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Welfare

1975

Frederick Wiseman

Documentary

8.2

73

Documentary Frederick Wiseman examines a wide diversity of welfare-related situations during the film’s 167 minutes. Areas covered include unemployment, housing, divorce, medical and psychiatric problems, concerns of the elderly, child abuse, and abandoned children.

	Author	Review
United Kingdom	Derek Malcolm The Guardian	"Masterpiece (...) The result is both mind-boggling and eye-opening"	POS
United States	Richard Brody The New Yorker	"What makes it not merely smart but profoundly moving is his alertness to the tension between the order of institutions (...) and the unruly, passionate, authentic needs and desires of individuals."	POS
United States	Jonathan Rosenbaum Chicago Reader	"Wiseman's customary refusal to add an offscreen commentary makes the film even more compelling"	POS
United Kingdom	Time Out	"The film has a sharp eye for the exhausted, melancholy, and angry faces (...) Wiseman avoids facile stereotypes"	POS
United States	Joseph Morgenstern The New York Times	"Having created a quasi‐fictional world that exists on Its own terms, Wiseman has also succeeded, as never before, in making a film that speaks to larger social issues"	POS

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