Wiseman's Own Public Idaho
Just in time for the political primary season, this weekend, Anthology Film Archives will screen "State Legislature," the latest documentary by a master and 40-year veteran of the form, Frederick Wiseman. While our presidential candidates quarrel over their qualifications for governing, Mr. Wiseman presents government in action, warts and all, in Boise, Idaho. It's a fascinating glimpse at the hewing and sanding of laws into shape that, whatever your political views, induces a sense of pride in good old representative democracy.
Shot over 11 weeks at the grand Idaho state capitol, "State Legislature" spirits you through the arenas where the letter of the law comes into focus — committees (judiciary, transportation), public comment sessions, and meetings in offices, back rooms, and hallways. Idaho's bicameral legislature is run by part-time citizen legislators, which means that the diligent men and women populating the capitol building have other careers. As the house speaker (a rancher who has since retired from service) tells a visiting school group, solons like him have to live with their decisions at the end of the day.
Mr. Wiseman's approach to the legislature is characteristically observational: This fly on the wall doesn't make a peep, whether via voice-over, explanatory text, or clarifying experts. Early on, a committee discussion about a law criminalizing "video voyeurism" unfolds organically under this gaze (in an amusing choice of subject for a vérité movie). The participants fine-tune (felony? misdemeanor?) and raise objections (what about one-off college pranksters?). But rather than trailing this single bill, ŕ la "Schoolhouse Rock," the movie proceeds to other issues, other rooms.
The overriding impression of these sessions is of sensible civility and earnest deliberation. Combined with interludes, such as a children's choir performance under the capitol dome or the recognition of a war veteran prior to a debate, the sense of community and conscientious intentions is quite heartening. Even Mr. Wiseman's you-be-the-judge style, which demands active viewing, seems to dovetail with the notion of participatory government.
Though some lawmakers appear more than once, scenes in "Stage Legislature" are more caught up in respectful tussling in the moment than in a "West Wing" drama of personalities and intrigue. Cases for and against everything from smoking bans to curtailing public comment hinge on principles of individual autonomy, free enterprise, and limited government. Two transit officials who petition the house speaker soften him up for their policy pitch with laughs about the newly discovered element "governmentonium," a stultifying, self-proliferating heavy metal.
A few too-clean-looking lobbyists surface, and two representatives commiserate over telecom company skulduggery, but Mr. Wiseman seems less interested in uncovering any sordid underbelly. As for hot-button topics, he saves for his finale the discussion of a constitutional amendment in defense of marriage, which keeps the issue in the greater gear-grinding context. A hallway chat between a lawmaker and an advocate for illegal immigrants yields the first testy bit of conflict and neatly suggests how a largely homogeneous state faces its own learning curves. (Amusingly, New York pops up as a bogeyman more than once.)
While "State Legislature" is much more than a 217-minute helping of C-SPAN, the sober public milieu does lack the gripping emotional engagement and range native to Mr. Wiseman's other movies, such as "Belfast, Maine" (1999) or "Welfare" (1975). There are good-humored exchanges, serious speeches, and many moments of respect, but the filmmaker doesn't shy from lingering on procedure.
"State Legislature" emerges as an homage to the continuity of institutions. Mr. Wiseman, in a typically elegant aside, spotlights one erudite public commenter as he reels off the great thinkers from ancient Greece through to Locke and Tom Paine that undergird American government. In the closing segment — a memorial speech to a deceased veteran lawmaker — the camera watches a bagpipe dirge, but remains on the open floor as the musician marches out: Laws and government outlast their makers, and endure.
Through Sunday (32 Second Ave., between 1st and 2nd streets, 212-505-5181).
