TITICUT FOLLIES (1967)

The film Titticut Follies is available for Download. It is notorius as the only American film banned from release for reasons other than obscenity or national security. Courtesy of the Grey Lodge Review.

TITICUT FOLLIES (1967)

Director and Producer: Frederick Wiseman
Photography: John Marshall

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Runtime: 84 min
Country: USA
Language: English
Color: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
Certification: USA:(Banned)
(distribution blocked by legal order, 1967-1992)

Prisons and mental institutions, where recalcitrant or ill-fitting citizens are put out of sight, are the dirty secrets of civilized society. As they are owned and controlled by precisely those who wish to keep them secret, and are also confined to specific, enclosed spaces, filmmakers are easily kept out. Wiseman's achievement in creating this unique film document is therefore all the more impressive: it is a major work of subversive cinema and a searing indictment -- without editorializing narration -- of the "system". Wiseman (and his extraordinary cameraman-anthropologist John Marshall) officially gained entrance to a state prison hospital for the criminally insane, where the film was shot, and obtained the co-operation of it's psychiatrists, guards, and social workers. Massachusetts, however, subsequently obtained an injunction preventing the film's exhibition, thereby keeping the secret.

This is a gallery of horrors, a reflection of man's infinite capacity to dehumanize his fellow beings. Broken men, retarded, catatonic, schizophrenic, toothless -- many incarcerated for life -- vegetate in empty cells, bare of furniture, utensils, toilets, or beds. They are incontinent, they masturbate, babble, put on a horrifying annual variety show (the "Titicut Follies"), beat against the bars in rage, and scream. They stand on their heads for minutes on end while chanting self-invented hymns, or are force-fed through the nose while a Dr. Strangelove psychiatrist himself (!) pours liquid down the stomach tube. They are taunted or patronized, drink their own dirty bathwater while in the tub (smilingly calling it champagne), and die, ignomiously, their bodies shaved before burial and cotton-wool stuffed into their eyes. The camera flinches from nothing: here it is, it says, and since you are not doing anything about eliminating this, at least have the courage to watch.

Amos Vogel, FILM AS A SUBVERSIVE ART