What Does the Library Have To Teach Us in 2017? Plenty
In DepthThe new documentary Ex Libris – The New York Public Library works like a Russian nesting doll of information about information about information. In the signature style of master documentarian Frederick Wiseman, this sprawling, almost three-and-a-half-hour opus delivers a series of vignettes (many recurring) shot at various library branches across New York (with a particular emphasis on the Stephen A. Schwarzman building on 5th Ave. between 41st and 42nd streets), devoted to exploring how the library functions inside and out. We see call-center operators attempting to aid in research (“A unicorn is actually an imaginary animal…”), several administrative meetings (including one in which treatment of the library’s homeless patrons is discussed), public talks from the likes of Patti Smith and Ta-Nehisi Coates, someone learning how to read braille, a conversation about a McGraw-Hill textbook that identifies African slaves as “workers,” as well as several scenes illustrating the effort to digitize information. And so much more. Per Wiseman’s aesthetic, there is no obvious solid narrative through-line. This is more a layering of ideas about democracy, society, and the continued relevance of the library despite the supposed decline of the book as a medium, as well as the growth of the library’s services because of it.
Ex Libris – The New York Public Library is pure Wiseman. It’s the 87-year-old director’s 43rd film in 50 years, and this entry into his body of docs about institutions is as vibrant, probing, and multivalent as ever. Wiseman’s movies are always about more than what they are ostensibly about, and in this case he has vividly captured New York in 2015 (including a particularly energetic scene filmed at that year’s Halloween parade, which spectators watch from a branch’s steps). I’ve spoken with him several times before about his work; below is an edited and condensed transcript of a new conversation that took place Tuesday at Film Forum, where Ex Libris is now playing.
FREDERICK WISEMAN: Initially I had the thought, “Well, I haven’t done a library. Give it a whirl. Roll the dice on a library.” I just thought a library would be a good addition to the institutional series I’ve been doing. And I really didn’t know the extent and diversity and depth and services offered by the New York Public Library. But after [NYPL CEO] Tony Marx gave me permission, which he did quite readily, I visited. I spent half a day at the Schwarzman building and another half day visiting three or four branches.
There are so many themes and issues raised here that are inherent to your work.
That’s absolutely true, and I selected to use in the film some of the themes I’ve dealt with in other films, but I didn’t start off [knowing that]. I only really recognized [the themes] toward the end of the editing.
I try during the shooting to be as open as I can to the experiences that I’m having without thinking in very formal or abstract terms about what’s going on. That only happens in the latter stages of the ending. I almost deliberately don’t do that because I don’t want to get caught up in ideological aspects. I want to be able to think about what it is that I saw and have whatever abstract ideas emerge from the experience rather than imposing them on the experience.
It’s interesting to read your reviews to see what pops out to different people. I think through your refusal to dictate, your movies become Rorschachs.
I don’t think any of the films are ideological in the sense that they illustrate a thesis. If anything, they’re the reverse of that. They illustrate the enormous difficulty if not the impossibility of having a thesis that adequately explains the things you see and hear. There was a very pompous man I met in France who said to me, “Monsieur Wiseman, vous etes le Foucault américain!” I tried to plow through Foucault and I thought it was so badly written that I read about 40 pages, but thank god I’m not the Foucault américain. Not that I really know that much about Foucault, but I’m the opposite of that. It’s not that there aren’t ideas in the films, I like to think there are a lot of ideas in the films, but they’re not explanation. They’re not thesis-oriented films.