Homages, Ripoffs, and Coincidences

Law and Order, Frederick Wiseman's 1969 documentary about Kansas City, Missouri law enforcement, is on YouTube. It'll probably get pulled soon, so hop onboard. Wiseman films are hard to find and this is one of his best - raw, upsetting, and even-handed. The scene where a cop chokes a woman while begging her to resist so he can choke her harder is as brutal as anything in Titticut Follies, while the moment where an officer takes a lost child under his wing is the most touching in Wiseman's catalogue.