Frederick Wiseman's extraordinary new film Meat is and is not about slaughterhouses. From the first shots of cows on an open range there is no doubt blood will flow, yet by the time the actual slaughtering arrives, it has already taken its place within a more involved process…. This isn't just meat, it's the meat industry—mechanized, scientific, diversified.

The connection between the packing house workers and the animals they're doing in is not pressed too hard, but the similarities of their plight is interesting. (p. 21)

A nightmare vision, Meat is one of Wiseman's studies (like High School and Basic Training) of things going far too well. Scant pretense remains of even the slightest variation from absolute institutional control. Life and death, food and work, are governed according to projected weekly kill figures. Labor reorganizations seek maximum efficiency. We feel ourselves grasping for trivial indications of humanity. A...