Recording the anthem "Les Filles du Crazy," half a dozen women—performers at the Crazy Horse, Paris' classy nudie cabaret—sing of themselves, "They are the soldiers of the erotic army." The military metaphor proves apt, as Frederick Wiseman's spellbinding documentary on the Crazy Horse, founded in 1951, shows: The dancers' taut, perfectly proportioned bodies suggest Amazonian strength, and the battles between art and commerce at the nightclub drain even the most seasoned choreographers. Wiseman's 39th film, in which his signature observational style dispenses with narration and identifying intertitles, completes his trilogies devoted to dance and to iconic French institutions. Yet none of the nonfiction master's previous works have ever been as dominated by "nice, round buttocks." The ass-thrusting, though, is part of a revue in which the erotic dancers are instructed... More >>>