Near Death

Frederick Wiseman – 1989 – USA

In Frederick Wiseman’s longest film, a whopping six hours, the veteran filmmaker demonstrates definitively that even the grimmest subjects and even the plainest presentation are not off-putting or tedious when handled honestly and creatively.  Shot in 16mm black-and-white, (highly passé even by the late 80s), Near Death looks at several cases of terminal illness in Beth Israel Hospital in Boston.  As is so often the case with Wiseman’s films, it serves as kind of an antidote to the TV news-magazine style programs, where a crew goes into a situation knowing what they want, get it, and then compress the juiciest material into a 10-minute piece.  Wiseman doesn’t let anyone off that easily.  His entire approach, as unobtrusive as it is, still always underscores the fact that peoples’ lives can’t be contained in a nutshell no matter how much contemporary media insists on trying.  In this film’s case, the daunting amount of material makes one think of Wiseman’s process of editing, which he carefully supervises for months or even years after a shoot concludes.  Through selecting and arranging his footage, Wiseman creates an aesthetic for the complete film that is homogenous and organic.  In some contexts this can result in a 90-minute film; in others, like here or in Ballet (1995) or Belfast, Maine (1999), something significantly longer.  The point is that Wiseman’s freedom in shaping the film into what feels right assures us that we are seeing the truest version possible; not, as in television or in Hollywood movies, something that’s either stripped or padded to fit a pre-decided running time.  There are no extended “special editions” of Wiseman’s films in which he stuffs back in deleted scenes.  Whatever he gives us the first time around is the only possible “director’s cut.”  In Near Death, both patients and doctors are portrayed with simple dignity and intelligence; and this is the source of my only real gripe about the film.  Since everyone is essentially performing for Wiseman’s probing camera, I’m a little skeptical about how humanely and understandingly they would all be treating each other under normal circumstances.  That’s a minor issue overall, though, as it is an engrossing and yes at times grueling experience from its opening shots to its conclusion depicting the journey of a new corpse from hospital bed to morgue and finally into a hearse that whisks it away.