The Titicut Follies

I did some training today for my second job, and part of that training was watching a movie called The Titticut Follies. I was surprised that I have never heard of it before.
From Wikipedia:

Titicut Follies is a black and white 1967 documentary film by Frederick Wiseman about the treatment of patients at Massachusetts Correctional Institution in Bridgewater, Massachusetts. The title is taken from a talent show put on by the hospital's inmates. (The talent show was taken from the Wampanoag Indian name for the nearby Taunton River).

Titicut Follies is widely considered to be a masterpiece of the direct cinema form in documentary film, portraying the existence of occupants of Bridgewater, some of them catatonic, holed up in unlit cells, only periodically washed down with a hose and taken out in order to receive force feeding. It also portrays the indifference and bullying on the part of the institution's staff. As such, it makes an implicit statement about the power of authority and total institutions. The stark black and white photography and unflinching cinéma vérité presentation, make this film a particularly powerful experience.

The film's release was

banned (outside the field of education) in the United States from 1967-1992 by a Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruling that, since it was filmed in a hospital, it violated the patients' rights to privacy.[1] Wiseman, the film's director, however, has pointed out that he received permission from all of the people portrayed in the film or else their legal guardian, in this case the superintendent of Bridgewater. He believes that the Massachusetts Government, feeling concerned that it portrayed a state institution in a bad light, took the film out of circulation to protect their own reputation.

In 1992, it was allowed to be shown on PBS. The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts has ordered that "A brief explanation shall be included in the film that changes and improvements have taken place at Massachusetts Correctional Institution Bridgewater since 1966."[2] The film is now legally available through the distributor (Zipporah Films, Inc.), for purchase or rental on VHS, DVD and 16mm film for both educational and individual license. Zipporah Films released the DVD of the film to the home market on December 3, 2007. (Zipporah Films, Inc.)

I couldn’t find a clip of this on Youtube, or I would show you. But if you are willing to shell out the $34.00 for the DVD I would highly suggest it, especially if you want to see how they treated people in the mental health system back then. Actually, just in the past year, a state hospital was just closed in our area for the same treatment, or worse.

One of my favorite lines in this movie is when a psychologist (who was obviously a quack) was talking to one of the inmates who had committed rape on an eleven year old girl (this is summarized because I cannot remember the direct quote):

Psychologist: Well why did you do it then? What did your wife say when she found out?

Inmate: Well...she said that it was a problem.

Psychologist: Well obviously, she wasn't giving you enough sexual pleasure, if you were doing things like that.

Ill leave you to make your own jokes from there.