"Let The Music Go Inside of You"

By Richard Zoglin

It was 1967 when Frederick Wiseman directed his first documentary, Titicut Follies, a powerful look at life inside a Massachusetts prison for the criminally insane. At that time Follies' cinema-verite style exemplified the vanguard of documentary filmmaking: no interviews, no narration, no overt intrusion of the filmmaker's point of view. Since then, the technique has become something of a TV cliche. Prime-time shows from Hill Street Blues to CBS's 48 Hours have appropriated the hand-held camera and other slice-of-life touches. Even commercial directors have tossed away their tripods: cameras wander about relentlessly, trying to sell "reality" as well as Nissan automobiles and Levi's jeans.

Meanwhile, Wiseman has remained austerely, some would say maddeningly, consistent. In a string of further documentaries for public TV, his cameras have observed institutions from a New York City welfare office to Dallas' Neiman-Marcus department store, all with the same unvarnished, fly-on-the-wall style. Even his titles -- Hospital, Welfare, Racetrack, The Store -- are stripped to the bluntly descriptive essentials. Behind Wiseman's minimalist method, however, is a subtle and perceptive artist. His enduring subject: the way people cope with the stress, dislocation and institutional indifference of American life.

Deaf and Blind, Wiseman's newest work, is his longest yet and one of his best. It is made up of four separate documentaries, each two hours or more in length, focusing on the Alabama Institute for Deaf and Blind in Talladega. The films -- separately titled Blind, Deaf, Multi-Handicapped and Adjustment and Work -- teem with affecting, carefully assembled detail. A little blind girl, new cane in hand and helped by a teacher, gropes through the hallways in search of a children's drinking fountain. "I deserved a drink of water for that, didn't I?" she chirps after finally taking a sip. Disabled adults are trained in sewing and other rudimentary work skills. Children with motor handicaps struggle to master tasks like folding a washcloth or negotiating the spout of a milk carton.

There are occasional notes of ironic commentary. A Bible teacher tries to engage a group of handicapped children in his lesson, but most seem as oblivious to it as they are to the TV set that drones forlornly in the school's recreation room. Yet Wiseman is remarkably nonjudgmental; his best scenes are poignant rather than pointed. A class of blind children lie on the floor while three teachers caress them with wispy fabrics and a piano plunks out Over the Rainbow. "I want you to think about pleasant things," says a teacher soothingly, "and I want you to let the music go all inside of you . . ."

It is not difficult, of course, to make an impact with scenes of handicapped children. The more impressive achievement of Deaf and Blind is its picture of the school's staff, seen working with the children and meeting with one another to discuss curriculum and disciplinary problems. In one extraordinary 45-minute sequence, a deaf boy who has repeatedly threatened suicide is counseled by a trio of concerned adults: a teacher, the school's director and the boy's mother. Their tactics are sometimes dubious -- "Do you like what you see?" says the director, holding a mirror in front of the boy's sad face -- but the compassion and sincerity are unmistakable. Here, as in all his best films, Wiseman is ultimately moving, even uplifting. This uncompromising realist keeps plunging into the world's hurly-burly and returning with portraits of good people.