Frederick Wiseman on the making of his exquisite Ex Libris: New York Public Library, which is about the role of the library in society. This is an excerpt from the ebook In Their Own Words: Documentary Masters Vol. 1, which is now available for purchase here.
Ex Libris: New York Public Library is Frederick Wiseman’s fourth film in five years, each a masterpiece focusing on an institution or group of institutions dedicated to the public good. Over the course of four hours in At Berkeley, Wiseman looked at the inner workings of America’s greatest public university: University of California at Berkeley. In National Gallery, Wiseman travelled to London to discover how the public interact with great works of art. His last film, In Jackson Heights, marked a return to New York City as he documented the country’s most diverse neighbourhood. Examining class and culture through a mix of music, dance, talks, and community meetings, the film was like an overview of Wiseman’s pet topics from throughout his career.
Wiseman continues his winning streak with Ex Libris: New York Public Library, a film that will get you excited about the role of the library in contemporary society. Libraries are no longer merely buildings that house books. They are meeting places to discuss community issues and to get information delivered with passion straight from the experts. At the same time, the library is where people go to find answers to personal questions, from how to deal with a cancer diagnosis to tracking family history.
The New York Public Library is an especially interesting subject because not only does it have local branches across New York City, but it also has specialized branches with special collections. Wiseman visits the Performing Arts Library to see concerts and shows. At one branch, people are creating audio versions of books to make the library’s collection more widely accessible. And at branches in low income neighbourhoods, community outreach programs for tutoring are especially important. By giving us wide shots of each branch’s exterior and interior, we learn about the context of the proceedings we see and how this supports the community.
When Ex Libris screened at the Toronto International Film Festival in September, I talked to Wiseman about the unique challenges presented by the film, his editing process, and how he approaches sound and music in his films.
Seventh Row (7R): In Ex Libris, we get a sense of the rhythm of the library itself: there are sequences of people just quietly studying, on their computers with their headphones in. There are also the talks. We see these things repeat in a way that we see how the libraries function. At the same time, you’re building in an argument about what the library does and means.
Frederick Wiseman: A film has to work on a variety of levels. On a literal level, in this case, what are the various activities of the library? At an abstract level, what’s suggested by these activities? On a literal level, you see all the various programs and services. At an abstract level, you see this is democracy in action. You see the services be free regardless of race, class, economic status, ethnicity, etc. When Toni Morrison is quoted as saying that the library is a great democratic institution, you then understand what she means by that.
[clickToTweet tweet=”Wiseman on libraries: ‘This is democracy in action.'” quote=”Wiseman on libraries: ‘This is democracy in action.'”]
7R: How did you figure out which library branches to shoot at?
Frederick Wiseman: The library publishes a monthly bulletin of the classes, courses, visits, talks, and seminars that are offered at various branches. I read that. I had a liaison at the library. When I wanted to find something out, I just called her up. Then, I just picked whatever interested me. Not randomly — I’d look a day or two in advance. There were some meetings that took place on a regular basis, like the chiefs meeting — the senior executives of the library would meet every Wednesday at nine, so I showed up at their offices on Wednesday at nine. A lot of it is just random: you walk down the corridor and see something interesting.
7R: One of the interesting things you said about National Gallery was that on film, you could show a painting in a different way than how you would look at it on the wall in a gallery. Was there an equivalent here?
Frederick Wiseman: No. A painting is a finished work. A book doesn’t lend itself to representation on film in the way a painting does. You need a combination of wide shots, medium shots, and closeups. You accumulate them during the shooting. There was nothing in the library movie that was equivalent to shooting the paintings in the nation gallery, except for the photographs and the prints shot, but they were always shot as shots where it’s possible for the photograph or painting to fill the screen. There’s no effort, as there was in National Gallery, to break up a print or a photograph into storytelling parts.
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7R: With In Jackson Heights, you mentioned that when you’re shooting, you want to get certain kinds of shots of the surroundings, or the subway, that you could then edit together.
Frederick Wiseman: The equivalent of that in the library movie would be the need to show the different neighbourhoods, to suggest the different neighborhoods for the different branches. I didn’t just jump from the sequence in the main library on 42nd Street to a sequence in Harlem. There was a transition of four or five shots that brought us to Harlem, or to the Bronx, or to a library in Greenwich Village.
Those kinds of shots serve a variety of purposes. They create a transition so we know we are in a new geographic location. They give you a sense of the neighbourhood where the library exists. They provide a short respite from the scene just concluded before the next one begins.
The principal challenge is you’ve got this great blob of material in front of you, which has no form, except insofar as you impose a form in the process of editing.
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7R: What is your overall editing process?
Frederick Wiseman: When I come back from the shooting, I look at all the rushes. That takes me six weeks. As a result of that, I set aside maybe 40 or 50% of the material. One the next six or eight months, I edit all the sequences I think I might use. It’s only when I’ve edited all the sequences that I might use that I begin to work on the structure. I can’t do structure in the abstract. I have to see its consequences to see how it works. I may edit a sequence in month one, and I don’t get back to it until month nine, when I’m working on the structure.
[clickToTweet tweet=”‘I can’t do structure in the abstract. I have to see its consequences to see how it works.’ -Wiseman” quote=”‘I can’t do structure in the abstract. I have to see its consequences to see how it works.’ -Wiseman”]
At the end of when I start working on the structure, I make the assembly in three or four days, because I know the material very well at that point and can make the changes quickly. That first version comes out to within 30 or 40 minutes of the final film. Then, it takes me about six to eight weeks to arrive at the final film. What I do then is work on the internal rhythm of each sequence and the external rhythm between the sequences. Often, I shorten a sequence. Occasionally, I lengthen it. When the film is done, I go back and look at all the rushes again to make sure there isn’t anything useful that I left out.
