Doc Corner: Wiseman and McQueen's duelling 4-hour epics
Sunday, January 7, 2024 at 10:00AM 
Like any sane and rational person, I devoted eight precious hours of my festive season to watching the two (yes, two) four-hour documentaries that have been offered up by famous directors. Length notwithstanding, the very idea of new films by Frederick Wiseman and Steve McQueen should be hard to pass up most of the time and so we have Menus Plaisirs – Les Troisgros and Occupied City, two very different movies that use their epic lengths to differing effect. Some better than others.
Although Wiseman’s familiarity with such a runtime makes his film the perhaps more naturally more successful, McQueen at least has enough ideas to make his latest work of non-fiction to (somewhat) keep up with the pace set by the chefs of three supreme eateries in France. Although it becomes quite clear that length, in this case, is not equal.
The 94-year-old Wiseman hit something of a critical and cultural stride in the 2010s with his continued fascination with institutions bringing him newfound attention and fans with career-high titles like National Gallery, Ex Libris: The New York Public Library, At Berkeley and In Jackson Heights. Upon receiving a career achievement Academy Award in 2016, Menus Plaisirs is Wiseman’s return to documentary after the sidebar of his 63-minute(!) dramatic romance, A Couple, in 2022. It is also the sort of film that I foolishly had expected to not get any more of after City Hall and the COVID-19 pandemic meant access to successful buildings would be infinitely harder. I should've known than to doubt him.
In this, his 49th (if I am correct), he follows three restaurants owned by the Troisgros family. Troisgros (the film’s primary residence with its head chef, César Troisgros), Le Central and La Colline. Across four (pardon the pun, but it was inevitable so let’s get it out of the way) delicious hours, we follow the chefs across each venue as well as the wait staff and the farmers who grow the produce, produce the cheese and rear the proteins that ends up on lunch and dinner plates on a daily basis. Between this and Tran Anh Hung's The Taste of Things, it has been a salivating time watching movies as of late. Unlike that Juliette Binoche-starring drama, Wiseman's doc does not fawn over the ingredients quite so much, preferring the observe the functions of the kitchen with his trademark style. We don't even get to see a mouthful of food be consumed, but we do get a lesson on how to cook brains taken directly out of the cookbook.
The reason Menus Plaisirs works as well as it does is, for me, the editing of Wiseman himself. The work here is certainly my favourite such technical feat for a documentary in 2023, and rivals that of Thelma Schoonmaker’s work on Killers of the Flower Moon across all films. The pacing, the careful choice of when to cut away and when to linger, the way it glides over its 240-minute runtime like a smooth red wine, is just divine. It’s the sort of movie that you can sit at the end credits and really say, “Well damn, is that all? I could watch more of that.” If there is one small detail that means it doesn’t quite reach the five-star heights of Wiseman’s best work, it’s that there is a hint of slightness to the material, not necessarily making any grander statement about the world. And, in fact, coming as it does after the pandemic really highlighted the economic and societal inequalities of the world, the idea of watching such a display of wealth is maybe not everybody’s cup of tea. But if anybody is going to make watching the rich upper class bearable, it’s going to be Frederick Wiseman.
Steve McQueen has no such dynamics at play with Occupied City, a film shot entirely in Amsterdam, but which has flaws that are more foundational to its existence. While it may seem odd to say this after rhapsodizing Wiseman’s film, but Occupied City is just so very, very long. McQueen and editor Xander Nijsten create sublime juxtapositions, many of which highlight the fascinating ways so many of us (not just Amsterdammers) go about our lives completely oblivious (deliberate or otherwise) to the events and the people that once occupied the very spaces we today may take for granted. In contrasting WWII via Melanie Hyams’ narration and imagery taken of Amsterdam throughout the COVID-19 pandemic (whether the images are of protest, relaxation, partying, exercise or simply the living of one’s life), the viewer gets to witness two rare events in sync in a way that feels fresh, and which ought to be thematically invigorating.
And for stretches it is. As its end credits played, I found myself remembering the experience more fondly than I suspected I had as it unfolded. In action, while sitting and watching it, the documentary’s rhythms become repetitive, particularly noticeable following its mid-film intermission when the telling signs of lockdowns and curfews wear off. There is too little variation in what we see and hear, from shot-length to camera movement and vocal intonations, which makes it harder and harder to appreciate the meticulous detail that McQueen is demonstrating. Perhaps all it needed was some variety in voice-over or, as seen in some particularly interesting vignettes, something more visually dynamic, to shake the viewer up.
Just because it is 260-minutes long, that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t still snap. That is something that Wiseman’s endeavor does—indeed, as have many long titles of recent times, whether that be dramatic features like Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon or, perhaps more appropriately, David Easteal’s The Plains. There is a reason a length should’ve be used as a pejorative. Some filmmakers know how to use it to their advantage.
As a matter of recommendation, I would indeed say that both films are worth watching. One’s idea of worth the time, however, is up for personal interpretation. I see no issue spending four hours following the whims of either director, but the final products of Menus Plaisirs most notably really shows why length needn’t be a hurdle for some directors in the way it can be for others.
Release: Both are currently in limited theatrical release.
Awards chances: Both missed the Oscar shortlist so we won't be seeing them progress further. However, Wiseman's film has done very, very well this award season (as they typically do these days), so at least it has that. Thank heavens he at least has that honorary award.
Reader Comments (4)
I wanna see both of these docs.
Those are both coming to my local art house theatre and I would 100% buy tickets to see both if they weren’t so long. That is too long to sit without breaks. I do not want to miss parts of a movie that I paid to see because I have to go to the bathroom and/or get a drink, which I could do at home just fine with the pause button. It’s unreasonably long.
charlea: yea, that's partly why I couldn't convince my husband to see Menus-Plaisirs in a theater. But I reeeally want to see it.
You should get an award for sitting through BOTH of these entirely too long documentaries.