AT BERKELEY A FILM BY FREDERICK WISEMAN

This is ca. 3 ½ hours so I’ll try to summarize. On DVD (via Netflix’s DVD service) there is no chapter indexing and my player couldn’t resume if I turned it off and on, so I took some notes to help me navigate on 2nd viewing. Reading is obviously part of the academic experience, and the film does reach a kind of climax in the occupation of the main library’s reading room, so an interesting association item for the LT community, I believe.

The structure of the film resembles his National Gallery (London) doc – also recommended – i.e. a series of vignettes primarily of the institution’s work (classroom and research) contrasted with the administrative work that enables it. I was a grad student as well as a staff member in a large academic library over a 40 year span at an east coast Ivy League New England library; it generally rings true to me. (Another interesting association: one of my nieces matriculated there.) There are transition scenes between the vignettes that show the UC Berkeley that the public would see, e.g. buildings and construction, students on the lawn reading, going to their classes, checking posted class assignments, and the Berkeley streets. I visited the Berkeley campus and the library many years ago. The photography is high def state of the art, and, as with other Wiseman films I’ve seen, without commentary.

PS. Other than the occupation, none of the scenes cover the work done in the library system. Too bad Wiseman never made a doc about the Library of Congress.

SCENES:

1. History class. The (mythological) origins of UC Berkeley. Modeled after East Coast elite private universities but with a West Coast secular idealistic focus on the future and diversity.

2. Administrative meeting. Here identification of the various players would have been helpful; I’m assuming the recurrent meetings feature the university chancellor and vice-chancellors. Although ostensibly a public institution, the state only supplies 16% of the total budget at this time; it was formerly 40-50%. If my experience at a much lower level is any guide, the meetings may have been a bit toned down for the cameras; they aren’t that much different in tone from administrative meetings in the National Gallery (London) doc: rational, calm, thoughtful in the face of another budget cut from the state legislature referred to as a “disinvestment.” The university will need to come up with $75 million in savings. This will be the underlying problem leading up to the library occupation anti-climax.

3. A political science seminar. Liberalism implicated with possessiveness, individualism, and the hostility to taxes that leads to educational budget cuts. Perspective on university financing from a student from the Caribbean; a smaller under developed country with higher literacy than the US. Should student fees (will be raised as part of the 75 mill savings) be determined by economic prospects of the major or department (higher fees for professional school students)? Emphasis on economic outcomes overshadowing the opening of the student mind asks another student. Another student: concern about fees and class – concern only because middle class students are affected; immigrants and minorities don’t have the same middle class expectations.

4. Arts transition. All-female A Capella open air concert. Both audience and singers are white and Asian. No African Americans. (Throughout the film, notably excellent California weather, from the perspective of an East Coast resident.)

5. Class for GSIs (Graduate Student Instructors). Often near the ages of the undergraduate students – you may empathize with reasons for substandard work but no passes; need to accept that you won’t have all the answers; instruction goals will depend on the individual instructor.

6. Administrative meeting. Dealing with faculty and departments. Significant savings if departmental expenses could be standardized but faculty liberal values (possessiveness, individual relationships? See 3. above) makes it like herding cats from the vice chancellors point of view. Historically administration associated with soulless bureaucracy; authority is barely tolerated.

7. Robotics lab. A student modifying a computer program to get a robot to pick up a piece of cloth. Metaphorical ironic contrast with 6.

8. Student stage musical. Song satirizing Facebook friending performed by 5 students with laptops.

9. Transition. The campus lawnmower (one of those small tractor size things the worker rides on) at work.

10. Classroom. How to understand time. How your body perceives time. The 40 herz cycle. Spatial metaphors. Prior to the Big Bang, the laws of physics do not apply, so time does not have a role; time was created.

11. What appears to be a departmental fair for engineering—helping students to decide type of engineering to specialize in. Civil, structural, electrical. Different specialties have different economic support systems. Specialize in one type and you end up working for government, or private industry, or consortia, or consortia/private collaborations. University policy of free dissemination of research knowledge vs. proprietary industrial/consortial approach.

