Titicut Follies (1967)

User Rating:

8.2/10   

Director:

Frederick Wiseman

Release Date:

4 September 1992 (Australia)

Genre:

Documentary | Drama

Tagline:

Don't turn your back on this film... if you value your mind or your life.

Plot:

Plot Keywords:

Birthday Cake | Coffin | Schizophrenia | Psychiatry | Sexuality

Awards:

1 win

Runtime:

84 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

USA:Unrated | Australia:M | USA:(Banned) (distribution blocked by legal order, 1967-1992)

Filming Locations:

State Prison for the Criminally Insane - 20 Administration Road, Bridgewater, Massachusetts, USA

Trivia:

The only American film banned from release for reasons other than obscenity or national security, Titicut Follies was filmed inside the Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Bridgewater, a prison hospital for the criminally insane. After the Commonwealth of Massachusetts sued the filmmakers, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that the film constituted was an invasion of inmate privacy and ordered the withdrawal of the film from circulation.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Homicide: Life on the Street: Bad Medicine (#5.4)" (1996)

Amazing, harrowing documentary look at the mistreatment of mental patients.

This is easily one of the most disturbing documentary films ever made. The state of Mass. blocked distribution of this film for well over a decade after its release because it was simply too honest and unflinching in its portrayal of the horrific systemic abuses of this institution. What makes the film so very important is not simply its evidence about this particular institution, but, the light it sheds on the kind of society that would treat the least fortunate of its members in this dehumanizing and cruel way. There is political analysis offered by the patients themselves that brings in the rather obvious connections to the police state, colonization, and genocide.