To read the rest of the interview with Frederick Wiseman on his film Ex Libris: The New York Public Library, purchase a copy of the ebook In Their Own Words: Documentary Masters Vol. 1 here.
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7R: There are a lot of very funny sequences in Ex Libris. How do you work out the comic timing?
Frederick Wiseman: First of all, you have to recognize it as funny. Then, you have to figure out how to edit the sequence from which it’s drawn so that the comedy emerges properly, so it’s not comedy that emerges at anybody’s expense, but comedy that arrives out of the situation. Then, you have to determine where to place it. To take an obvious example, you can’t place all the jokes together. Which fit together, which have to be separated by half an hour in the film: that’s a matter of trial and error. Sometimes, you hit it right the first time, and sometimes, it takes weeks to figure out where it should go.
[clickToTweet tweet=”‘You have to recognize it as funny. Then, you have to figure out how to edit so that the comedy emerges properly.'” quote=”‘You have to recognize it as funny. Then, you have to figure out how to edit so that the comedy emerges properly.'”]
One of the crucial aspects of film editing is feeling you understand what is going on in a given sequence. I have to always ask myself the question “Why?” Why are these words used? Why is this gesture here? Why does someone move in this way? Is there any significance to the clothes they’re wearing?
Part of the fun of making these movies is it requires commitment of all your capacities, all your resources: the intellectual and emotional. You have to be very alert during the shooting, to know what to shoot, when to shoot, when to start, when to stop. You have to be alert in a different way in the editing: you have to convince yourself, even though you may be wrong, that you understand what’s going on in the sequence. If you don’t know what’s going on, you can’t make the choices involved in compressing an hour and a half to six minutes, or where to place it. It’s a process that parts of it are very instinctive and parts of it are very rational.
7R: How did you approach using music in the film?
FW: One of the issues in the editing is to make the structure interesting but simultaneously informative. One of the ways I use music is as a counterpoint to a really long talk sequence. After one of the meetings with the chiefs, I might have gone to a concert, because it’s a little break from the talk. It’s a question of trial and error.
It’s all part of the dramatic structure. You don’t want too many heavy talking sequences together. If something is very emotionally wrenching, you don’t want the next sequence to be very emotionally wrenching. In a general way, I might describe it as cutting at right angles, so you’re always surprised about what comes next, because it veers in a different direction.r
[clickToTweet tweet=”‘I might describe it as cutting at right angles, so you’re always surprised about what comes next.'” quote=”‘I might describe it as cutting at right angles, so you’re always surprised about what comes next.'”]
7R: How do you think about sound when you’re editing?
FW: The sound transitions between the sequences are particularly important. When people are talking, and you’re editing the sequence, it’s a question of what talking you’re going to use. It’s very rare, in a meeting, for example, that I use consecutive talk. I select it from here, there, and everywhere, and edit it down to appear as if it took place the way you’re watching it, when it didn’t, or it may not have.
[clickToTweet tweet=”‘I select it from here and everywhere, and edit it down to appear as if it took place the way you’re watching it.'” quote=”‘I select it from here and everywhere, and edit it down to appear as if it took place the way you’re watching it.'”]
A different problem is when you’re dealing with sound transitions: at what point do you continue the sound from sequence one under sequence two? Do you start the sound from sequence two before sequence one is over? What is the sound like? What you do in the editing is provide the possibility for those overlapping sounds in the mix? You determine the exact levels in the mix after the picture and sound are locked.
7R: What is the process of figuring out the mix and the levels?
FW: When you’re preparing for the mix, you try to have all the sound moments that you think you might need in order to make the best possible choices. You don’t make the judgment until you hear it in ideal circumstances. Then, at that time, you feel whether or not you want to lose one of the tracks. You figure out where you want the fade up or the fade down.
For example, you may end up with a 60 frame fade, but you will lay it in at 400 frames, so that you’ll know that you can deal with whatever contingency arrives in the mix. You have to make sure you have the material. In preparing for the mix, I always make the extensions longer. I don’t know, at that point, the lengths of the fade. Sometimes, I don’t even know if I’m going to use it. In the editing room, you just have a couple of speakers.
Sequence one may be a meeting at 42nd Street and sequence two may be outside of the building. But when you’re in the meeting room, you still have the traffic outside. The building has windows, and it’s on the street. So the question is what the level is.
[clickToTweet tweet=”‘When you’re preparing for the mix, I allow 100 frames for the sound transitions.’ – Wiseman” quote=”‘When you’re preparing for the mix, I allow 100 frames for the sound transitions.’ – Wiseman”]
When you’re preparing for the mix, I allow 100 frames for the sound transitions. The volume and the duration of that sound depends. The sound when a sequence is ending may continue for us for 60 frames under the sequence that’s beginning. It’s also possible that the sound from the sequence that’s beginning will start 60 or 100 frames under the sequence that’s ending. I know that I’m going to do it, but I don’t know if I’m going to use 42 frames or 106 frames. I have a rough idea that I want it to fade around 65 frames, but until I hear the sound in ideal conditions, I don’t know whether it’s 60 frames or 72 frames. At most, I have six tracks. You can fiddle with it in the editing room, but you can’t do it as precisely as in the mix.
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