12. Administrative meeting. Departmental savings; moving from local to global (university wide) organizations; standardized purchasing.

13. Engineering. Mechanical engineering thesis demonstration using powered braces to enable a student to walk without crutches. Working on the mechanized “walker” brings out what it means to walk. Controlled falling; torque.

14. Literature seminar on Thoreau’s Walden. Walden pond as metaphor. Thoreaus’s perspective of eating-murder desecrating the purity of the pond and the spiritual life it represents. (As administration meetings and economic issues “desecrate” the sacred idealistic task of education. Make professor; majority of students are female; ethnically similar to the A Capella singers.

15. Transition. Another maintenance worker; manually sweeping the steps of a building; dust bunnies at the bottom of the stairs. Economic issues include maintenance.

16. Meeting on financial advice for students. The case for loans: working multiple jobs may reduce the need for loans (6% interest), but student can easily let the work overshadow the goal of education. Loans can be paid off; the education affects you for a lifetime, and not just economically. (So say the advisers, though I have to agree).

17. A women’s field hockey match.

18. Fraternity rush.

19. Administrative meeting. Preventative maintenance. University has to make do with a single lawnmower for campus lawn upkeep (transitions indicate size of campus and its greenery). See transition 9. above. Appearances: the first look at the campus is important. Matching salaries with the top universities. Private institutions will sometimes double the offering. With some local pride that some faculty have allowed the university to match the private offerings with classroom upgrades.

20. Tenure meeting (chancellor and deans). Deans are warned not to send weak cases for final review. (Recall GSI training in 5. above). This one may be PR on the chancellor’s part for Wiseman.

21. Transition. Pouring concrete for preventative maintenance. Wiseman never forgets the maintenance staff who keep the institution running as much as the administration.

22. An e.e. cummings reading in one of the libraries.

23. Lecture/memoir on cancer research. The lecturer on sarcoma virus research that established that the single gene explanation was not sufficient without taking note of the organ specific microenvironment.

24. Administration. Report by IT on the university network. Millions of bot attacks every day, trying to access the research for profit. Not sure how to reconcile with 11.

25. Outdoor political demonstration against law professor John Woo (assumption is one knows his role in the Bush administration’s torture policies)

26. Tour guide at the UC Berkeley natural history museum.

27. A class on insects. Applying neo-Darwinian (Darwin in the light of genetics) on cost/benefit of staying in place.

28. An off-campus Free Speech Movement lecture. Historical illiteracy in American elementary and high school education. Results in citizens who are cynical and passive. Activism and Moral Theater.

29. Chamber music. The Kronos Quartet, I believe, in rehearsal. I thought there were some intonation issues. Wiseman using the quartet as a metaphor for university life?

30. ROTC training maneuvers at night.

31. Press conference. Explaining state budget cuts. California legislature requires 2/3 majority, so a small anti-tax minority can paralyze government action.

32. Administration. Anticipating a major demonstration Oct. 7 (doc does not make clear the year being covered). Meeting on campus security. Town-gown, university police and city of Berkeley police liaison. Additional plans in significant emergencies to bring In law enforcement from neighboring areas. Clarifying policies on first responses to building occupiers. Do non-university law enforcement need training introduction to the university culture?

33. Transition. Construction; students exercising on the sunny, green lawns.

34. Lecture by Robert Reich (one of the only readily identifiable campus figures) on self-evaluation, organization, and the exercise of leadership, based on experience as Secretary of Commerce in the Clinton Administration. How to get honest feedback when leading an organization where honesty is not the default response.

35. Lawnmower again.

36. Administration. Child care subsidies for assistant professors. One of the department heads asks whether this is privileging the lifestyle choice of having children. Administrator response: it’s cheap and other institutions do it. Deftly avoids getting into a discussion of lifestyle choices.

