'La Danse' (Courtesy of Zipporah Films)

Dancers pirouette around the grand stage of the Paris Opera Ballet in La Danse with outstanding precision, as we watch from the wings or in the audience, mesmerized. It’s almost like we’re there ourselves, yet this isn’t quite the case. This is how stunning and magical master documentarian Frederick Wiseman’s return to the institution of ballet is.

Beginning his career with the now famous Titicut Follies, a glimpse inside a correctional institution, Wiseman has since spread to filming the goings on in other similar institutions. His more famous works have taken him from the inner city high school to a battered women’s shelter and, eventually, as shown here, back to the institution of dance. Wiseman made the film Ballet in 1995, which follows the goings on inside the American Ballet Theatre company. La Danse could then be viewed as a repetitive exercise, though it’s anything but. Wiseman decided to film the Paris Opera Ballet when he was living in Paris, and thought it would be interesting to revisit the subject. The composure of the two companies was also intriguing for him. “The companies are very different,” Wiseman pointed out. “One relies on donations from wealthy donors, while the other is state-funded, so they’re obviously very different. This proved to be particularly interesting.”

Courtesy of Zipporah Films

Wiseman’s films have a distinct style that is bordering on voyeuristic. He refuses to adapt to documentary convention, forgoing the talking heads or interview style for a more realistic tone. He stands on the sidelines, simply filming what is going on, from rehearsals to conversations in real time. This style of film-making doesn’t seem suitable for a documentary, but as Wiseman will assure you, it definitely works. “Reality is as equally funny and tragic as the staged,” notes Wiseman. “I like to capture this by filming events as they occur without interference.” And that he does. His lack of effects or interviews allow the events of his films to slowly unfold, capturing natural emotions and actions that some other documentarians struggle to find with their films.

He generally spends about four to six weeks on location acquiring footage (though, in the case of La Danse, he was there for 12 weeks), yet doesn’t do any preparation whatsoever. Prior to the start of filming, Wiseman went in the day beforehand and walked around the company’s building to get a feel for the location and to figure out the schedule of the company’s dancers. “At least with the documentary,” said Wiseman, “there’s not really much point in hanging around for a long amount of time beforehand — you just need to go in and film.”

Wiseman (Courtesy of Zipporah Films)

Wiseman began filming at the Paris Opera Ballet in Fall 2007, after initially requesting to do so in the Spring. The assistant to Brigitte Lefevre had seen a large amount of Wiseman’s films and implored her boss to allow him to film the company. Brigitte was quick to honor his request. Filming wasn’t particularly difficult, despite the large amount of mirrors in the rehearsal areas, which initially raised some concerns. “With most ballet films, it seems like you only see parts of the dancer’s body at once, and in my film, I wanted to showcase the entire body of the dancer with no closeups whatsoever,” said Wiseman. “The mirrors didn’t particularly pose any problems there.”

The real challenge still lies in the editing room, as Wiseman obtains hundreds of hours of footage for each film that he makes. La Danse had about 130 hours and took about year to edit down to its current run-time, which is a little over two and a half hours. Wiseman and his crew worked seven days a week for hours on end in a process that was undeniably stressful. “It’s not as bad as one thinks it is,” Wiseman assured me. “I find my films in the editing process, so it’s the most rewarding part of the process, even if it is time-consuming.”

Even though Wiseman has moved on from the world of dance, his next film, about boxing, isn’t much different. Continuing onwards with the “cinema verite” style that many label his works as embodying, Wiseman was quick to tell me that he thought that classification was worthless. “Cinema verite is a pompous French term,” said Wiseman, laughing. “It doesn’t really mean anything, and it brings about that cliche of “fly on the wall” cinema, and my films are anything but.”

La Danse started a two-week run at NYC’s Film Forum on November 4^th.