At Berkeley By Fredrick Wiseman Analysis

The documentary At Berkeley directed by Fredrick Wiseman is a masterpiece that allows its viewers the ability to take a look into the higher public education system in the United States. This film makes a statement about higher public education in the United States by using various Cinematic techniques. During his time in northern California Wiseman had the privilege of observing the lives of different people at the University of Cal Berkeley and noticed a trend that he felt needed to be presented. The trend was how hard it is for an institution to maintain excellence amid incredible financial pressure from all directions and how hard it is for students to stay apart of this excellence. Wiseman was able to create a narrative that shows how
This is the other central focus to Wiseman’s narrative. A narrative is considered to be a chain of events linked by cause and effect. A random string of events can be difficult to follow and with Wiseman’s style of shooting this is always a challenge to overcome. Characters can be causes similar to how Birgeneau was the cause of previous events in Wiseman’s narrative. For the viewer to connect with how hard it is for students to be apart of Berkeley’s excellence Wiseman needs a character they can sympathize with and he finds one during a meeting talking about what the school can do to help students with financial aid. The audience is treated to a young woman, whose mother is a teacher also being affected by budget cuts, who feels awful because she feels the need to work harder in order to pay for the higher costs of going to the university. The audience is seeing a real person crying on screen and can see the raw pain and emotion that she is going through. This character can then be a cause for later events in the narrative that act as a climax. For both the students and administration the climax of this film is the protest that starts on one side of campus and ends in a library. Both the crying girl and Birgeneau are causes to how the climax of the film unfolds and because each side had rising action to
The statement Wiseman is making is that higher public education should be free in a country of the stature of ours. Wiseman does this by creating a complex narrative using cinematography and editing. The narrative that Wiseman created was one depicted a university that has dwindling funds but still wants to do the best for its students. Those students are fed up with the rising fees because of the shrinking funds and decide to fight back. Both sides are in the right in Wiseman’s narrative and are fighting against the common villain, the lack of money put towards education. Wiseman’s desire for change shines through over the course of the film in different excerpts of campus that he decides to highlight. The narrative that Wiseman created is a strong one and it urges our country to make sure the inevitable change that happens is positive when it comes to our