Domestic Violence

Frederick Wiseman – 2001 – USA

Domestic Violence is one of Frederick Wiseman’s most harrowing films, at least for me, not because of its dispassionate gaze at a thoroughly upsetting issue, but simply because the barrage of frustrating and tragic stories naturally take their toll over the course of three hours and 15 minutes.  Wiseman has trained his camera on some pretty heavy subjects, such as scientific experimentation on animals (Primate, 1975) or the handling of terminal patients by hospitals (Near Death, 1989), but at least in those cases you are anchored in a particular institution and come to be involved in its daily workings, just as Wiseman himself does.  Here, though, we are in a variety of settings in Tampa, Florida as the camera roams free, stopping in to look at cops, social workers and support groups dealing with endless cases of assaults on women by drunk, angry, loathsome men.  Whether you’re listening to victims describe their experiences or suspects making excuses and trying to weasel their way out of being arrested, the effect is grueling because it seems as though this is no hope in the cycle of abuse that begins in childhood and ends in old age.  Worst of all is the tale of a married woman in her 70s who finally sought help only to be coaxed into returning to her husband by the rest of the family who cared only about restoring order and avoiding scandal.  Domestic Violence is – possibly deliberately by Wiseman – a ‘thinking man’s’ Cops that is more reflective of reality than the long-running exploitation TV show, where the carting off of flailing trailer trash by even-tempered police was the answer to all of society’s problems.  Wiseman, in contrast, sees few resolutions, happy or otherwise.  I learned from Roger Ebert that no good movie is depressing, but this one makes me reconsider.