"What I try to do is edit the films so that they will have a dramatic structure. That is why I object to some extent to the term "observational cinema" or cinéma vérité, because observational cinema, to me at least, connotes just hanging around with one thing being as valuable as another, and that is not true. At least, that is not true for me, and cinéma verité is just a pompous French term that has absolutely no meaning as far as I'm concerned."

These are the words of legendary non-fiction director Frederick Wiseman, who has been known to call his films "reality fictions." Focusing largely on American institutions as a subject, Wiseman has created an impressive body of work since his first film of TITICUT FOLLIES in 1967. In 1975, Wiseman released WELFARE (the first film I saw of his), which, spanning nearly three hours, is a portrait of a New York welfare office in the early seventies, from the perspectives of both workers and those in need of assistance. Areas of welfare aid covered include unemployment, housing, divorce, medical and psychiatric problems, concerns of the elderly, child abuse, and abandoned children. The resulting film is both disconcerting and heartening: disconcerting because this bureaucracy seems to be pitted against those least fit to deal with it, and heartening because those running the system are not inhumane and frequently do all they can to help.