Domestic Violence

Tampa, Florida: Focusing on police officers responding to domestic violence calls and The Spring, a shelter for women and children, Wiseman creates a harrowing film about power structures and patriarchal violence. "Television commentators and pop psychologists are fond of invoking the ‘cycle’ of domestic violence, but Fred Wiseman is the first artist who’s had the stubborn perseverance to take apart this eminently dramatic ‘phenomenon’ and give as a glimpse of the sad mechanism within." (Kent Jones) (hb)