RIP Train: Frederick Wiseman's EX LIBRIS: THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY (2017)

 (Fittingly, one of the very few films by Wiseman available via my inter-library loan system on DVD... though damn it, this starts with a Richard Dawkins jump-scare! I used to like that guy's work a lot, but that was way back in my youth of my... early 20s. Sigh. And what we know now that we didn't in 2017. Anyway!)

(On artists taking from the NYPL picture collections) "Andy Warhol stole lots of stuff from us." You don't say!

(Lincoln Center host): "We share the Library's mission of being a warm, welcoming place that's committed to education and committed to nurturing everyone's passions and curiosity."

And there it is in a nutshell with Wiseman's remarkable and perfectly curious film, which is that he welcomes us into this world and shows what it means to be passionate and curious about any great range of subjects first and foremost. Wiseman was for his entire career about probing through his lens and his choices in showing how systems work in the same vein of a library: how does something work, how do you learn more, how does that make us more curious and maybe try a little more whether it is the same system years from now or it can possibly change.

It is not simply about what we typically think a library has like the NYPL, though there are over its 7 day span things like interviews with authors at speaking engagements, the people who go to a library to do work or research or to play video games, and to have meetings of picture archives, shown with total interest - it is structured over that many days and that is where, rather invisibly but surely, Wiseman gives this form and structure - there is also the fact that the NYPL is all over various boroughs of New York city.

We see what it is like at the Bronx branch, for example, and where figures like from US Border Patrol speak to a gathering about what they do for job possibilities (wait, a library offering jobs? Yes, that is something they do). We also see what it is like in a staff board room going over what the budget and figures are and how that is just as important for our understanding of how a library works as seeing an educator working with a young girl on what she is reading at another branch. 

In order for this institution, or for that matter by extension any library, to function the gears have to be turning in engaging the public, for all manner of material on paper and by authors and by musicians and so on, to be accessible and as comprehensive as possible.

Because it is a library there are also wonderful pockets of space where we see people doing things, sometimes in quiet and other times (more often) in groups; the wonder of looking at books of indexes and going through slides of old newspapers; sitting in contemplation; the disabled obtaining real services and help. Maybe we even see some things we are not used to seeing in a Wiseman movie like actual public figures (Elvis Costello, Wonderful! Patti Smith, a Goddess!) adds some novelty. And there is the underrated grace and generosity that comes with a person in front of a microphone telling people in a room how or possibly to have knowledge and what to do with that.  

Some might argue it may even be too much included, but I don't *think so. I liked what one writer on this site said which is that you get to sort of wander all of these spaces and rooms and discussions and you see what is being celebrated as well as criticized (if lightly) in terms of bureaucratic resistance at times with the city and library.

What makes it so memorable is the accumulation of all of these events and little moments and organization, and that there is so much that this place does that we may all take for granted (and reading in between the lines one could say Wiseman is saying: all of this could be diminished if the government has their way).  

This is in other words an epic depiction of what good humans can do for one another. It is both very specific and very broad all at once; this is one city's library, but what about yours, or the one in your city? I could have watched another hour of this.