Law and Order [1969]

 1960s were marked by fierce civil rights movements and anti-Vietnam War protests that deeply reshaped the US. Hence, when Frederick Wiseman decided to make a documentary on Kansas City’s police department – in the same year when the city, like many others, were rocked by massive unrest following Martin Luther King’s assassination and the ensuing police brutality – he planned an avowedly anti-police film. His approach, however, evolved as he and cameraman Bill Brayne embedded themselves into the daily patrols and rode with the cops for over 400 hours all-day long. The viscerally unsettling work, that remains topical to this day, was consequently more nuanced than what Wiseman had originally intended, while delivering a powerful critique on the entrenched institutional racism, sexism and violence blatantly cloaked in impunity. The filmmaker’s observational and “neutral” posture, along with the grainy 16mm B/W images, lent rich undercurrents to his freewheeling street reportage of a string of sequences both significant and mundane. The most chilling moment occurs midway when a group of cops viciously break into an apartment and one of them holds a helpless black sex worker in a chokehold; one can only guess if the camera’s presence stopped him from crossing the line, or if that even made any difference. Other unnerving instances included two teenagers carrying guns being apprehended in a clothing store, along with an unrelated guy with the same skin colour; and a delinquent young man, accused of hit-and-run, being handled with visible roughness upon his arrest. The crisscrossing episodes together underscored the brazen power imbalance that was on display where a majorly black town – mired in impoverishment, ghettoization and systemic oppression – is controlled by a decidedly white police force.

Director: Frederick Wiseman

Genre: Documentary/Institutional Documentary

Language: English

Country: US