The Los Angeles Film Critics Assn. has named renowned documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman the recipient of the group's career achievement award.
The 82-year-old Emmy-winning documentarian will receive the award at a ceremony Jan. 12 at the Intercontinental Hotel. Wiseman is the first documentary filmmaker to ever receive this honor, according to the critics group.
After being trained as an attorney, Wiseman turned to documentary filmmaking, first as a producer on 1964's "The Cool World," then as a director on the award-winning 1967 film "Titicut Follies," about the patient inmates at the Bridgewater State Hospital for the criminally insane in Massachusetts.
He is one of the pioneers of the observational, or cinema verite, style of documentary filmmaking. He favors long takes with no interviews or voice-overs. Some of his films are four to five hours long.
