This documentary captures the dual identity of Aspen, Colorado, during the winter season. The legacy of a 19th-century silver-mining town intersects with its modern status as a luxury resort, weaving together the daily lives of skiers, artists, and tourists with board meetings and facility maintenance. Through long, observant shots, Wiseman highlights the contrasts between public ritual, leisure, and labor—from art classes to open forums on race and class. The film is a complex portrait of a town that functions as a symbol of prosperity, revealing the intricate social structures of American life at the dawn of the Clinton era.

 Frederick Wiseman’s Aspen turns an observant lens on a mountain town once famed for its silver mines, now synonymous with skiing, music, and luxury. Filmed in winter, the documentary follows residents, workers, and visitors as they navigate daily life in a place caught between nature’s grandeur, frontier values, and the whims of the wealthy.

Wiseman reveals the town’s contradictions through deft juxtapositions: an elderly violinist playing outside an upscale boutique; miners digging for silver while skiers race down nearby slopes; a local book club animatedly debating a Gustave Flaubert story. Even a museum exhibition turns the mundane—pay phones, fire hoses, diet soda machines—into art.

As always, Wiseman offers no narration; the images speak plainly, yet the portrait that emerges is striking. His gaze draws sharp contrasts from Aspen’s varied scenes—some touching, others absurd. But even when people appear foolish or frivolous, the town’s peculiar magnetism endures, leaving us with a richly layered, sometimes surreal, portrait of a community unlike any other.

• ProducerFrederick WISEMAN
• Cinematography John DAVEY
• Edit Frederick WISEMAN
• Sound Frederick WISEMAN

Zipporah Films​​