of his controversial endeavors and the time-changes since he began working in the late sixties, through some miracle, Wiseman continues to get some of the most tantalizing footage you likely wouldn't see elsewhere.
These board meetings, however, are kind of a necessary evil. From my perspective, I really don't care about what a group of suits have to say about the students and the school's population, although I completely see the vitality of the angle and certainly don't object to showing the aforementioned meetings in great length. However, At Berkeley works best when it allows the students to be heard. Day after day on the evening news, we hear about schools closing their doors, schools paying more for this, less for that, cutting this, inserting that, and whose opinion do we hear? The teachers', the principal's, the superintendent's, etc - all the opinions we kind of need to hear. But what do the students think? As a high school student, it's a shame that our voices can be so easily muffled, although I'll be the first to say with great pride and recognition that our voices have expanded in power and in ubiquity in the recent decades.
Consider the final hour of At Berkeley and what it focuses on, for instance - the Occupy Cal movement, one of the many domestic takeoffs of the Occupy Wall Street protests that took America by storm in 2010 and 2011. At its core, the Occupy Cal movement was to ensure that everybody in America have access to quality education along with allowing enough jobs to employ everyone who needed one. The protest involved hundreds of students, who protested on the UC Berkeley campus, who allowed their voice to be heard. After the day of protest concluded, Wiseman decides to sit in with faculty member who chose to interview students on their response and their immediate thoughts on the protests, showing that not only does Wiseman himself care but so do the faculty members in terms of what students' opinions are and where they stand.
One student summed up my thoughts perfectly and that was it was hard to argue that the Occupy Cal movement didn't have good intentions and its egalitarian mindset of equality for every single member in society would be something to cherish in terms of how everyone would be treated "fairly." However, he goes on to say that the revolutionary protests during the sixties and seventies that involved "the student movement" were far more organized and possessed a clearer agenda than those now. While it was brave for numerous to gather and occupy the UC Berkeley campus, it was also very disorganized in terms that it was hard to pinpoint an exact philosophy or core-fundamental as to why the students were protesting and what were they exactly protesting. "It was like a student saying 'I agree with points a, c, d, e, f, and g, but not the other points'," said the student, and with that, you have another student potentially disagreeing with points a, e, and g, but affirming b, c, d, and f. The principles that each student had for protesting were nothing but a muddle.
As with every Wiseman film, the fact that Wiseman himself doesn't state specific views or ostensibly try to lead us down a passage of thinking, we are left to deeply contemplate the themes of his films and what he wants us to extract from them. To me, At Berkeley seems to be his most direct call to social change in regard to education - there needs to be reformation in some way, he states. With every passing scene, the effects of present-day American education are detailed, whether it be through intimate classroom-examinations or those deciding the curriculum, At Berkeley's existence is to show us present day education, its benefits, its shortcomings, and those involved with it who either support it or oppose it. This theme is only elevated by a five minute scene of an older woman with a background in chemistry and bacterial genetics, giving a presentation to UC Berkeley students about the importance of not trusting simple answers to complex questions, taking the spoonfed information by professors passively, and involving themselves in activities that allow personal enrichment.
Another hugely important subject in a slew of many is the appearance of former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, whose film Inequality for All I recently reviewed and praised for its directness and its accessible illustration of economics. Reich talks to a crowded classroom about the importance of "organizational evaluation" and the value of constructive criticism. Reich explains that when he was the Secretary of Labor, he hungered for people to tell him how he did beyond the lines of a phrase like "it's great." The dangers of having that be the extent of someone's feedback makes for honesty and remarks of pure truthfulness and intelligent criticism seem like attacks on character and person. This segment along could've inspired an entire film, but, for now, poses a series of difficult sociological questions, one of them being, if we stop issuing constructive criticism and feedback on how our peers do, than what's the point of actually doing something other than affirming our own particular stance?
At Berkeley is a masterful documentary, and continues my incredible streak with Wiseman, now going on four films I've each found to be exceptional documentaries. With this film, once more, Wiseman shows that even the largest places can be put into a film and, despite conversation that would appear to be direct and to the point, there is still a lot more information below the surface we have yet to penetrate.
Finally, the title of this blog - what does it mean? At one point in At Berkeley, a proctor utters the words, "you have this knowledge - what will you do with it?," asking her students that since they have an amazing resource like UC Berkeley under their built, what do they plan to continue on to with a wealth of information under their belt? By granting that quote the official name of my essay on the film, I now ask those who have watched the film and have undoubtedly gained something from the picture, what will they do with the knowledge At Berkeley itself provides?
NOTE: At Berkeley aired as a part of PBS's long-running Independent Lens series hosted by Stanley Tucci. Wiseman has long aired his films on the PBS network, even dating back to when his controversial debut Titicut Follies aired on the network in 1993 in its first and only Television broadcast to date.
Directed by: Frederick Wiseman.
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