{"id":296,"date":"2014-01-13T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-01-13T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/at-berkeley"},"modified":"2022-03-03T16:30:59","modified_gmt":"2022-03-04T00:30:59","slug":"at-berkeley","status":"publish","type":"films","link":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/documentaries\/at-berkeley\/","title":{"rendered":"At Berkeley"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201c[At Berkeley<\/i><\/strong>] is a state-of-the-nation masterwork, a vitally important piece of work, and should be seen by as many people as possible.\u201d \u2013 Oliver Lyttleton, The Playlist<\/i><\/p>\n

Renowned documentarian Frederick Wiseman has long been considered the \u201cmost democratic of great movie artists,\u201d as critic Peter Rainer wrote, capturing institutions like hospitals, boxing gyms, and high schools through the eyes of the people who experience and live in them.<\/p>\n

For his 38th documentary, Wiseman goes to college, specifically to the University of California at Berkeley \u2014 the oldest and most prestigious member of a ten campus public education system, and also considered one of the finest research and teaching facilities in the world. This wide-ranging film, named to numerous critics\u2019 \u201cBest of 2013\u201d lists, shows the major aspects of university life, including the administrative efforts to maintain the academic excellence and public profile, as well as the economic, racial, and social diversity of the school\u2019s student body in the face of drastic budgetary cuts imposed by the State of California.<\/p>\n

Without narration or interviews, the film takes viewers from faculty meetings to classrooms, from financial aid seminars to research labs, inviting us to experience the diverse aspects of campus life through the eyes of students, faculty, administrators, alumni, the City of Berkeley, the State of California, and the federal government. Highlighting campus diversity with a keen, selective eye and at times a wry sense of humor, Wiseman\u2019s film shows us everything from ROTC (Reserve Officers\u2019 Training Corps) practicing for war to students singing about Facebook, from engineering students building robots to a football crowd rallying behind their team. We learn from provocative lectures and discussions led by renowned professors on history, math, science, and literature. The film also takes us to adjacent Telegraph Avenue for colorful street merchants and musicians.<\/p>\n

While At Berkeley<\/i> is filmed in a wholly unique college setting, Wiseman\u2019s extraordinary ability to capture the full human experience gives the University of California at Berkeley a sense of universality.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Legendary documentarian Frederick Wiseman goes back to school for this intimate yet sprawling film about the University of California at Berkeley, the oldest and most prestigious member of a ten campus public education system.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":9877,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"topic":[1216,1225,1293],"class_list":["post-296","films","type-films","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","topic-arts-and-culture","topic-politics-and-government","topic-youth-and-family"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nAt Berkeley | Life on the University of California Campus | Independent Lens<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Legendary documentarian Frederick Wiseman goes back to school for this intimate and sprawling film about the University of California at Berkeley.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, 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