City Hall (2020)
dir. Frederick Wiseman
Rated: N/A
image: ©2020 Zipporah Films
Direct cinema documentarian Frederick Wiseman’s 46th feature film is called, simply, City Hall. It chronicles the workings of the local government of a great American city, Boston, Massachusetts. Shot during the fall of 2018 and the winter of 2019, Wiseman and his crew give us glimpses into Boston Mayor Martin Walsh’s administration and examines in incredible detail what makes a city run.
Over the course of its 4.5-hour runtime, we witness moments like Walsh giving a state of the city address, city employees holding a meeting about reducing evictions, and garbage collectors tossing waste into the maw of a garbage truck. It might sound mundane – much of the film is devoted to presentations by city employees and city meetings in which people troubleshoot issues – yet in Wiseman’s expert hands, it’s anything but. City Hall makes a robust argument, in its quiet, unassuming way, for the idea that engagement and dedication from civil servants can make a real and positive difference in people’s lives.
It is also a refutation of Donald Trump. As we stand in the aftermath of violence from Trump’s supporters, which he fueled with his nihilistic and self-serving lies about the 2020 election being rigged against him, Wiseman’s picture shows us what it actually means to govern. We see the nuts and bolts of making a city work, which can easily be seen as a microcosm for the nation. His name is only mentioned a handful of times, but City Hall is ultimately an uplifting anti-Trump film; it’s perhaps the only one we need.
It’s refreshing to see someone who actually cares about the people he has sworn to serve instead of his own power and aggrandizement. Throughout the film, we get the sense that Mayor Martin Walsh – or, as he calls himself in his thick Bostonian accent, Mahty – is dedicated to pursuing equity for marginalized communities in Boston and raising the living standard of each of its citizens.
I was moved by Walsh’s speech about sending aid to another great city, Houston, after a catastrophic hurricane. He relates how seeing that city’s desperate need made him want to ensure Boston was ready to meet a similar disaster, should it arise. Watching the documentary in the COVID-19 world, knowing that the people I was seeing didn’t have the faintest idea about what was on the horizon, made me anxious. But it also made me hopeful, because City Hall makes clear that Boston is run by people who actually give a damn about providing for the citizens.
Walsh – who has deep ties to organized labor – was recently selected by President Biden as his choice for Secretary of Labor. At one point during the film, we see Walsh give an impassioned speech at a rally for a nurse’s union. He tells of having cancer as a child, and how it was the nurses who stood by his bedside as he recovered. In another scene, he addresses a Veteran’s Day gathering where vets tell their literal war stories. Walsh says that even though he didn’t serve in the military, he struggled with alcohol addiction and that the support he received in recovery gives him an appreciation for the support that vets who are struggling with PTSD also need.
These two scenes showcase Walsh’s vulnerability and it’s a wildly refreshing thing to see and hear. He doesn’t mince around a stage talking about being “hugely smart” or having “all the best words.” Instead, we see him spend time on the minutia of city government. We see him address a senior citizen’s meeting, discussing strategies for not falling prey to scammers after one elderly woman describes giving her credit card number to someone on the phone because he said he was from the city water department.
But the movie doesn’t only give us a fly-on-the-wall perspective of the most powerful members of Boston city government. We also see dozens of everyday folks who are passionate about their small piece of the civic puzzle. We see a young kid – I’m surely getting old, because while I know he was an adult, probably in his early 20s, he looked about 16 to me – speak to an artist about beautifying a public space near a methadone clinic. This area serves as an opportunity for addicts to begin to put their lives back together, and the kid is clearly passionate about making the space as inviting and uplifting as possible.
Wiseman also isn’t afraid to document parts of the process that are broken. We follow, in several different passages, the planning and early stages of a new development in Dudley Square – recently renamed Nubian Square – an area of the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston. In one community meeting, a concerned citizen expresses frustration that the developer, however well intentioned, hasn’t listened to the community’s input for the new development. We see a representative for the developer try his best to defend their efforts. This scenario has played out thousands of times across the country as communities – most often communities of color and with few resources – feel they have little say in the gentrification of their neighborhoods.
The most fascinating sequence of City Hall tracks a similar issue elsewhere in town. A group of investors want to open up a marijuana dispensary in a low-income neighborhood and Wiseman spends a good ten or fifteen minutes in the related community meeting. The citizens at the meeting are vociferous in their pushback about this new business. Other business owners have made promises in the past about hiring local neighborhood residents, but that usually doesn’t happen, they say.
There are also major concerns about basic issues like traffic flow and potential for even more crime if the dispensary is allowed to open. One man is worried that if the dispensary is added next to the Walgreens and a local smoke shop, the cars parked in the alley next to his house will cause it to become even more choked than it already is. Another is worried about the Walgreens itself. The store is a lifeline of necessities to the locals, and if the dispensary attracts more crime and a hostile environment, the man is afraid the Walgreens might pull out of the neighborhood altogether.
Wiseman is so deft at pacing and choosing his material that you become invested and captivated by each little mini-drama as it plays out. Whether it’s the owner of a small grocery store that serves immigrant communities having a conversation about increasing foot traffic to his store, or a lonely old man talking a city inspector’s ear off about everything wrong with his rental apartment, it’s delightfully easy to get caught up in what makes a city run.
At one point, Mayor Walsh says, “A city can’t thrive if we’re disconnected.” For so long now, I argue that it started the year I was born, in 1980 with the Reagan Revolution, certain politicians have done everything they can to keep us disconnected and divided. City Hall doesn’t, sadly, represent the wider experience of recent American political governance. But it does serve as a vibrant record of civic life in the early 21st century in a city and under an administration that believes we need each other – and, more importantly, that we need to take care of each other – in order to be the best versions of ourselves.
Why it got 4 stars:
- The mastery of pulling this much material together to make such an engaging fly-on-the-wall-style documentary is staggering. This is just about the best observational-style documentary filmmaking I’ve ever seen.
Things I forgot to mention in my review, because, well, I'm the Forgetful Film Critic:
- If I were a deeper thinker, I might have written a whole piece about the juxtaposition of the planning of what to shoot for the film and the planning and running of the city itself. Both are gargantuan tasks.
- I really do believe that City Hall can be a way to make sense of the world in which we live.
- At one point, Walsh is addressing a room full of young Latinx people interested in serving in city government. He relates how when his ancestors came to America from Ireland in the early 20th century, they were treated with racist-based hatred, just like many minorities are today. There is no greater purpose than using your own experience to gain empathy for others and using that empathy to help them.
Close encounters with people in movie theaters:
- This was my very first Frederick Wiseman film. I saw it through a screener link, and I’m so glad I did. The film was co-produced with the help of PBS, so it will probably run on that network in the future.