Post by StevePulaski on May 7, 2012 14:23:05 GMT -5
The title card for Titicut Follies.
Rating: ★★★★
"Don't turn your back on this film...if you value your mind or your life."
Titicut Follies ranks next to Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills among the best documentaries I have yet to see. Unlike Paradise Lost, this film is not lengthy and extensive, but shocking, raw, and utterly revolting. Frederick Wiseman, a documentarian who has made a wide variety of films focusing on a high school, welfare houses, and families with a relative who is near death, can almost be called an observationist rather than a typical filmmaker. He makes films on unsung subjects, and very rarely gives an opinion.
Follies takes us behind the doors of the Bridgewater State Hospital for the criminally insane, where we are shown the harsh treatment of the inmates. They are helpless and ill-equipped to deal with the unfair treatment as the guards provoke, mock, and torment them. They are forced to walk around in the nude all day because it is said to be cheaper, and are constantly fearing their for their lives and their well being. One patient, nicknamed "the paranoid schizophrenic," is convinced that he is normal, but is being given medication that makes him go insane. We come to the terrifying realization that the asylum hurts and doesn't help.
To find a DVD copy of the film, for a good price, is a challenge itself. The full length version has just recently become available on Youtube, but a DVD from Zipporah Films can be purchased for around $34.95 plus shipping. My uncle came across a VHS recording of the first and only broadcast the film received on PBS in 1992. Preceding the film was a haunting, emotionless narration and an informative introduction by Charlie Rose, and afterwards, we were met with a tongue-in-cheek message on how the conditions of the hospital have changed and a representative asking us to call a telephone number and make a $10 donation to fund more documentary programming like this one.
Why is it "Required Viewing?": The film is an absolute must for everyone, but due to the subject matter and the rarity, it has likely turned people off. As far as I know, the Youtube video is not going anywhere, and people need to make time for this subversive piece of documentary filmmaking. Sure, the treatment the patients receive at the hospital has probably greatly changed and the men shown in the film are all deceased, but history isn't going anywhere and we definitely need to be informed of the world around us. Ignorance is bliss, but facts are facts, and Titicut Follies shows us the side of the world most people don't want to speak of. See this film.
The full length film on Youtube, www.youtube.com/watch?v=JC33HqwJMnM
My original four star review of Titicut Follies here, stevethemovieman.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=perfect&action=display&thread=3090&page=1