Titicut Follies (1967)

D. Fredrick Wiseman



First-time filmmaker Frederick Wiseman's despairing cinema-verite (observational or objective) masterpiece, one of the greatest documentaries of all time, was about the horrid and abusive conditions ("painful aspects of mental disease") at the state-run Massachusetts Correctional Institution in Bridgewater, a prison-hospital asylum for seriously ill, heavily-tranquilized men (defined by authorities as "criminally insane" or "sexually dangerous"). The film's title referred to a mock-softshoe song/dance routine ("Strike Up the Band"), performed and acted out at the beginning and end of the film by the inmates and prison officers during an annual vaudeville/variety show (the 'Titicut Follies') performance at the institution.

The silent and passive camera witnessed the stripping, dehumanizing and humiliation of mental patients (who were treated like wild animals) by bullying guards, wardens and psychiatrists. One inmate, who was starving himself to death as protest, was force-fed through a rubber tube roughly inserted into his nostril - followed shortly by the image of his face as he laid in a coffin while being prepared for his funeral.

This highly controversial film (filmed in 1966 on black and white 16 mm. film over a period of 29 days) was barred from distribution and withdrawn from circulation from 1967-1992, by legal action launched by state authorities, because it was considered a violation of the rights of privacy of the prison inmates it filmed, and because it was considered obscene (the film showed male frontal nudity). It was only shown at the New York Film Festival in 1967, and had two limited runs in New York -- aside from a few screenings before film societies. [Note: Director Samuel Fuller's Shock Corridor (1963) similarly exposed the conditions in US mental hospitals.]