Film: Belfast, Maine

Yale Film Archive: Wisemania Film Series Belfast, Maine (Frederick Wiseman, 1999, 16mm, 249 mins) Frederick Wiseman turns his camera on a coastal town caught between its industrial past and an uncertain future, showing us what economic change looks, sounds, and feels like as it transforms the texture of daily life. Moving from factories and family businesses to classrooms, churches, and Death of a Salesman rehearsals, he observes the cadences and concerns of a community coming to terms with what’s being lost. “An immensely rich and immeasurably valuable microcosm of American life at the end of the twentieth century” (Stuart Klawans). 16mm print from the Yale Film Archive. Yale Film Archive's Wisemania series is a multi-year exploration of the works of documentarian Frederick Wiseman. Yale Film Archive screenings are always free and open to the public. See the full film schedule here.