[The] first thing to be remarked of [Wiseman's] movies is that they possess, for the most part, a style and verve that put Dragnet and Emergency! to shame. Where they do not, where the air of pointlessness and tedium we normally associate with institutional life takes over, it is in the case of institutions whose very reason to exist is saturated with ambiguity.

The most extreme instance of this sort of tedium arises in Essene, Wiseman's study of monastic life, in which a great deal of the monks' time seems given over to trying to figure out just what the meaning and justification of monastic life are in the first place. The insecurity and confusion of the monks in Essene are no doubt rooted in the misgivings and anxieties of the modern Church itself, in the retreat from formalism that, at least on the evidence of this film, has led only to an aimless experimentalism. (p. 71)

[In] view of widespread charges that the judicial system in general has become paralyzed by the cumbersomeness of its own machinery, by overcrowding, and by inadequate staffing, what is most arresting in Juvenile Court is not the expected resultant air of intractability and frustration but its very opposite: the sense, strongly held by the participants themselves and communicated very forcefully to the viewer, that many problems, the majority in fact, can be resolved satisfactorily—that is, with attentiveness to the special needs of each individual case—and that the framework of the institution itself can accommodate a complex burden of responsibility. (pp. 72-3)

A great deal of what goes on in the juvenile court, Wiseman's film suggests, depends for its ultimate social efficacy on the extent to which any individual's capacity for rational behavior can be relied on, and not even the most sophisticated knowledge can gauge this with consistent or infallible accuracy, let alone insure it.

Although Wiseman has said that his films are meant to reflect his own responses to his subjects, his narrative "voice" is remarkably unobtrusive, as his critics universally affirm. Indeed, one of the major achievements of his work is that we feel we are watching people engrossed in the business of their own lives, and largely indifferent to the presence of an outside observer….

Just as, however, we might respond with acute embarrassment or estrangement in witnessing, say, other people's marital quarrels, there are a number of moments in Wiseman's work in which the very immediacy of the proceedings leaves the feeling that it would have been the better part of good taste, to say nothing of compassion, to avert our eyes, until the trouble eased. When, for example, an elderly man in Hospital is being questioned about a possible urinary disturbance, and is clearly mortified to the point of tears, it is difficult to see how spectatorship, so patently intrusive here, is justified. (p. 74)

Basic Training is in many ways the most satisfying of the movies simply because it tells a story that has a beginning, a middle, and an end. In addition, the clear-cut authority structure of the army helps to lend a sense of order to this film about army life; the movies about institutions that are themselves in disarray tend sometimes to be too faithful a mirror of their subjects….

At a time when so much of fiction is trying to persuade us that ordinary experience lacks essential order and stature, Wiseman has come along to document the richness and continuity of that experience. While our final impressions of the institutions themselves may be somewhat fragmentary—Wiseman's adherence to an interior perspective takes its inevitable toll in the films' general lack of clear focus or sharp edges—we are left feeling that we really know the people who run them. (p. 75)