37. Reviewing a draft grant proposal in molecular biology.

38. Natural history museum. Preparing bird specimens (gutting and skinning birds). All of the student interns were women, so doesn’t conform to high school stereotypes.

39. Administration. Preparing for staff layoffs. Rational argumentation and marshaling of evidence will get things done; cheerleading is not rewarded. Be honest about consequences of the budget cuts; the impact on layoffs. Chancellor anecdotal meeting with Yale, Princeton, and other administrators from East Coast universities. The Berkeley faculty furloughs that saved over 400 jobs that were used to avoid staff layoffs would be inconceivable for their faculty. (Noted sadly by the reviewer.) See also 19. re UC Berkeley faculty ethos.

40. Transition. Road maintenance.

41. African American experience at Berkeley. Relatively few; pressure of having to represent an ethnic group. Partly depends on pre-university experience; less of an impact if you were a small minority in high school. How non-blacks view African-Americans in science classes. How to integrate study groups.

42. Transition. Students dancing under a tree to music piped from a laptop through a portable outdoor amp/speaker.Cut to marching band and football team emerging into the stadium, Berkeley does not have a high football profile but the stadium is clearly full and the band is big.

43. The city of Berkeley at night. ROTC grenade practice.

44. The Oct. 7 demonstration. Student speakers claim the administration is trying to divide staff and students, students can change the world, students defend the public good; the “movement” will extend from campus to state to the country. Democracy demands educated students so education must be free. The reading room of the library is occupied. With speakers standing on the reading tables and exhorting the occupiers (clearly a number of the students recording with their smartphones are just observing and a number of the older supporters are not Berkeley students). I visited the reading room some years ago and, as a former librarian, it felt a little like my pond’s sacred space had been desecrated.

45. University Security Office. 300 students occupying the room. University Security controls entrance and exit doors. Monitoring to make sure fire codes aren’t violated. Liaison will be the University Librarian (thanks Security),

46. Occupiers discussing goals but come to no clear conclusion. Although a number note the lack of focus. Reduce or eliminate student fees? Broader movement?

47. Administration learns protestors have left the building. The list of demands has been received. It’s disorganized, contradictory, all over the place, “crazy.” Which is advantageous for the administration. University response to the demands claims solidarity with the protestors but is intentionally vague about follow up actions.

48. Veterans discussion group. Older students, many of them GSIs. Initially as intimidating as basic training; feeling out of place. GSI experience with freshmen: we’re all in the same boat, it seems. If you realize your passion in your chosen field, you will get through it, despite the initial lack of preparation. Implied contrast with the demonstrators probably.

49. Astrophysics class. A glimpse of specialist discussion that few outside the field would be able to follow.

50. Student gripes post-demonstration. At fist some identification, but support shifted away as there was “no clear cut focus.” Reference was made during the demonstrations that earlier protests had resulted in an extra $200 million from the legislature. But is the claim accurate and could it really be attributed to the demonstrations. Note that the administration (see 39.) emphasizes rational argumentation and marshaling of evidence” while protestors seem to rely on emotion only. Creates an atmosphere that encourages pranks (fire alarms) that students trying to study resented (and which are potentially dangerous). From discussion it appears the demonstrations are an annual event.

51. Administration. International students. Recruiting from East Asia. One administrator notes that one of his online presentations was viewed by 10 million Chinese. Recruitment will be extended eventually to South Africa and the Middle East. (Note the goal of diversity at the beginning)

52. A class/lecture analyzing metaphors in the poetry of John Donne.

53. A lecture on travel to other planets. Interstellar travel wouldn’t be possible in our lifetimes. (Recall the class on the concept of time). Under the laws of physics it would take 240 years at current atmospheric escape speed to reach any planets around Sirius, a nearby star. A thousand years from now, maybe we will have evolved into machines where life span is not an issue and the possibility might be revisited.

54. Final scene with credits. A dance program. Frederick Wiseman director and principal editor. John Davey did the excellent photography. ( )