City Hall

Name: City Hall
Genre: Documentary
Released: October 28, 2020
Duration: 272 min
Rating: 88
Cast: Marty Walsh

2020

METASCORE

Universal acclaim based on 17 Critic Reviews

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USER SCORE

Generally favorable reviews based on 11 Ratings

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6.2

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6.2	User Score Generally favorable reviews based on 11 Ratings

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City Hall

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Movie Details & Credits

Zipporah Films | Release Date: October 28, 2020 | Not Rated

Starring: Marty Walsh

Summary: City government touches almost every aspect of our lives. Most of us are unaware of or take for granted these necessary services such as police, fire, sanitation, veterans affairs, elder support, parks, licensing of various professional activities, record keeping of birth, marriage and death as wells as hundreds of other activities thatCity government touches almost every aspect of our lives. Most of us are unaware of or take for granted these necessary services such as police, fire, sanitation, veterans affairs, elder support, parks, licensing of various professional activities, record keeping of birth, marriage and death as wells as hundreds of other activities that support Boston residents and visitors. City Hall, by Frederick Wiseman, shows the efforts by Boston city government to provide these services. The film also illustrates the variety of ways the city administration enters into civil discourse with the citizens of Boston. Mayor Walsh and his administration are presented addressing a number of their policy priorities which include racial justice, affordable housing, climate action, and homeless. City Hall shows a city government successfully offering a wide variety of services to a diverse population.… Expand

Director: Frederick Wiseman

Genre(s): Documentary

Rating: Not Rated

Runtime: 272 min

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Metascore

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Critic Reviews

100

RogerEbert.com Peter Sobczynski

Oct 28, 2020

Even in a filmography with more than its fair share of impressive achievements, it deserves consideration as one of Wiseman’s greatest. Read full review

100

The Playlist Jason Bailey

Sep 15, 2020

What Wiseman’s film boils down to, in many ways, is a much-needed dose of competency porn – a snapshot of government officials trying their very best to do better, and to be better. And that might be the story he’s really telling: a reminder that government, for all of its speed bumps and snags, can work. It can help. The people running it just have to want it to. Read full review

Justin Chang

Oct 27, 2020

With City Hall, his 45th feature, he [Wiseman] has composed another epic from a series of intricate, carefully arranged miniatures, a four-and-a-half-hour sprawl of a movie that will leave you admiring its agility and concision. Read full review

Keith Uhlich

Sep 12, 2020

Its provocations can seem savage at a glance, but they emerge from an observational tranquility that is uniquely Frederick Wiseman’s own. Read full review

Mark Feeney

Nov 5, 2020

Wiseman has made something so mundane as to be absorbingly exotic, a civics-lesson procedural. As with any procedural, the people involved in the process are just as important to the story as the process is. Read full review

IndieWire Eric Kohn

Sep 19, 2020

City Hall doesn’t just deserve an audience; it deserves a conversation. Even as Wiseman celebrates the sophistication of American ideals in practice, his movie illustrates just how hard they are to grasp. Read full review

A.A. Dowd

Sep 19, 2020

As always, Wiseman’s approach guarantees memorable encounters. Read full review

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